Carcasses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The leftover bodies of deceased animals, frequently utilized in culinary or industrial contexts
2. The remnants of animals that have perished, commonly processed for various uses in cooking or manufacturing
3. The bodies of animals after death, often used for meat, hides, or other products

Etymology: "Carcasses" is simply the plural of "carcass," so the story belongs to the singular. The word reached English in the late 13th century from Anglo-Norman "carcois," which is probably linked to Old French "charcois," and it is cognate with the modern French "carcasse." Its deeper roots may be surprising: some scholars connect it with the Avestan "kahrkās" and Middle Persian "kargās," both meaning "vulture," and with the Persian "karkas," which still means "vulture." If that link holds, the word began as a name for a scavenging bird, one that feeds on dead bodies. The shift from bird to corpse makes sense given what vultures do. A word for the creature that picks over the dead could easily come to name the dead remains themselves. Across the Iranian-speaking world, the sense "vulture" survived, while in French and English the word came to mean the body of an animal, and later a framework or skeleton of a thing.

Synonyms: remains, corpses, cadavers, bodies, skeletons