Corse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic spelling of corpse, meaning a dead body ; the French Mediterranean island also called Corsica, lying north of Sardinia
2. A dead body, an older form of the word corpse ; Corsica, a mountainous island in the Mediterranean that belongs to France
3. An old variant for a lifeless body ; the name of the island in the Mediterranean Sea known in French as Corsica, part of France

Etymology: "Corse" is a poetic or archaic word for a body, especially a dead one, and it is a close relative of "corpse" that took a different path into English. Both descend from the Latin "corpus," meaning "body," which passed into Old French as "cors." English borrowed that French form in the Middle Ages as "cors," and over time it came to be spelled "corse" while the word became more or less restricted to literary use. The more familiar "corpse" is a doublet: the same Latin root arrived in English by a second route, with its own spelling and sense narrowed to the lifeless body. Because the two forms split off from one another, English ended up with a pair of words that share an ancestor but no longer feel alike, and "corse" survives mainly in older poetry and in phrases that deliberately sound antique.

Synonyms: corpse, cadaver, carcass