corpus delicti
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And there’s this one, a pioneering one in California criminal law: a crime even without a corpse, the body of evidence — the corpus delicti.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2026
So, every time you have some sort of a crime that’s committed, you have to have the corpus delicti, which is a Latin term for the body of the crime.
From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2019
In Worcester, undeterred by the impossibility of producing a corpus delicti, a district attorney sped a State detective to North Brookfield to investigate the 48-year-old death.
From Time Magazine Archive
But in law, corpus delicti means not the body of a victim but the "body of the offense," i.e., evidence that the crime in question has been committed.
From Time Magazine Archive
But, O wonder upon wonder! the corpus delicti was in very deed transformed into the fairest blooming roses; the rolls had changed to white roses, the sausages to red, the omelets to yellow ones!
From Translations from the German (Vol 3 of 3) Tales by Musaeus, Tieck, Richter by Thomas Carlyle
