BODY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BODYAuthored

The Law Mind • 1264 words

Definition

BODY carries several distinct legal meanings depending on context. The term appears across procedural law, documentary drafting, criminal law, and organizational law, and a researcher must determine which sense is operative before proceeding.

A natural person. In its most basic legal sense, "body" means the physical person — the human being as a legal subject. This sense animates habeas corpus proceedings, arrest law, and criminal procedure, where courts and sheriffs deal with the literal physical custody of individuals.

A corporate or collective entity. "Body" denotes an artificial legal person created by law — a corporation, municipal body, legislative body, administrative board, or similar organized group with legal standing to act. The phrase "body politic" or "body corporate" signals this sense.

The main operative section of a legal instrument. In contracts, deeds, statutes, and affidavits, the "body" is the substantive text — the operative provisions — as distinguished from the preamble, recitals, title, introductory clauses, signatures, or jurat. Identifying where the body of an instrument begins and ends can carry legal significance when construing conflicting provisions.

The trunk of the human body. In criminal law, particularly indictments for murder and mayhem, "body" has been used narrowly to mean the torso — the trunk — as distinct from the head and limbs.

A collection or compilation of laws. "Body of laws" refers to a systematic compilation or codification, as in the body of civil law or a body of statutes.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The physical structure of a human or animal as a single organism; the torso; a corpse; a person; the main section of a document or vehicle.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The material organized substance of an animal, whether living or dead, as distinguished from the spirit or vital principle; the trunk or main part of a person, as distinguished from the limbs and head.

The gap between common and legal meaning is one of extension, not contradiction. Common usage treats "body" primarily as a physical object or its main part. Legal usage extends the term to cover abstract entities — corporations, advisory boards, legislative assemblies — that have no physical existence at all. A researcher encountering "body" in a legal instrument must immediately ask whether the text refers to a person, a legal entity, or the operative text of a document itself.

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Common Confusion

BODY vs. CORPUS: These terms are used interchangeably in many historical sources — Burrill's simply cross-references to Corpus. However, "corpus" carries additional technical freight in contexts like habeas corpus, corpus of an estate (the capital as opposed to income), and corpus juris, where substituting "body" would be imprecise or misleading. In modern usage, "corpus" is preferred in Latin-derived legal phrases; "body" is preferred in plain-English statutory drafting and organizational law.

BODY POLITIC vs. BODY CORPORATE: These phrases overlap but are not identical. Body politic typically refers to a governmental or sovereign entity — a state, municipality, or public authority. Body corporate typically refers to a private or chartered corporation. Historical sources sometimes use them interchangeably; modern administrative and corporate law treats the distinction as meaningful.

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Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Body politic: A state, municipality, or governmental entity considered as a legal person with sovereign or quasi-sovereign characteristics.

Body corporate: A corporation or chartered association having legal personality distinct from its individual members.

Body of an instrument: The operative substantive provisions of a deed, contract, statute, or affidavit, excluding prefatory and concluding formal parts.

Heir of the body: An heir who is a lineal blood descendant of the grantee or testator, used historically in fee tail grants. See HEIR; TAIL.

Body of laws: A systematic compilation or codification of statutes or legal rules.

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Why It Matters in Research

The principal research trap is polysemy — the same word doing entirely different work across different legal contexts. A researcher in criminal procedure finding "bring in the body" is in habeas corpus or capias territory; a researcher in corporate law finding "the body" is likely dealing with an entity's governing structure; a researcher parsing a deed needs to identify where the body of the instrument begins to locate the operative grant language.

In historical sources, the physical and corporate senses were treated as parallel without much friction, because both were understood as referring to something that could act as a legal unit. Modern administrative and government law has added a further layer: regulatory and advisory bodies created by statute or executive order are now subject to procedural requirements — transparency, public access, formal composition rules — that do not apply to natural persons. The FACA framework is the clearest contemporary example of "body" acquiring regulatory consequences as an organizational category.

For corpus-linked research (habeas corpus, corpus of a trust or estate), researchers should cross-reference under CORPUS rather than BODY, as the Latin form has accumulated its own doctrinal history in those contexts.

Jurisdictional variation matters most in the "heir of the body" context: states that abolished fee tail by statute converted this phrase differently, and the operative meaning of the phrase in an old deed will depend on the jurisdiction in which the land sits and when the instrument was executed.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are broadly consistent on the core meanings. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Anderson's all lead with "a person" and immediately extend the term to artificial bodies created by law — a compression that signals how naturally the physical and corporate senses were linked in nineteenth-century legal thought.

Anderson's is the most granular, distinguishing the natural body (formed by laws of God) from the artificial body (devised by human laws) and flagging the criminal law usage in murder indictments — trunk as distinct from head and limbs — as a specialized sub-sense. This distinction has limited modern relevance but can appear in historical criminal pleading materials.

Bouvier's adds the procedural dimension: when a sheriff returns cepi corpus on a capias, the plaintiff could obtain a rule to bring in the body. This links "body" directly to the physical custody of a defendant, which is the ancestor of modern habeas and surrender-of-defendant practice.

Burrill's simply redirects to Corpus, confirming that these terms were treated as substantially synonymous in mid-nineteenth-century practice.

What the historical dictionaries collectively underplay is the regulatory body — the board, commission, advisory panel, or administrative agency as a legal entity subject to procedural law in its own right. That development is largely a twentieth-century phenomenon and falls outside their frame entirely.

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Jurisdictional Note

The phrase "heir of the body" carries the most significant jurisdictional variation, as state statutes abolishing fee tail transformed its effect differently — some states converting such language to a fee simple, others to a life estate. The sense of "body" as a governmental or advisory entity is subject to federal statutory definitions (notably under FACA) that may not align with state-law definitions of a public body for open-meetings or transparency purposes.

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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and Transparency in Advisory Bodies — The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia

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BODYmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

A person. Used of a natural body, or of an artificial one created by law, as a corporation. Also the main part of any instrument; in deeds it is spoken of as distinguished from the recitals and other introductory parts and signatures; in affidavits, from the title and jurat. The main part of the human body; the trunk. 22 N. Y. 149.

BODYmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A person. Used of a natural body, or of an artificial one created by law, as a corporation. A collection of laws; that is, the embodi- ment of the laws in one connected state- ment or collection, called a body of laws. In practice when the sheriff returns cepi corpus to a capias, the plaintiff may obtain a rule, before special bail has been entered, to bring in the body; and this must be done either by by committing the de- fendant or entering special bail. See DEAD BODY.

BODYmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

CORPUS (Lat.). A body. The sub- stance. Used of a human body, a corpora- tion, a collection of laws, etc. The capital of a fund or estate as distinguished from the income.

BODYn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The material organized substance of an animal, whether living or dead, as distinguished from the spirit, or vital principle; the physical person. Absent in body, but present in spirit. 1 Cor. v. 3 For of the soul the body form doth take. For soul is form, and doth the body make. Spenser. The trunk, or main part, of a person or animal, as distinguished from the limbs and head; the main, central, or principal part, as of a tree, army, country, etc. Who set the body and the limbs Of this great sport together Shak. The van of the king's army was led by the general; . . . in the body was the king and the prince. Clarendon. Rivers that run up into the body of Italy. Addison. The real, as opposed to the symbolical; the substance, as opposed to the shadow. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Col. ii. 17. A person; a human being; -- frequently in composition; as, anybody, nobody. A dry, shrewd kind of a body. W. Irving. A number of individuals spoken of collectively, usually as united by some common tie, or as organized for some purpose; a collective whole or totality; a corporation; as, a legislative body; a clerical body. A numerous body led unresistingly to the slaughter. Prescott. A number of things or particulars embodied in a system; a general collection; as, a great body of facts; a body of laws or of divinity. Any mass or portion of matter; any substance distinct from others; as, a metallic body; a moving body; an aëriform body. "A body of cold air." Huxley. By collision of two bodies, grind The air attrite to fire. Milton. Amount; quantity; extent. That part of a garment covering the body, as distinguished from the parts covering the limbs. The bed or box of a vehicle, on or in which the load is placed; as, a wagon body; a cart body. The shank of a type, or the depth of the shank (by which the size is indicated); as, a nonpareil face on an agate body. A figure that has length, breadth, and thickness; any solid figure. Consistency; thickness; substance; strength; as, this color has body; wine of a good body. Clothing for the body; esp. underclothing. Body cloths for horses. [Obs.] Addison.  -- Body coat, a gentleman's dress coat.  -- Body color (Paint.), a pigment that has consistency, thickness, or body, in distinction from a tint or wash.  -- Body of a law (Law), the main and operative part.  -- Body louse (Zoöl.), a species of louse (Pediculus vestimenti), which sometimes infests the human body and clothes. See Grayback.  -- Body plan (Shipbuilding), an end elevation, showing the conbour of the sides of a ship at certain points of her length.  -- Body politic, the collective body of a nation or state as politically organized, or as exercising political functions; also, a corporation. Wharton. As to the persons who compose the body politic or associate themselves, they take collectively the name of "people", or "nation". Bouvier. -- Body servant, a valet.  -- The bodies seven (Alchemy), the metals corresponding to the planets. [Obs.] Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe (=call), Mars yren (=iron), Mercurie quicksilver we clepe, Saturnus lead, and Jupiter is tin, and Venus coper. Chaucer. -- Body snatcher, one who secretly removes without right or authority a dead body from a grave, vault, etc.; a resurrectionist.  -- Body snatching (Law), the unauthorized removal of a dead body from the grave; usually for the purpose of dissection.

BODYv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To furnish with, or as with, a body; to produce in definite shape; to embody. To body forth, to give from or shape to mentally. Imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown. Shak.

bodynoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

Physical frame. | The physical structure of a human or animal seen as one single organism. | Physical frame. | The fleshly or corporeal nature of a human, as opposed to the spirit or soul. | Physical frame. | A corpse. | Physical frame. | A person. | Physical frame. | A human being, regarded as marginalized or oppressed. | Main section. | Main section. | The torso, the main structure of a human or animal frame excluding the extremities (limbs, head, tail). | Main section. | The largest or most important part of anything, as distinct from its appendages or accessories; (of vehicles, sometimes) the outer shell (as contrasted with the frame and powertrain). | Main section. | The section of a dress extending from the neck to the waist, excluding the arms. | Main section. | The content of a letter, message, or other printed or electronic document, as distinct from signatures, salutations, headers, and so on. | Main section. | The code of a subroutine, contrasted to its signature and parameters. | Main section. | nave. | Coherent group. | A group of people having a common purpose or opinion; a mass. | Coherent group. | An organisation, company or other authoritative group. | Coherent group. | A unified collection of details, knowledge or information. | Material entity. | Any physical object or material thing. | Material entity. | Substance; physical presence. | Material entity. | Comparative viscosity, solidity or substance (in wine, colours etc.). | Material entity. | An agglomeration of some substance, especially one that would be otherwise uncountable. | The shank of a type, or the depth of the shank (by which the size is indicated). | A three-dimensional object, such as a cube or cone.

Bodyname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A surname transferred from the nickname.

Bodyname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

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