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

Furthermore, there seemed to be no corpus delicti: in whodunits, corpus delicti means a corpse.

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

I told him that it could not be proved inasmuch as there would be no corpus delicti and hence nothing on which to base a charge.

From Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 by Various