Lesson 11: The Body

These words all relate to the Latin root CARO, CARNIS, meaning "flesh." They often describe things in a very physical, and sometimes gruesome, way.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• Naturally, everyone began to ask who could be responsible for such carnage.
• The vultures circled above, searching for carrion on the deserted battlefield.
• The hero in the story was described as courage incarnate, facing every danger without hesitation.

From the Latin root COLLUM, meaning "neck," these words are associated with the neck and shoulders, either as a style of clothing or a form of honor.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• The scientist received the highest accolade from the committee for her revolutionary discovery.
• Her evening gown featured a stunning décolletage adorned with a simple pearl necklace.

Stemming from the Latin root CORPUS, CORPORIS, meaning "body," this group of words refers to the physical body, groups of people, or a collection of works.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• Many countries have passed laws to ban corporal punishment in schools, favoring restorative justice over physical discipline.
• While the medium claimed to speak with spirits, she insisted they rarely took a corporeal form that could be seen by the naked eye.
• The diplomatic corps worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure the international summit proceeded without any major incidents.
• In the classic novel, the corpulent villain was often depicted feasting at a table overflowing with rich, heavy foods.
• The scholar spent decades organizing a massive corpus of Renaissance poetry to help future researchers track the evolution of the sonnet.

These words come from the Latin root COR, CORDIS, meaning "heart." They all relate to agreement, harmony, and sincerity—matters of the heart.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• After months of intense negotiations, the two neighboring countries finally signed a formal peace accord to end the border dispute.
• Although they were no longer close friends, they maintained a cordial relationship and always greeted each other warmly at community events.
• There was a striking concordance between the witness's testimony and the physical evidence found at the scene, which helped the jury reach a quick verdict.

Derived from the Latin root OS, OSSIS, meaning "bone," this word describes a process of becoming hard and rigid, like bone.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• As people get older, their political beliefs sometimes ossify and become resistant to change.
• A baby's skeleton is mostly soft cartilage that will eventually ossify into hard bone.