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bury: bury: [OE] Modern English bury is a descendant of Old English byrgan, which came from the Germanic base *burg- (source also of English borough). The underlying meaning of the base was ‘protection, shelter’, and in the case of bury this referred to ‘covering a dead body with earth’ (in Old English, bury applied only to interment; the general sense ‘put underground’ did not develop until the 14th century). The derived burial goes back to Old English byrgels, which in Middle English times was mistaken for a plural.
=> borough
cadaver: cadaver: [16] Cadaver literally means ‘something that has fallen over’. It is a derivative of the Latin verb cadere ‘fall’ (from which English gets a wide range of other words, from case to accident). Its application to ‘dead body’ arises from the metaphorical use of the Latin verb for ‘die’.
=> accident, cadence, case
carrion: carrion: [13] Ultimately, carrion is a derivative of Latin carō ‘flesh’ (source also of English carnal). This appears to have had a Vulgar Latin offshoot *carōnia, which entered English via Anglo-Norman caroine. At first it was used in English for ‘dead body’, but before the end of the 13th century the current sense ‘flesh unfit for human consumption’ had begun to establish itself.
=> carnal, crone
corpse: corpse: [14] Latin corpus ‘body’ has two direct descendants in English: corpse, which came via Old French cors, and corps [18], which came via modern French corps. The former first entered English in the 13th century as cors, and during the 14th century it had its original Latin p reinserted. At first it meant simply ‘body’, but by the end of the 14th century the current sense ‘dead body’ was becoming firmly established.

The idea originally underlying corps, on the other hand, was of a small ‘body’ of troops. Other English derivatives of corpus include corporal, corporate [15], from the past participle of Latin corporāre ‘make into a body’, corpulent [14], two diminutives corpuscle [17] and corset [14], and corsage [15]. Corpus itself was acquired in the 14th century.
=> corporal, corporate, corpulent, corset
wake: wake: English has two distinct words wake. The older, ‘not sleep’ [OE], goes back ultimately to the prolific Indo-European base *wog-, *weg- ‘be active or lively’. This proliferated semantically in many directions, including ‘growth’ (in which it gave English vegetable) and ‘staying awake’, which developed into ‘watching’ and from there into ‘guarding’ (all three preserved in vigil).

The original sense ‘liveliness’ is represented in vigour. The prehistoric Germanic base *wak- took over the ‘not sleep, watch’ group of senses. From it was derived the verb *wakōjan, which subsequently split into two in English, producing wake and watch. The noun wake, which (unlike the verb) preserves the ‘watch’ strand of meaning (now specialized to ‘watching over a dead body’), comes from the same base. Waken [12] was borrowed from the related Old Norse vakna. Wake ‘track of a boat’ [16] probably came via Middle Low German wake from Old Norse vök ‘hole in the ice’.
=> vegetable, vigil, vigour, waft, wait, watch
body (n.): Old English bodig "trunk, chest" (of a man or animal); related to Old High German botah, of unknown origin. Not elsewhere in Germanic, and the word has died out in German (replaced by leib, originally "life," and körper, from Latin). In English, extension to "person" is from late 13c. Meaning "main part" of anything was in late Old English, hence its use in reference to vehicles (1520s).

Contrasted with soul since at least mid-13c. Meaning "corpse" (short for dead body) is from late 13c. Transferred to matter generally in Middle English (as in heavenly body, late 14c.). Body politic "the nation, the state" first recorded 1520s, legalese, with French word order. Body image was coined 1935. Body language is attested from 1967, perhaps from French langage corporel (1966). Phrase over my dead body attested by 1833.
cadaver (n.): c. 1500, from Latin cadaver "dead body (of men or animals)," probably from a perfective participle of cadere "to fall, sink, settle down, decline, perish" (see case (n.1)). Compare Greek ptoma "dead body," literally "a fall" (see ptomaine); poetic English the fallen "those who died in battle."
carcass (n.): late 13c., from Anglo-French carcois, from or influenced by Old French charcois (Modern French carcasse) "trunk of a body, chest, carcass," and Anglo-Latin carcosium "dead body," all of uncertain origin. Not used of humans after c. 1750, except contemptuously. Italian carcassa probably is a French loan word.
corps (n.): late 13c., cors "body," from Old French cors "body, person, corpse, life" (9c.), from Latin corpus "body" (see corporeal). Sense in English evolved from "dead body" (13c.) to "live body" (14c.) to "body of citizens" (15c.) to "band of knights" (mid-15c.). The modern military sense (1704) is from French corps d'armée (16c.), picked up in English during Marlborough's campaigns.

French restored the Latin -p- in 14c., and English followed 15c., but the pronunciation remained "corse" at first and corse persisted as a parallel formation. After the -p- began to be sounded (16c. in English), corse became archaic or poetic only.
floater (n.): "one who or that which floats," 1717, agent noun from float (v.). From 1847 in political slang for an independent voter (but with suggestion of purchasability); 1859 as "one who frequently changes place of residence or employment." Meaning "dead body found in water" is 1890, U.S. slang.
gibbet (v.): "to kill by hanging," 1590s, from gibbet (n.). Also "to hang a dead body in a public place for the sake of infamous exposure;" hence, figuratively "expose to ridicule" (1640s). Related: Gibbeted; gibbeting.
grave (n.): "excavation in earth for reception of a dead body," Old English græf "grave; ditch, trench; cave," from Proto-Germanic *graban (cognates: Old Saxon graf, Old Frisian gref, Old High German grab "grave, tomb;" Old Norse gröf "cave," Gothic graba "ditch"), from PIE root *ghrebh- (2) "to dig, to scratch, to scrape" (source also of Old Church Slavonic grobu "grave, tomb"); related to Old English grafan "to dig" (see grave (v.)).
"The normal mod. representation of OE. græf would be graff; the ME. disyllable grave, from which the standard mod. form descends, was prob. due to the especially frequent occurrence of the word in the dat. (locative) case. [OED]
From Middle Ages to 17c., they were temporary, crudely marked repositories from which the bones were removed to ossuaries after some years and the grave used for a fresh burial. "Perpetual graves" became common from c. 1650. Grave-side (n.) is from 1744. Grave-robber attested from 1757. To make (someone) turn in his grave "behave in some way that would have offended the dead person" is first recorded 1888.
lich (n.): also litch, lych, "body, corpse," southern England dialectal survival of Old English lic "body, dead body, corpse," cognate with Old Frisian lik, Dutch lijk, Old High German lih, German leiche "dead body," Old Norse lik, Danish lig, Gothic leik, from Proto-Germanic *likow. Compare litch-gate "roofed gate to a churchyard under which a bier is placed to await the coming of the clergyman."
necro-: before vowels, necr-, word-forming element meaning "death, corpse, dead tissue," from Latinized form of Greek nekros "dead body, corpse, dead person," from PIE *nek- (1) "death, natural death" (cognates: Sanskrit nasyati "disappears, perishes," Avestan nasyeiti "disappears," nasu- "corpse," Old Persian vi-nathayatiy "he injures;" Latin nex, genitive necis "violent death, murder" (as opposed to mors), nocere "to harm, hurt," noxius "harmful;" Greek nekus "dead" (adj.), nekros "dead body, corpse;" Old Irish ec, Breton ankou, Welsh angeu "death").
necromancy (n.): c. 1300, nygromauncy, "divination by communication with the dead," from Old French nigromancie "magic, necromancy, witchcraft, sorcery," from Medieval Latin nigromantia (13c.), from Latin necromantia "divination from an exhumed corpse," from Greek nekromanteia, from nekros "dead body" (see necro-) + manteia "divination, oracle," from manteuesthai "to prophesy," from mantis "prophet" (see mania). Spelling influenced in Medieval Latin by niger "black," on notion of "black arts." Modern spelling is a mid-16c. correction. Related: Necromantic.
necrosis (n.): "death of bodily tissue," 1660s, from Greek nekrosis "a becoming dead, state of death," from nekroun "make dead," from nekros "dead body" (see necro-). Related: Necrotic.
Pieta (n.): "Virgin holding the dead body of Christ," 1640s, from Italian pieta, from Latin pietatem (see piety).
stiff (n.): "corpse, dead body," 1859, slang, from stiff (adj.) which had been associated with notion of rigor mortis since c. 1200. Meaning "working man" first recorded 1930, from earlier genitive sense of "contemptible person," but sometimes merely "man, fellow" (1882). Slang meaning "something or someone bound to lose" is 1890 (originally of racehorses), from notion of "corpse."
viewing (n.): 1540s, "inspection," verbal noun from view (v.). From 1944 as "last presentation of a dead body before the funeral" (earlier viewing (of) the remains, 1920); from 1959 as "the watching of television."
necroscopy: "Pathological examination of a dead body; post-mortem examination; an instance of this", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in James Prichard (1786–1848), physician and ethnologist. From necro- + -scopy. Compare Italian necroscopia, French nécroscopie.