1
: a dead body : corpse
especially
: the dressed body of a meat animal
Butchers trimmed the meat from the carcass.
2
: the living, material, or physical body
It was nearly noon when he finally hauled his carcass out of bed.
3
: the decaying or worthless remains of a structure
the carcass of an abandoned automobile
4
: the underlying structure or frame of something (as of a piece of furniture)
Synonyms
Examples of carcass in a Sentence
the rusting carcass of an old truck
the carcass of a squirrel that had been run over
Recent Examples on the Web
Along with his drug boss, my father, King, used kiddie-ride cardboard boxes and fiberglass carcasses to move drugs across the country.
—
Lizz Schumer, Peoplemag, 13 Apr. 2024
Around the wall were rusting carcasses of helicopters and airplanes confiscated from miners on previous raids.
—Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2024
Officers also found the remaining carcass of the golden eagle in an open field.
—Ben Brasch, Washington Post, 20 Mar. 2024
The cause: too little food available along its epic migratory route.
Between 2018 and 2023, carcasses of eastern North Pacific gray whales washed up on coasts from California to Alaska, with the highest number of whales stranded between December 2018 and December 2020.
—Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 19 Mar. 2024
The past two years the festival had upwards of 100 people come out and rip along the wood ramps and concrete half pipes, riders launching naked over the burning flames of the brown carcass of a car in the center of the pit.
—Jonah Gercke, SPIN, 15 Mar. 2024
Living in White Plains, N.Y., in the 1980s, Mrs. Wallace galvanized a broad campaign to rescue the river, at the time an inaccessible 23-mile watercourse that was home to more flotsam, like the carcasses of junked cars and rusted refrigerators, than fauna.
—Sam Roberts, New York Times, 1 Mar. 2024
But these stinky carcasses send a massive pulse of food to scavengers in the soil.
—Celia Ford, WIRED, 28 Mar. 2024
As these stinking carcasses start to decay, those nutrients go into the soil around trees, creating a nutrient cache for the tree and the cicadas.
—Kelli Bender, Peoplemag, 20 Mar. 2024
Lizz Schumer, Peoplemag, 13 Apr. 2024
Around the wall were rusting carcasses of helicopters and airplanes confiscated from miners on previous raids.
—Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2024
Officers also found the remaining carcass of the golden eagle in an open field.
—Ben Brasch, Washington Post, 20 Mar. 2024
The cause: too little food available along its epic migratory route.
Between 2018 and 2023, carcasses of eastern North Pacific gray whales washed up on coasts from California to Alaska, with the highest number of whales stranded between December 2018 and December 2020.
—Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 19 Mar. 2024
The past two years the festival had upwards of 100 people come out and rip along the wood ramps and concrete half pipes, riders launching naked over the burning flames of the brown carcass of a car in the center of the pit.
—Jonah Gercke, SPIN, 15 Mar. 2024
Living in White Plains, N.Y., in the 1980s, Mrs. Wallace galvanized a broad campaign to rescue the river, at the time an inaccessible 23-mile watercourse that was home to more flotsam, like the carcasses of junked cars and rusted refrigerators, than fauna.
—Sam Roberts, New York Times, 1 Mar. 2024
But these stinky carcasses send a massive pulse of food to scavengers in the soil.
—Celia Ford, WIRED, 28 Mar. 2024
As these stinking carcasses start to decay, those nutrients go into the soil around trees, creating a nutrient cache for the tree and the cicadas.
—Kelli Bender, Peoplemag, 20 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'carcass.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near carcass
Cite this Entry
“Carcass.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carcass. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
carcass
noun
car·cass
ˈkär-kəs 
: a dead body
especially
: the body of a meat animal prepared for market
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