Corporeal
From Free net encyclopedia
Corporeal refers to something that has physical substance. The Latin word corpus means body; thus, corporeal loosely means "has a body". So, corporeal things have bodies that are touchable, have mass, occupy space, and are tangible.
Incorporeal things are those that seem to exist but can not actually be touched, have no mass, and otherwise are only real in the sense that they appear to be real in an illusory way. An example of an incorporeal being is the tooth fairy - a being that can be visualized, spoken to, etc., but not actually touched. It is a fundamental principle in stoicism that incorporeal objects don't exist.
The term corporal has related meanings, but much different usage and connotation. For example corporal punishment, literally punishment of the body, refers to physical acts of spanking, flogging, whipping, or even capital punishment. One could not interchangeably say "corporeal punishment."
The Latin root for both words, corpus (body) is also the root of modern English words like corps (a group of people) and corpse (a dead body). The term corpus is also sometimes used in English to a body of related facts or objects, as in "a corpus of knowledge" and British National Corpus.