Dictionary

resurrection man en · NOUN

Etymology

resurrection (“the act of rising from the dead and becoming alive again”) + man

Meanings

1. (euphemistic, historical) A man who sells cadavers to anatomists, surgeons, etc., especially by exhuming corpses from graves; a graverobber.
   • Persons (under the name of resurrection-men) continue their business, getting from 1 guinea to 5 or 6, according to the value set upon the corpse they take up. 1781, “R. King”, in Compl. Mod. London Spy, section 106:
   • Earlier exhumations seem to have caused very little popular concern;... but later... the trade of ‘resurrection man’ became commoner, and attracted the lowest dregs of the vicious classes. 1910, Encyclopædia Britannica, I. 937/2:

Forms

Synonyms

resurrectioner · resurrectionist · burker · Burkite · bodysnatcher · body snatcher