the.com/corps
A body of people, because armies run on groupthink and so do ballets.
means An organized body of people acting as one unit, typically in military, professional, or performance contexts — like the press corps, a corps of engineers, or a corps de ballet.
from From French 'corps' meaning 'body,' which comes straight from Latin 'corpus' (also 'body'). English actually swallowed this word twice: once early as 'corse' or 'corpse' (meaning a living body, oddly enough — the dead-body sense came later), and again in the 1600s as the French military term 'corps,' kept with its French spelling and that silent 's' intact. That's why you pronounce it 'kor' and not 'korps' — a little fossil of French pronunciation preserved in English spelling, still tripping people up today.
- silent p
- french spelling kept, pronunciation stripped, chaos preserved
- etymology
- from latin corpus, meaning body
- usage range
- marines, press, and corps de ballet all qualify
- plural trap
- corps and corps look identical, sound different