body snatcher
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: body snatchers
form: bodysnatcher
form: body-snatcher
Etymology: From body + snatcher. Later use highly influenced by the novel The Body Snatchers (1955) and its repeated adaptation into film, wherein aliens begin replacing humans with pod people.
Senses: examples: text: They proved to be two of those Body-Snatchers, called hired Constables, who were patrolling the Fields.
ref: 1778 August 19, Public Advertiser:
text: Look here, my body-snatchers, you have unlawfully abridged the liberty of one of the sons of the sovereign State of New York!
ref: 1877, R. Rae, Newport, section 40:
glosses: One who makes arrests, such as a bailiff or policeman.
examples: text: A black woman told Carrie not to say master and missis, because you were body-snatchers and slave-drivers.
ref: 1852, B.R. Hall, Frank Freeman's Barber Shop, xiv. 252:
text: Girls who can't let a man go by without reaching out for him. That's what I call them—body snatchers.
ref: 1894 September, Harper's Magazine, 581/2:
text: McCulloch had no compunction about using these executive recruiting firms. They were, he knew, often derisively called ‘body snatchers’, ‘head hunters’, ‘flesh peddlers’, and ‘pirates’.
ref: 1961 June, Fortune, 129/1:
text: South claims hundreds abducted by North Korea's ‘body snatchers’.
ref: 1994 August 9, “Newswire”, in Associated Press:
text: ‘What are you looking at?’
‘An alien body snatcher who stole my partner and took her place.’
ref: 2000, C. Golden, Head Games, section 166:
glosses: One who abducts or controls another's body, such as a slaver, psychic, or human resources agent.
examples: text: Body-snatcher, a stealer of dead bodies from churchyards; which are sold to the surgeons and students in anatomy.
ref: 1819, J. H. Vaux, “New Vocab. Flash Lang.”, in Memoirs:
text: So emboldened and careless did these body-snatchers become... that they no longer confined themselves to pauper graves.
ref: 1910, Encyclopædia Britannica, I. 937/2:
glosses: One who sells cadavers to anatomists, surgeons, etc., especially by exhuming corpses from graves, a resurrection man.
examples: text: The head of a ring of bodysnatchers who stole the bones of broadcaster Alistair Cooke pleaded guilty yesterday.
ref: 2008 March 19, Daily Record, Glasgow, section 9:
glosses: A graverobber who steals bodies or body parts.
raw_tags: in particular
examples: text: No men could have behaved more admirably than my Imperial bearer companies, or 'body snatchers,' as the men used to call them.
ref: 1917, General Buller, quotee, Military Medicine, volume 40, Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 341:
text: Freezing conditions in the hills make essential the quick evacuation of wounded, and their regimental mates are full of praise for the sterling job done by the cheerful, tireless “body-snatchers” of the Battalion.
ref: 1951, Great Britain. Army. Royal Army Medical Corps, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, volumes 96-97, J. Bale, Sons & Danielson, Limited, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 410:
text: Tom dismounted and led Toby toward a group of men standing by a stack of stretchers. “Hey, you body snatchers,” he called out. “I have a wound that needs dressing.” He tied Toby to a stretcher.
ref: 2011, Robert W. Mackay, Soldier of the Horse, TouchWood Editions, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 185:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: A stretcher-bearer.
Synonyms: sense: alien
word: pod person
sense: corpse-stealer
word: resurrection man
word: resurrectionist