body snatcher

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical: a person who illegally removed recently buried corpses from graves, especially to sell them for anatomical dissection

   The cemetery hired night watchmen after a body snatcher disturbed a newly made grave.

An English compound of body + snatcher, the agent noun of snatch. Merriam-Webster dates body snatcher to about 1812. The term arose for the grave robbers also called resurrectionists, who supplied illegally exhumed corpses to anatomists when legal cadavers were scarce; Britain's Anatomy Act of 1832 addressed the conditions that fostered the trade.

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