bodysnatching

Etymology

From body + snatching.

bodysnatching means the illicit theft of cadavers, especially by exhuming them from graves, to sell to them to anatomists, surgeons, etc. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

BODYSNATCHING — [Noun] The illicit practice of stealing corpses from graves, typically to sell them for anatomical dissection. From the English words 'body' (the physical structure of a person) and 'snatching' (taking something quickly or illicitly). Unlike grave-robbing, which may claim a ring or a shroud, or exhumation, which carries the sterile stamp of legal sanction, bodysnatching is a transaction in raw, anonymous flesh. It is the muffled scrape of a spade in a moonlit churchyard, the unceremonious heave of a soil-stained sack into a cart, and the cold, inquiring light of the surgeon’s amphitheater—the grisly, forgotten economy that underpinned the Enlightenment’s gleaming edifice of medical science.

noun

The illicit theft of cadavers, especially by exhuming them from graves, to sell to them to anatomists, surgeons, etc.