resurrection man
nounEtymology resurrection (“the act of rising from the dead and becoming alive again”) + man
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:
- Synonyms
- burker, Burkite, resurrectioner, resurrectionist, bodysnatcher, body snatcher