body-snatcherとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From body + snatcher. Later use highly influenced by the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers and its repeated adaptation into film, wherein aliens begin replacing humans with pod people.

発音

名詞

body snatcher (複数形 body snatchers)

1. (slang, humorous, derogatory, obsolete) One who makes arrests, such as a bailiff or policeman.
   • 1778 August 19, Public Advertiser

     They proved to be two of those Body-Snatchers, called hired Constables, who were patrolling the Fields.

   • 1877, R. Rae, Newport, 40

     Look here, my body-snatchers, you have unlawfully abridged the liberty of one of the sons of the sovereign State of New York!

2. One who abducts or controls another's body, such as a slaver, psychic, or human resources agent.
   • 1852, B.R. Hall, Frank Freeman's Barber Shop, xiv. 252

     A black woman told Carrie not to say master and missis, because you were body-snatchers and slave-drivers.

   • 1894 September, Harper's Magazine, 581/2

     Girls who can't let a man go by without reaching out for him. That's what I call them—body snatchers.

   • 1961 June, Fortune, 129/1

     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’.

   • 1994 August 9, Associated Press, Newswire

     South claims hundreds abducted by North Korea's ‘body snatchers’.

   • 2000, C. Golden, Head Games, 166

     ‘What are you looking at?’

     ‘An alien body snatcher who stole my partner and took her place.’

3. (historical) One who sells cadavers to anatomists, surgeons, etc., especially by exhuming corpses from graves, a resurrection man.
   • 1819, J. H. Vaux, New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Memoirs

     Body-snatcher, a stealer of dead bodies from churchyards; which are sold to the surgeons and students in anatomy.

   • 1910, Encyclopædia Britannica, I. 937/2:

     So emboldened and careless did these body-snatchers become... that they no longer confined themselves to pauper graves.

4. (in particular) A graverobber who steals bodies or body parts.
   • 2008 March 19, Daily Record (Glasgow), 9:

     The head of a ring of bodysnatchers who stole the bones of broadcaster Alistair Cooke pleaded guilty yesterday.

5. (Britain, military, slang) A stretcher-bearer.
   • 1917, quoting General Buller, Military Medicine, volume 40, Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, LCCN 09019395, OCLC 1641787, page 341:

     No men could have behaved more admirably than my Imperial bearer companies, or 'body snatchers,' as the men used to call them.

   • 1951, Great Britain. Army. Royal Army Medical Corps, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, volume 96-97, J. Bale, Sons & Danielson, Limited, LCCN sf80001521, OCLC 1029165, page 410:

     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.

   • 2011, Robert W. Mackay, Soldier of the Horse, TouchWood Editions, →ISBN, LCCN 2011486622, OCLC 670421126, page 185:

     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.

同意語

• (alien) pod person
• (corpse-stealer) resurrection man, resurrectionist

参照

• Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. "body snatcher, n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2010.
• body-snatcher under body in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

名詞

bodysnatcher (複数形 bodysnatchers)

1. Alternative spelling of body snatcher.