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What is "incorporeal"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
incorporeal
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Even the Old Testament contains little reference to incorporeal substances or such rewards.
▪ Shivers like blossoms fell upon her incorporeal form, silver rain and bright bubbles of light.
▪ Thinking and perceiving, which might naturally be attributed to an incorporeal mind, are simply complex motions in matter.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Incorporeal

Incorporeal \In`cor*po"re*al\, a. [Pref. in- not + corporeal: cf. L. incorporeus. Cf. Incorporal.]

  1. Not corporeal; not having a material body or form; not consisting of matter; immaterial.

    Thus incorporeal spirits to smaller forms Reduced their shapes immense.
    --Milton.

    Sense and perception must necessarily proceed from some incorporeal substance within us.
    --Bentley.

  2. (Law) Existing only in contemplation of law; not capable of actual visible seizin or possession; not being an object of sense; intangible; -- opposed to corporeal.

    Incorporeal hereditament. See under Hereditament.

    Syn: Immaterial; unsubstantial; bodiless; spiritual.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
incorporeal

1530s, with -al (1) and Latin incorporeus "without body," from in- "not" (see in- (1)) + corpus (genitive corporis) "body" (see corporal).

Wiktionary
incorporeal

a. 1 Having no material form or physical substance. 2 (context legal English) Relating to an asset that does not have a material form; such as a patent.

WordNet
incorporeal

adj. without material form or substance; "an incorporeal spirit" [syn: immaterial] [ant: corporeal]

Usage examples of "incorporeal".

If then it be conceded--and it cannot be denied--that the primal intellections deal with objects completely incorporeal, the principle of intellection itself must know by virtue of being, or becoming, free from body.

The golden bracelets which she wears can, when struck together, make her incorporeal, capable of flight and able to pass through solid matter.

Of bodilessness or incorporiety no one, even among those who say their God is incorporeal, pretend to have an idea.

She was at large, but still she was incorporeal, caught in that monstrous frustration of bodilessness, yearning for a touch.

What I imagine are gigantic incorporeal beings as big as asteroids, as big as planets, maybe, that have no mass at all, no essence, onlyexistence —great convergences of pure mental force that drift freely through the tube.

None of the xenocs we’ve encountered need to bandage their insecurities and fears with promises of incorporeal glory that are every soul’s due.

Let us rather attend to and hold by this, that these interpretations are not carried up to the true God,-a living, incorporeal, unchangeable nature, from whom a blessed life enduring for ever may be obtained,-but that they end in things which are corporeal, temporal, mutable, and mortal.