cadaver n.

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to fall."

It forms all or part of: accident; cadaver; cadence; caducous; cascade; case (n.1); casual; casualty; casuist; casus belli; chance; cheat; chute (n.1); coincide; decadence; decay; deciduous; escheat; incident; occasion; occident; recidivist.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit sad- "to fall down;" Latin casus "a chance, occasion, opportunity; accident, mishap," literally "a falling," cadere "to fall, sink, settle down, decline, perish;" Armenian chacnum "to fall, become low;" perhaps also Middle Irish casar "hail, lightning."

generic name of alkaloid bodies formed from animal or vegetable tissues during putrefaction, 1880, from Italian ptomaina, coined by Professor Francesco Selmi of Bologna, 1878, from Greek ptōma "corpse," on the notion of poison produced in decaying matter. Greek ptōma is etymologically "a fall, a falling," perhaps a euphemism, via the notion of "fallen thing, fallen body;" a noun derivative of piptein "to fall" (from PIE *pi-pt-, reduplicated form of root *pet- "to rush; to fly"). The modern word is incorrectly formed, and Selmi is scolded for it by the OED, which says proper Greek would be *ptomatine.

early 15c., "gangrenous, mortified;" 1620s "of or belonging to a corpse;" 1660s, "looking like a corpse;" from Latin cadaverosus "corpse-like," from cadaver "dead body" (see cadaver). Related: Cadaverously; cadaverousness.