resurrectionist

Definition

One who sells cadavers to anatomists, surgeons, etc., especially by exhuming corpses from graves; a graverobber.

Etymology

From resurrection (“the act of rising from the dead and becoming alive again”) + -ist (“forms agents of cause; forms adherents of a belief”), coined alongside resurrection man.

Example Sentences

• "One... who makes open profession of dealing in dead bodies and is well known by the name of the Resurrectionist."
• "Early in the 19th century, Udny Green churchyard was a favourite haunt of resurrectionists who dug up freshly interred corpses to sell to the medical school at Aberdeen. To prevent this, in 1832 the villagers built a mort-house where they kept the newly dead for a while before burial."
• "1830, A. Addis, Theory of Prophecy, Prol. p.xliv Those who make the rest of the dead... to be the same with the remnant slain by the sword... to be consistent, ought to make the first resurrectionists the same with the armies in heaven."