corpsicle

corpsicle

English

Etymology

Blend of corpse +‎ popsicle. The cryogenic sense is a coinage by author Frederik Pohl in The Age of the Pussyfoot (1969).

Noun

corpsicle (plural corpsicles)

1. (science fiction) A person who has been cryonically frozen in the hope of later revival.
   • 1976, Larry Niven, A World Out of Time:

     'Your newspapers called you people corpsicles,' said the blond man. 'I never understood what the tapes meant by that.'

     'It comes from Popsicle. Frozen sherbet.' Corbell had used the word himself before he became one of them. One of the corpsicles, the frozen dead.

   • 2007, Daniel H. Wilson, Where's My Jetpack?:, page 176:

     There are dozens of companies that will turn you into a human corpsicle and store your chilled earthly remains indefinitely.

   • 2010, Greg Bear, Vitals:

     I won't turn you into a corpsicle and hope somebody knows how to fix you in a hundred years.

2. (informal) A frozen corpse.
   • 1992, Spider Robinson, Lady Slings the Booze, page 9:

     It started when a janitor found a corpsicle floating in a rooftop swimming pool next to Central Park one August morning. A stiff, but I mean stiff.

   • 1995, The Bermudian - Volume 66, Issues 7-12, page 13:

     Eventually, the much-travelled corpsicle arrived back at the family farm, where she was stripped of her plastic shroud and set on the lawn to thaw out before being laid to rest.

   • 2007, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Out of the Deep I Cry:

     But if he wandered away in a confused state when the dark came on, he's a corpsicle by now.”

References

• Corpsicle by Larry Niven from A World Out of Time