A person who illicitly retrieved corpses for dissection from rivers, scenes of disaster, or burial grounds.
〈史〉（从河里、灾难现场或墓地等非法取得尸体供解剖的）盗尸人
Example sentencesExamples
A Victorian author described him ‘hobnobbing with the resurrection men’.
The republican martyr's glorification of suffering distinguishes him from the loyalist resurrection man of Derry's Bond Street wall mural.
At this time in London grave robbing was a common occurrence because men dubbed ‘the resurrection men’ would sell the stolen bodies to teaching hospitals so that medical students could dissect and study them.
Body snatchers (‘grave-robbers’ or ‘resurrection men’) generally obtained fresh corpses from new graves.
Then he realised, I don't have the twenty guineas to give her a coffin strong enough to resist the resurrection men, nor the staff to guard her grave until she's corrupted enough to be beyond the surgeons' interest.