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remains

noun

Form of remain , plural of remain.

Simple meaning

The body or any of its matter that are left after a person dies.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rihmaynz

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɹɪˈmeɪnz

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The body or any of its matter that are left after a person (or any organism) dies; a corpse.

  2. All that is left of the stock of some things; remnants.

  3. The extant writings of a deceased person.

  4. Historical or archaeological relics.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The body or any of its matter that are left after a person (or any organism) dies; a corpse.

Used this way, remains is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Science
  • Academic writing
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Nearby words

  • cadaver , more formal, and heavier in everyday conversation

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use remains

  • “I threw out the remains of my dinner.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

fact remainsremains constantquestion remainshuman remainsnothing remains

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • remainverbBase word

    Stay the same.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: body

cadaverFormal

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.