A carcass is the dead body of an animal, especially one that will be used for meat or one that's been left behind after a predator has finished eating. When a hunter brings home a deer, they have to butcher the carcass to get the meat. When a lion finishes its meal on the African savanna, vultures and hyenas gather around the carcass to finish what's left.

The word usually refers to larger animals rather than tiny creatures like insects. You might hear about the carcass of a whale that washed up on a beach, or cattle carcasses hanging in a meat processing plant. Scientists sometimes study animal carcasses to learn about diseases, diet, or how the animal died.

People occasionally use the word playfully or dramatically about objects, like calling a broken-down car an “old carcass” or describing the picked-over carcass of a Thanksgiving turkey. But the word carries a fairly blunt, unglamorous feeling. It reminds us that death is a natural part of the cycle of life, where one creature's end becomes food for another and, eventually, nutrients for the soil.