Corporeal means having a physical body or form that you can touch and see. Your dog is corporeal, your desk is corporeal, and you are corporeal: you all exist as real, solid things in the physical world.

When something is corporeal, it takes up space and has substance. A chair is corporeal, but an idea about a chair isn't. Your friend standing next to you is corporeal, but a memory of your friend or a character in a book isn't.

Writers often use corporeal when contrasting physical things with non-physical ones. In ghost stories, spirits might lack corporeal form, meaning they can't pick up objects or be touched. Scientists studying the mind sometimes discuss whether thoughts are purely corporeal (physical brain activity) or something more.

The opposite is incorporeal, meaning without physical form. Love is incorporeal. Music exists as sound waves (corporeal), but the emotion it creates is incorporeal. When you think about dreams, hopes, or fears, you're thinking about incorporeal things: they're real and important, but they don't have physical substance you can hold in your hand.