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Cadaverous
To be pale and to appear like a dead body. See the related word, cadaver, which is a dead body used for dissection. To dissect is to separate into pieces for scientific examination. Cadaverous comes from the Latin word "cadere" meaning "to fall," and the Latin word "osus," meaning "characterized by." Put the two words together and you get "characterized by to fall." That may not seem to make much sense, but the reason why "to fall" refers to a dead body is because a dead person falls from a standing position, or as many say, "drops dead."
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