section_path: Language
section_name: Language
paragraph_text: Language
  
  The word "death" comes from Old English dēaþ, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic * dauþuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem * dheu- meaning the "process, act, condition of dying."
  
  The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms. When a person has died, it is also said they have "passed away", "passed on", "expired", or "gone", among other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms.
  
  As a formal reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in "the deceased"; another noun form is " decedent ".
  
  Bereft of life, the dead person is a "corpse", " cadaver ", "body", "set of remains", or when all flesh is gone, a " skeleton ". The terms " carrion " and "carcass" are also used, usually for dead non-human animals. The ashes left after a cremation are lately called "cremains".