a corpse: a dead body left lying, whether of a person, an animal, or a lifeless idol
This word names a dead body, and almost always one that has been left where it fell rather than buried with honor. Most of its appearances are grim scenes of the slain: an army wiped out overnight, bodies heaped in a valley, corpses trodden underfoot or exposed to the birds. The word carries the smell of death and disgrace, not the quiet of a tomb.
The same word stretches across three kinds of dead thing. Most often it is a human corpse, especially the war dead and those struck down in judgment. Once it is the carcass of an animal, the divided beasts Abram guards from the vultures. And in one biting turn it is aimed at idols themselves: their images are called "corpses," as dead and powerless as the worshipers thrown down beside them.
Because it reaches from human to animal to idol, no single English word covers it neatly. English keeps נְבֵלָה territory ("carcass," for a dead animal) apart from "corpse" (for a dead person), while this word uses one term for both, and turns it into an insult against dead gods.