incorporeal

Incorporeal

Lacking a physical or material nature but relating to or affecting a body.

Under Common Law, incorporeal property were rights that affected a tangible item, such as a chose in action (a right to enforce a debt).

Incorporeal is the opposite of corporeal, a description of the existence of a tangible item.

West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

incorporeal

adj. referring to a thing which is not physical, such as a right. This is distinguished from tangible.

Copyright © 1981-2005 by Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill. All Right reserved.

incorporeal

that which has no corpus, or body, so cannot be touched.

Collins Dictionary of Law © W.J. Stewart, 2006

INCORPOREAL. Not consisting of matter.
     2. Things incorporeal. are those which are not the object of sense, which cannot be seen or felt, but which we can easily, conceive in the understanding, as rights, actions, successions, easements, and the like. Dig. lib. 6, t. 1; Id. lib. 41, t. 1, l. 43, Sec. 1; Poth. Traite des Choses, Sec. 2.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.