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I want to use corpus in place of total amount of money. Please suggest if I can use it.

In place of using: ...leads the way in terms of total amount of money.

I want to use: ....leads the way in terms of total corpus.

Note: A context in previous sentence would signify corpus in reference of money.

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    Unless this is a highly technical text whose readers will immediately understand legal jargon, using corpus to mean an amount of money is a bad idea. If you decide to use it, you'd better be 100% sure you're using it in exactly the proper way (which I suspect most native speakers will not know). – Cerberus_Reinstate_Monica Jul 1 '15 at 1:22
  • What @Cerberus said. The primary English meaning is an author's works of literature, in that they embody the author. (Corpus being Latin for body). A term that embodies a person's accumulated capital is wealth or worth. When discussing organizations, as deadrat said, there are a variety of other terms. corpus would be way down the list. So it's vital to say whether you're talking corporations or people or something else, but I say avoid "corpus" in most contexts. – stevesliva Jul 1 '15 at 3:17
  • Try capital or cash or cash and cash equivalents whichever fits your situation best. – Jim Jul 1 '15 at 4:06
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It would help if you told us in what context you wish to use the word "corpus," but it's probably a bad idea to use it to mean an amount of money.

The word is a legal term of art for the property held in an estate or trust. That's all property, real and personal, which includes many more categories than money. For a definition that the Internal Revenue Service of the Unites States uses when it's prepared to tax the estate of a recently deceased person go here.

"Corpus" is the Latin word for body, and it should be no surprise that it shows up in many different legal and medical terms that will compete (if only slightly) with your intended use.

Amounts of money have different names in different economic spheres. "Endowment" for universities and foundations; "reserves" in banking. If possible, choose the word specific to your context.

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