Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LICH, n. [Sax. lic or lice, a body, the flesh, a dead body or corpse; lichama, a living body; hence lichwake, watching with the dead; Lichfield, the field of dead bodies; Goth. leik, the flesh, a body; leikan, to please, Sax. licean; Goth. leiks, like; G. gleich; D. lyk and gelyk, like; G. leiche, a dead body, D. lyk; Heb. חלק chalak, smooth; Ar. حَلَقَ‎‎ chalaka, to shave, to make smooth; خَلَقَ galaka, to measure, to form, to create, to make smooth and equable, to be beautiful; derivatives, creature, man, people. We see the radical sense is smooth, or rather to make even, equal, smooth; hence like, likeness, and a body. We have here an instance of the radical sense of man and body, a most exactly analogous to that of Adam, from דמה, to make equal, to be like.]

Body; trunk; corpse.