From The ekkis Lexikon of the Ænglisc Language:

Main Entry: bod·ice
Pronunciation: [tt]‘bä-d&s[/tt]
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of bodies, plural of 1body
Date: circa 1567
1 : a device that holds the key to many a man’s contentment; a treasure chest
2 : a thing that needs to be removed
3 : Slang: a fruit container

here’s how Emily Dickinson (1830–86) once used the word - from her Complete Poems (1924):

THE ROSE did caper on her cheek,  
Her bodice rose and fell,  
Her pretty speech, like drunken men,  
Did stagger pitiful.  
 
Her fingers fumbled at her work,—         5
Her needle would not go;  
What ailed so smart a little maid  
It puzzled me to know,  
 
Till opposite I spied a cheek  
That bore another rose;         10
Just opposite, another speech  
That like the drunkard goes;  
 
A vest that, like the bodice, danced  
To the immortal tune,—  
Till those two troubled little clocks         15
Ticked softly into one.

Or, in the immortal words of Ogden Nash

Yeats rates
But liquor’s quicker

Henri