Library / English Dictionary

DISSECT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential features

Example:

analyze a chemical compound

Synonyms:

analyse; analyze; break down; dissect; take apart

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "dissect"):

parse (analyze syntactically by assigning a constituent structure to (a sentence))

botanise; botanize (collect and study plants)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

dissection (detailed critical analysis or examination one part at a time (as of a literary work))

dissection (a minute and critical analysis)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cut open or cut apart

Example:

dissect the bodies for analysis

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "dissect" is one way to...):

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "dissect"):

vivisect (cut (a body) open while still alive)

anatomise; anatomize (dissect in order to analyze)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

dissection (cutting so as to separate into pieces)

Credits

 Context examples: 

They were the first I had ever beheld, and I should have been curious enough to dissect one of them, if I had had proper instruments, which I unluckily left behind me in the ship, although, indeed, the sight was so nauseous, that it perfectly turned my stomach.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A global research team that includes Glenn Orton of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has spectroscopically dissected the infrared light from Uranus captured by the 26.25-foot (8-meter) Gemini North telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea.

(What Uranus Cloud Tops Have in Common With Rotten Eggs, NASA)

The term GIN is limited to small foci of atypical cells that are confined to a single or a few crypts and demonstrates characteristics of an adenoma but is only seen using microscopy (dissecting or bright field).

(Gastrointestinal Intraepithelial Neoplasia of Mouse, NCI Thesaurus/MMHCC)

The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to Dr. Jekyll’s door, where he was at once admitted by Poole, and carried down by the kitchen offices and across a yard which had once been a garden, to the building which was indifferently known as the laboratory or dissecting rooms.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He dissected beauty in his crowded little bedroom laboratory, where cooking smells alternated with the outer bedlam of the Silva tribe; and, having dissected and learned the anatomy of beauty, he was nearer being able to create beauty itself.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)