dissect — English Dictionary

Verb

1. To study an animal's anatomy by cutting it apart; to perform a necropsy or an autopsy.

   Usage

   • Transitive

   Examples

   She was the first person in her class to properly dissect the sheep heart.

2. To study a plant's or other organism's anatomy similarly.

   Usage

   • Transitive

3. To analyze an idea in detail by delineating between its parts.

   Usage

   • Figurative
   • Transitive

4. To decontextualize an idea, especially through overanalysis by delineating between its parts too strongly based on style, usually involving pedantry, at the expense of substance.

   Usage

   • Derogatory
   • Figurative
   • Transitive

   Synonyms

   contextomize

   Examples

   Academics tend to take Indigenous oral histories out of their contexts and dissect them according to Western disciplinary objectives and foci (see figure 1).

   More examples (2)

   By focusing excessively on dissecting the text into 'forms' and exploring their supposed evolution, form criticism overlooks the larger literary and historical context within which these forms exist.

   There should be a more holistic approach both to behavior and to inner experience. Köhler (1929), in the first edition of his Gestalt psychology book, made a similar parallel. Both classical psychology and behaviorism decontextualize, and in this way, both have an unnatural tendency to dissect human mental life into meaningless atoms.

5. To separate muscles, organs, etc. without cutting into them or disrupting their architecture.

   Usage

   • Transitive

   Examples

   Now dissect the triceps away from its attachment on the humerus.

6. Of an infection or foreign material, following the fascia separating muscles or other organs.

   Usage

   • Transitive

Verb

1. cut open or cut apart

   Broader terms

   cut

   Examples

   dissect the bodies for analysis

2. make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential features

   Synonyms

   analyzeanalysebreak downtake apart

   Broader terms

   actmove

   Examples

   analyze a specimen

   analyze a sentence

   More examples (1)

   analyze a chemical compound