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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

anatomize.

To cut up or dissect (the body of a human being or an animal), specifically for the purpose of investigating its anatomy.

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/əˈnætəmaɪz/Received-Pronunciation/əˈnætəmaɪz/General-American[-ɾə-]General-American
  1. To cut up or dissect (the body of a human being or an animal), specifically for the purpose of investigating its anatomy.

    British · English · Oxford · US · archaic · transitive
  2. To cut up or dissect (the body of a human being or an animal), specifically for the purpose of investigating its anatomy. To punish (someone) by post mortem dissection following execution.

    British · English · Oxford · US · archaic · transitive
  3. To cut up or dissect (a plant or one of its parts) to investigate its structure.

    British · English · Oxford · US · archaic · transitive
  4. To scrutinize (something) down to the most minute detail.

    British · English · Oxford · US · archaic · figuratively · transitive
  5. To chemically analyse (a substance).

    British · English · Oxford · US · archaic · figuratively · obsolete · transitive
  6. To cut up or dissect the body of a human being or an animal.

    British · English · Oxford · US · archaic · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Late Middle English anatomisen, anatomien, anatomen (“to dissect in order to investigate”) borrowed from Middle French anatomiser (modern French anatomiser), or from its etymon Medieval Latin anatomizō, from Latin anatomia (“anatomy”) + -izō. Anatomia is derived from ἀνατομή (anatomḗ, “act of cutting up, dissection”) + -ia (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns); ἀνατομή (anatomḗ) is from ἀνᾰτέμνω (anătémnō, “to cut open”) (from ᾰ̓νᾰ- (ănă-, “up”) + τέμνω (témnō, “to cut, hew; to butcher”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *temh₁- (“to cut”))) + -η (-ē, suffix forming action nouns). By surface analysis, anatomy + -ize (suffix forming (chiefly similative) verbs).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.