dissect
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin dissectus past participle of dissecare (“to cut asunder, cut up”), from dis- (“asunder”) + secare (“to cut”); see section.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (UK) IPA(key): /dɪˈsɛkt/, /daɪˈsɛkt/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (US) IPA(key): /dɪˈsɛkt/, /daɪˈsɛkt/
- Rhymes: -ɛkt
Verb
[edit]dissect (third-person singular simple present dissects, present participle dissecting, simple past and past participle dissected)
- (literal, transitive) To study an animal's anatomy by cutting it apart; to perform a necropsy or an autopsy.
- 2020, Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half, Dialogue Books, page 130:
- She was the first person in her class to properly dissect the sheep heart.
- (literal, transitive) To study a plant's or other organism's anatomy similarly.
- (figurative, transitive) To analyze an idea in detail by delineating between its parts.
- (figurative, transitive, derogatory) To decontextualize an idea through overanalysis by delineating between its parts too strongly based on style, usually involving pedantry, at the expense of substance.
- 2000, Winona Lu-Ann Stevenson, Decolonizing Tribal Histories[1], University of California, Berkeley:
- Academics tend to take Indigenous oral histories out of their contexts and dissect them according to Western disciplinary objectives and foci (see figure 1).
- 2023 July 16, Edward D. Andrews, BIBLICAL EXEGESIS: Biblical Criticism on Trial, Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp, page 242:
- 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.
- 2023, Csaba Pléh, Laying the Foundations of Independent Psychology: The Formation of Modern Psychology, Taylor & Francis, page 369:
- 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.
- (literal, transitive, anatomy, surgery) To separate muscles, organs, etc. without cutting into them or disrupting their architecture.
- (literal, transitive, pathology) Of an infection or foreign material, following the fascia separating muscles or other organs.
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to study a dead animal's anatomy by cutting it apart
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to analyze an idea in detail by separating it into its parts
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to separate muscles, organs, and so on without cutting or disrupting
Further reading
[edit]- “dissect”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “dissect”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
- “dissect”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *sek-
- English terms borrowed from Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɛkt
- Rhymes:English/ɛkt/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English derogatory terms
- en:Anatomy
- en:Surgery
- English terms with usage examples
- en:Pathology