anatomize

American  

[uh-nat-uh-mahyz] / əˈnæt əˌmaɪz /

especially British, anatomise

verb (used with object)

anatomized, anatomizing

1. to cut apart (an animal or plant) to show or examine the position, structure, and relation of the parts; display the anatomy of; dissect.

2. to examine in great detail; analyze minutely.

   The couple anatomized their new neighbor.

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anatomize British  

/ əˈnætəˌmaɪz /

verb

1. to dissect (an animal or plant)

2. to examine in minute detail

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Other Word Forms

• anatomizable adjective
• anatomization noun
• anatomizer noun
• unanatomizable adjective
• unanatomized adjective

Etymology

Origin of anatomize

1400–50; late Middle English < Middle French anatomiser or < Medieval Latin anatomizāre. See anatomy, -ize

Example Sentences

They make their lives from the bits of gender and love and culture they’ve been given, and there’s no place to stand outside that messy process and anatomize, dissect or categorize them.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 6, 2021

It is the lack of proximity to those stories, the immediacy of hearing loved ones talk about their own experience of this “dark winter,” that makes this darkness so difficult to comprehend and anatomize.

From Washington Post • Dec. 16, 2020

They anatomize sunspots by way of US astronomer George Ellery Hale, who pioneered their observation with his 1889 invention of the spectroheliograph.

From Nature • Jul. 18, 2017

This is big-picture theater, which takes a long view down the corridors of power to anatomize the psyches of the men and women who determine the fate of nations.

From New York Times • Nov. 4, 2016

But what need I thus My well-known body to anatomize Among my household?

From King Henry IV, Part 2 by Shakespeare, William