anatomize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to cut apart (an animal or plant) to show or examine the position, structure, and relation of the parts; display the anatomy of; dissect.
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to examine in great detail; analyze minutely.
The couple anatomized their new neighbor.
verb
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to dissect (an animal or plant)
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to examine in minute detail
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of anatomize
1400–50; late Middle English < Middle French anatomiser or < Medieval Latin anatomizāre. See anatomy, -ize
Vocabulary lists containing anatomize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
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
Leigh’s work has largely been focused on contemporary ensemble pieces that anatomize British society, made in collaboration with a dedicated repertory of actors who fashion each film from an intensive process of improvised rehearsals.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 26, 2014
As tech bloggers ripped open the latest iPhone to anatomize its guts, a ritual known as a “teardown,” you could sense deflation.
From Forbes ● Oct. 9, 2013
"We anatomize flies," replied the philosopher, "we measure lines, we make calculations, we agree upon two or three points which we understand, and dispute upon two or three thousand that are beyond our comprehension."
From Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume by
British novelist John le Carré, who anatomized Cold War spycraft and sometimes even influenced it, has died after a short illness at the age of 89.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2020
Over the years, his writing has anatomized commitment and relationships with a sharp eye for foibles — especially male ones.
From New York Times ● Oct. 13, 2020
Mills’s wife, Miranda July, a writer and filmmaker with the steely fragility of a Buster Keaton, once anatomized guys like Mills in a short story.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 1, 2017
Her guitar tone is produced warmly, which makes one feel comforted even if they’re being emotionally anatomized.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 9, 2015
We want not to see water anatomized; the Alps may be tomahawked and scalped by geologists, yet may they be sorry painters.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. by Various
She has always had plenty to say about that, but now she is more interested in anatomizing all the forces that carved her into the woman she is today.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2021
It’s a great environment for anatomizing an uncommonly thoughtful family, which is held together by Marshall’s softly determined Barbara.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 9, 2015
In its anatomizing of the psychodynamics of the rehearsal room, the play bears a resemblance to David Ives’s “Venus in Fur.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 17, 2015
Each incident of Internet straying brings its own gleeful anatomizing.
From Slate ● Feb. 1, 2013
But anatomizing their anguish, these creatures finally decided that it might not be spring fever, but merely hunger.
From Plum Pudding Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned by Morley, Christopher
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
