DISSECT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does dissect mean? 

• DISSECT (verb)
  The verb DISSECT has 2 senses:

1. cut open or cut apart

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

  Familiarity information: DISSECT used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISSECT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they dissect    ... he / she / it dissects   
Past simple: dissected   
Past participle: dissected   
-ing form: dissecting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cut open or cut apart

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

dissect the bodies for analysis

Hypernyms (to "dissect" is one way to...):

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "dissect"):

vivisect (cut (a body) open while still alive)

anatomise; anatomize (dissect in order to analyze)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

dissection (cutting so as to separate into pieces)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential features

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

analyse; analyze; break down; dissect; take apart

Context example:

analyze a chemical compound

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "dissect"):

parse (analyze syntactically by assigning a constituent structure to (a sentence))

botanise; botanize (collect and study plants)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

dissection (detailed critical analysis or examination one part at a time (as of a literary work))

dissection (a minute and critical analysis)

 Context examples 

A surgical procedure in which the axillary lymph node group is dissected and removed without prior removal and examination of the sentinel lymph node.

(Axillary Lymph Node Dissection without Prior Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy, NCI Thesaurus)

After review of the reference slide by a pathologist, tissues are robotically dissected in large groups.

(Laser Cryo Enrichment, NCI Thesaurus)

A laboratory method in which the tissue from a histology slide is dissected under a microscope to procure specific cells or cell populations.

(Microdissection, NCI Thesaurus)

“I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting room, Poole,” he said.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

By dissecting starlight filtering through the planet’s atmosphere into its component colors, the team found clear evidence for water.

(NASA Finds a Large Amount of Water in an Exoplanet's Atmosphere, NASA)

Microscopically, the adipose tissue contains large and pleomorphic lipoblasts, and is dissected by fibrous septa containing spindle cells.

(Atypical Lipoma, NCI Thesaurus)

At that time, your ideas will less likely be challenged and dissected as they will be earlier in the month.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Kaplan says the ability to study traumatic injury in a tissue model offers advantages over animal studies, in which measurements are delayed while the brain is being dissected and prepared for experiments.

(Bioengineers create functional 3D brain-like tissue, NIH)

He might dissect, anatomise, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

And no matter how much he dissected beauty in search of the principles that underlie beauty and make beauty possible, he was aware, always, of the innermost mystery of beauty to which he did not penetrate and to which no man had ever penetrated.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)