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Webster 1913 Edition


Anatomy

A-nat′o-my

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Anatomies
.
[F.
anatomie
, L.
anatomia
, Gr. [GREEK] dissection, fr. [GREEK] to cut up; [GREEK] + [GREEK] to cut.]
1.
The art of dissecting, or artificially separating the different parts of any organized body, to discover their situation, structure, and economy; dissection.
2.
The science which treats of the structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization.
Let the muscles be well inserted and bound together, according to the knowledge of them which is given us by
anatomy
.
Dryden.
☞ “Animal anatomy” is sometimes called
zomy
; “vegetable anatomy,”
phytotomy
; “human anatomy,”
anthropotomy
.
Comparative anatomy
compares the structure of different kinds and classes of animals.
3.
A treatise or book on anatomy.
4.
The act of dividing anything, corporeal or intellectual, for the purpose of examining its parts; analysis;
as, the
anatomy
of a discourse
.
5.
A skeleton; anything anatomized or dissected, or which has the appearance of being so.
The
anatomy
of a little child, representing all parts thereof, is accounted a greater rarity than the skeleton of a man in full stature.
Fuller.
They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-faced villain,
A mere
anatomy
.
Shakespeare

Webster 1828 Edition


Anatomy

ANAT'OMY

,
Noun.
[Gr. through and to cut.]
1.
The art of dissecting, or artificially separating the different parts of an animal body, to discover their situation, structure and economy.
2.
The doctrine of the structure of the body, learned by dissection; as, a physician understands anatomy.
3.
The act of dividing any thing, corporeal or intellectual, for the purpose of examining its parts; as, the anatomy of a plant, or of a discourse.
4.
The body stripped of its integuments; a skeleton, or the corporeal frame of bones entire, without the skin, flesh and vessels; an improper use of the word, and vulgar.
5.
Ironically, a meager person.

Definition 2024


anatomy

anatomy

English

Noun

anatomy (countable and uncountable, plural anatomies)

  1. The art of studying the different parts of any organized body, to discover their situation, structure, and economy; dissection.
  2. The science that deals with the form and structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization.
    • John Dryden
      Let the muscles be well inserted and bound together, according to the knowledge of them which is given us by anatomy.
    Animal anatomy is also called zootomy; vegetable anatomy, phytotomy; and human anatomy, anthropotomy.
  3. A treatise or book on anatomy.
  4. The act of dividing anything, corporeal or intellectual, for the purpose of examining its parts; analysis; as, the anatomy of a discourse.
  5. (colloquial) The form of an individual, particularly a person, used in a tongue in cheek manner, as might be a term used by a medical professional, but in a markedly a less formal context, in which a touch of irony becomes apparent.
    I went to the Venice beach body building competition and noticed the competitor from Athen, and boy oh boy lemme tell ya, that's what a call classic Greek anatomy.
  6. (archaic) A skeleton, or dead body.
    • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, Folio Society, 2006, vol.1 p.68:
      So did the Ægyptians, who in the middest of their banquetings, and in the full of their greatest cheere, caused the anatomy of a dead man to be brought before them, as a memorandum and warning to their guests.
  7. The physical or functional organization of an organism, or part of it.
    • 2013 August 3, The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.

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