as in to analyze
to identify and examine the basic elements or parts of (something) especially for discovering interrelationships
if you anatomize the problem, you'll see it stems from a combination of her bad behavior and your unwillingness to speak to her about it
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Recent Examples of anatomize
The critic will anatomize the subject from several angles.
—
WIRED, 23 Feb. 2023
Her article deftly anatomizes Russia’s failures, but also goes into alarming depth about how the military leadership can call on hundreds of thousands of recruits, and better exploit the resources of a vast country to inflict greater pain on Ukraine.
—David Remnick, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2023
All of these exhibitions leave one feeling slightly guilty: The curators try to anatomize how power works, the strategies of mythmaking and image management, but the material on view is so seductive one forgets the larger intellectual construct.
—Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2022
The film joins countless other creative efforts to understand and anatomize the movie star born Norma Jeane Mortensen, including biopics, TV series, biographies, photo books, essays, and even plays.
—Nathan Smith, Vulture, 23 Sep. 2022
In The Rings of Saturn, W. G. Sebald anatomizes this depiction of a celebrated anatomy lesson, observing the improbably formal clothing of the men surrounding the prone cadaver, who wear opulent lace ruffs, while Tulp himself sports a wide-brimmed and high-crowned hat.
—Will Self, Harper's Magazine, 12 Sep. 2022
And some of it was a compulsive need to re-define and re-anatomize what Carmichael and Hamilton had already defined and anatomized so well.
—Samanth Subramanian, Quartz, 1 Apr. 2021
Kundera, meanwhile, made his career on novels that anatomized kitsch and subsequently became kitsch, thanks to a generation of earnest high schoolers.
—Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 9 Oct. 2019
This is just one of many intergenerational failings that Kafka anatomizes.
—Jeremy Eichler, BostonGlobe.com, 18 June 2018
WIRED, 23 Feb. 2023
Her article deftly anatomizes Russia’s failures, but also goes into alarming depth about how the military leadership can call on hundreds of thousands of recruits, and better exploit the resources of a vast country to inflict greater pain on Ukraine.
—David Remnick, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2023
All of these exhibitions leave one feeling slightly guilty: The curators try to anatomize how power works, the strategies of mythmaking and image management, but the material on view is so seductive one forgets the larger intellectual construct.
—Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2022
The film joins countless other creative efforts to understand and anatomize the movie star born Norma Jeane Mortensen, including biopics, TV series, biographies, photo books, essays, and even plays.
—Nathan Smith, Vulture, 23 Sep. 2022
In The Rings of Saturn, W. G. Sebald anatomizes this depiction of a celebrated anatomy lesson, observing the improbably formal clothing of the men surrounding the prone cadaver, who wear opulent lace ruffs, while Tulp himself sports a wide-brimmed and high-crowned hat.
—Will Self, Harper's Magazine, 12 Sep. 2022
And some of it was a compulsive need to re-define and re-anatomize what Carmichael and Hamilton had already defined and anatomized so well.
—Samanth Subramanian, Quartz, 1 Apr. 2021
Kundera, meanwhile, made his career on novels that anatomized kitsch and subsequently became kitsch, thanks to a generation of earnest high schoolers.
—Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 9 Oct. 2019
This is just one of many intergenerational failings that Kafka anatomizes.
—Jeremy Eichler, BostonGlobe.com, 18 June 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for anatomize
Verb
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Engineers analyze the information to confirm that the missile system performs exactly as expected.—
Sujita Sinha,
Interesting Engineering,
5 Mar. 2026
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While there is little agreement about the addresses, there is broader agreement for a separate section of Senate Bill 325 that would create a new task force that would analyze how to handle large requests for information by using artificial intelligence.—
Christopher Keating,
Hartford Courant,
5 Mar. 2026
Verb
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Militaries always maintain secrecy amid armed conflicts, and journalists always gather information from a variety of sources, which in 2026 means scouring commercial satellite imagery and dissecting eyewitness videos to better understand the battlefield.—
Brian Stelter,
CNN Money,
4 Mar. 2026
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Geeta Gandbhir's The Perfect Neighbor does so by cleverly piecing together police body camera footage, interrogation video and audio from witness interviews to dissect two years of events that led to Owens' death and Lorincz's subsequent manslaughter conviction.—
Davi Merchan,
NPR,
4 Mar. 2026
Verb
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The test examined everything from the launch sequence to the deployment and separation of the reentry vehicles.—
Sujita Sinha,
Interesting Engineering,
5 Mar. 2026
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The senator also challenged how deeply UConn examined Agwunobi’s record running other hospitals in Georgia, Florida, California and Washington state, as well as his brief tenure on the board of WellCare, a Florida company at the center of a massive Medicaid scandal nearly 20 years ago.—
Mark Pazniokas,
Hartford Courant,
4 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Anatomize.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/anatomize. Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
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