From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdissectdis‧sect /dɪˈsekt, daɪ-/ verb [transitive] 1 MSEto cut up the body of a dead animal or person in order to study it2 EXAMINEto examine something carefully in order to understand it books in which the lives of famous people are dissected3 to divide an area of land into several smaller pieces fields dissected by small streams —dissection /-ˈsekʃən/ noun [countable, uncountable]→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
dissect• It remained the chief subject of the editorial pages, dissected and analyzed ceaselessly.• The specimens were carefully dissected and examined under a microscope.• The book dissects historical data to show how Napoleon ran his army.• He would rather dissect human emotions at the most personal level.• These fan deposits extend into the mountain valleys and have been dissected into terraces by occasional floods emerging from those valleys.• You kind of dissect it and write grammar stuff.• Newspaper headlines, radio talk shows and magazine pieces dissected its operations.• Tiger's game should not be dissected, merely admired.• But it is possible to dissect most crises and examine each component in turn.Origin dissect (1500-1600) Latin dissectus, from secare “to cut” 