Analysis

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˈnæl.ɪ.sɪs/

Definitions

1. The process of examining something in detail to understand its nature or determine its essential features
2. The methodical evaluation and breakdown of information to uncover insights and identify relationships among components
3. The careful study and breakdown of material to reveal its structure and meaning

Etymology: The Greek verb "analúō" literally meant "to loosen up again" or "unloose," built from "ana-" (here meaning "thoroughly") and "lúō" ("to loosen"). Taking a thing apart piece by piece to see how it works is, at root, an act of untying a knot. The noun "análusis" followed naturally, meaning a resolving or breaking-up of something into its parts. The word reached English through Medieval Latin, where scholars adopted the Greek term in its Latinized form. The source for the English noun is a borrowing from that Medieval Latin usage, so English took the word directly from scholarly Latin rather than through everyday speech. Over time the sense widened from undoing a physical tangle to examining any complex whole by separating it into its components. The same root supplies "paralysis" in a different way, but "analysis" itself stayed close to its original idea of taking something apart to understand it.

Synonyms: examination, assessment, evaluation, study, investigation

Antonyms: synthesis, combination, aggregation, unification, whole