Vivisects

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To conduct anatomical surgery on a living being for research purposes The practice of examining a living organism’s internal structures through dissection for scientific analysis Involves the surgical exploration of a living entity to investigate its biological functions for study
2. To carry out surgical operations on a living creature to understand its internal anatomy and physiological processes
3. The act of dissecting a living body to obtain detailed biological information for scientific inquiry

Etymology: "Vivisects" is the third-person singular present form of "vivisect," so the story belongs to the verb itself. "Vivisect" is a back-formation from "vivisection," the older noun, which combines Latin "vivus" ("alive") with "sectio," a cutting, from "secare" ("to cut"). The word therefore means, quite literally, cutting into something alive. The noun came first and was the older coinage. The verb was later derived from it by dropping the "-ion" ending, a pattern English speakers often use to create verbs from nouns that already end in "-ion." In this case the verb is the more recent of the two forms.

Synonyms: dissects, operates on