autopsy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a medical examination and dissection of a body after death to determine the cause of death or effects of disease

   The autopsy established that the victim had died from internal bleeding.

2. 2
   noun

   a detailed examination made after an event, especially to discover why something failed

   The engineering team conducted an autopsy of the failed launch.

3. 3
   verb

   to perform an autopsy on a body

   The pathologist autopsied the body the following morning.

Simplified etymology

Autopsy comes from Greek autoptēs “eyewitness,” formed from autos “self” and optos “seen.” Its early 17th-century sense was “personal observation”; its later medical sense refers to examining a body directly to determine how a person died.

From New Latin autopsia, from Ancient Greek autopsia ("seeing with one's own eyes"), built from autos ("self") + opsis ("sight"). It first meant direct personal observation; the modern medical sense narrowed this to examining a body after death.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary