vivisect

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to operate on or dissect a living animal for scientific investigation

   Modern research rules tightly restrict when a scientist may vivisect an animal.

A nineteenth-century back-formation from vivisection, modeled on dissect. Vivisection combines Latin vivus ("alive") with sectio ("a cutting"), from secare ("to cut"). The word therefore denotes cutting into a living organism rather than an ordinary dissection of a dead one.

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