autopsy
English edit
Alternative forms edit
- autopsia (archaic)
Etymology edit
From New Latin autopsia, from Ancient Greek αὐτοψῐ́ᾱ (autopsíā, “seeing with one's own eyes”).
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ôʹtŏpsē, IPA(key): /ˈɔːtɒpsiː/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (US) IPA(key): /ˈɔtɑpsi/
- (cot–caught merger) IPA(key): /ˈɑtɑpsi/
- Hyphenation: au‧top‧sy
Noun edit
autopsy (plural autopsies)
- A dissection performed on a cadaver to find possible cause(s) of death.
- The autopsy revealed he had died of multiple bullet wounds.
- An after-the-fact examination, especially of the causes of a failure.
- 1977, National Science Foundation (U.S.), Washington State University. Computer Science Dept, Proceedings of Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula (issue 8)
- This lack of built-in clutter makes the system easy to comprehend. Debugging facilities are few but powerful: snapshots, tracing, and autopsy.
- 1977, National Science Foundation (U.S.), Washington State University. Computer Science Dept, Proceedings of Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula (issue 8)
- (rare) An eyewitness observation, the presentation of an event as witnessed.
Usage notes edit
Synonyms edit
- (dissection of a cadaver): necropsy, necrotomy; postmortem
- (after the fact examination): postmortem
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
a dissection performed on a cadaver
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eyewitness observation
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Verb edit
autopsy (third-person singular simple present autopsies, present participle autopsying, simple past and past participle autopsied)
- (transitive) To perform an autopsy on.
- (transitive) To perform an after-the-fact analysis of, especially of a failure.
- 1977, National Science Foundation (U.S.), Washington State University. Computer Science Dept, Proceedings of Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula (issue 8)
- The user may define his own errors, and use DUMPAL to autopsy the system for him.
- 1977, National Science Foundation (U.S.), Washington State University. Computer Science Dept, Proceedings of Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula (issue 8)
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
perform an autopsy
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