analysen.
/ˈanəlʌɪz/, /ˈanl̩ʌɪz/, U.S. /ˈænlˌaɪz/ Now rare.
= analysis n.In later use not in standard English.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > enquiry > investigation, inspection > close examination, scrutiny > [noun] > analysis
anatomya1569
analysis1588
anatomizing1594
analysea1638
anatomization1676
analysation1698
a1638 J. Mede Wks. (1672) i. ii. 4 The words..are few, and therefore shall need no other Analyse than what their very number presents unto us.
1642 D. Rogers Naaman 293 The Analyse I gave of the contents of this Verse.
1664 H. More Modest Enq. Myst. Iniquity 276 Without any further Analyse I shall guide my exposition by the order of the verses.
a1751 Visct. Bolingbroke Wks. (1754) V. 395 To begin this analise.
1847 O. Smith Outl. Nature 101 The analyse of straw, and the bark of hemp and flax, shows..a deficiency there of oxe.
1883 F. C. Doyle Princ. Relig. Life 526 This analyse, they put together, and thus become masters of the branch which they have made the object of their studies.
1996 in Social Agency 298 Such an analyse will hence follow in the rest of this section.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
analyseanalyzev.
/ˈanəlʌɪz/, /ˈanl̩ʌɪz/, U.S. /ˈænlˌaɪz/ I. General uses.
1. transitive. To differentiate or ascertain the elements of (something complex) in order to determine its structure or nature, and hence to explain or understand it; to examine closely and methodically for the purpose of interpretation; to subject to critical or computational analysis. Also intransitive.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > wholeness > mutual relation of parts to whole > separation > separation or breaking up into constituent parts > separate into constituents [verb (transitive)] > specific something immaterial
analyse1587
decompounda1751
decompose1796
1587 R. Greene Euphues sig. F Dyuerse may gase into Philosophers conclusions that cannot Analuze theyr reasons.
1595 G. Chapman Ouids Banquet of Sence sig. F2 Her mighty gouernment: Which fayre analisde in her beauties groue, Showes Lawes for care, and Canons for content.
1611 G. Downame Def. Serm. Consecr. Bishop of Bath iii. iv. 100 Did Ierome intend any thing else, but to prooue the Presbyters superiour to Deacons, and that by such arguments as before I analysed?
1758 S. Johnson Idler 12 Aug. 145 Very few carry their philosophy to places of diversion, or are very careful to analyse their enjoyments.
1792 E. Burke Speech on Petition of Unitarians in Wks. (1812) X. 52 Otherwise we should dispute all the points of morality before we can punish a murderer, robber, or adulterer; we should analyze all society.
1821 Edinb. Rev. Oct. 235 That incapacity of being analyzed, in which they agree with all other simple ideas.
1871 C. Darwin Descent of Man I. iii. 79 No one, I presume, can analyse the sensations of pleasure and pain.
1881 Med. Temp. Jrnl. No. 49. 23 If we analyse these returns for England and Wales, we find no rule.
1921 E. K. Adams Women Professional Workers xiv. 261 Picture to yourself a group of scholarly pessimists, unwilling to believe anything without documentary proof.., always analyzing.
1931 Burlington Mag. Apr. 179/1 I feel a certain Italian quality in the character of style; but this is an individual impression which it is difficult to dissect and analyse.
1960 A. Cobban In Search of Humanity iv. xix. 182 The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers analyses the thought and, by implication, the influence of the Enlightenment.
2008 Washington Post (Nexis) 28 May a3 Ogden and her colleagues analyzed data collected by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
2. transitive. To discover or reveal by close examination; to seek to ascertain by analysis. Frequently with indirect question as object.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > enquiry > investigation, inspection > close examination, scrutiny > scrutinize [verb (transitive)] > analyse
anatomize1588
analyse1770
1770 W. Meredith Let. to Dr. Blackstone 53 Nor am I going to analyse what that Idea of Subjection must be.
1810 Edinb. Rev. 15 303 If by a simple pleasure is meant one, the cause of which can be easily analyzed.
1853 G. Aguilar Home Scenes & Heart Stud. 107 Before he could analyse why that bitterness against his unhappy ugliness should return, [etc.].
1893 Philos. Rev. 2 634 In order clearly to set forth the correlative theory of sensation it is necessary first to analyze the nature of intellection.
1918 Trans. Royal Soc. Edinb. 52 399 It is..desirable in analysing the causes of variability to deal with the square of the standard deviation as the measure of variability.
1967 G. Vidal Washington, D.C. iii. 290 Clay studied the New Yorkers, tried to analyze in what way they were different from the Washingtonians.
2006 Nature 5 Oct. p. ix/1 Neuroeconomics can be described loosely as the science of choice: it takes its cue from neuroscience, economics and psychology to analyse how we make choices.
II. Specialized uses chiefly involving mental analysis.
3.
a. transitive. To examine (a text) critically to bring out its meaning; to discuss the style, structure, or composition of (a literary work).Originally used of scriptural exegesis, esp. that in which each part of a text is interpreted successively.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > literary and textual criticism > literary criticism > practise literary criticism [verb (transitive)] > make critical analysis of
analyse1601
1601 J. Deacon & J. Walker Dialogicall Disc. Spirits & Diuels sig. Aa5v The text of Iohn 12. 31. paraphrasticallie analyzed.
1644 J. Maxwell Answ. Worthy Gentleman 8 The first Analyseth, Interpreteth, and taketh away the doubts of his Text.
1704 J. Grant Deborah & Barak 2 Give me leave to analyse or explain the Chapter of my Text, and that foregoing it.
1793 W. Boscawen in tr. Horace Odes, Epodes, & Carmen Seculare iii. 241 (note) If we analyse this noble enthusiastick poem, and reduce it to plain prose, there will scarcely remain a doubt but that its object is political.
1817 T. Moore Lalla Rookh 126 He then proceeded to analyse the poem.
1868 E. Arber in J. Milton Areopagitica Introd. 3 Its [sc. a book's] contents may be analysed as to their intrinsic truthfulness or falsity.
1908 L. M. Montgomery Anne of Green Gables xxviii. 309 They had studied Tennyson's poem in school the preceding winter... They had analyzed and parsed it and torn it to pieces in general.
1947 Mod. Lang. Rev. 42 352 In the end, however one may dissect and analyse the work, if falls together again..and one sees the whole story, intricate but compact.
1991 B. Moon Guide to National Curriculum (ed. 3) v. 38 Pupils should be taught to..read, analyse and evaluate a wide range of texts.
b. transitive. Music. To give a critical description of (a work), esp. with regard to its structure. Cf. analysis n. 7.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > music > study or science of music > [verb (transitive)] > analyse
analyse1824
1824 Edinb. Rev. July 329 Little did he know then that..his bars and basses would be conned and analyzed by the learned umpire of future ages.
1890 G. B. Shaw How to become Musical Critic (1960) 189 A calm confidence in his power..to ‘analyze’ the last movement of the Jupiter Symphony.
1935 D. F. Tovey Ess. Mus. Anal. I. 1 If the defects of the works analysed are too notorious to be ignored, he must [etc.].
1958 Music & Lett. 39 81 No matter how much we dissect and analyse musical masterpieces, the imponderable something that makes them great must elude us.
1998 Strad Sept. 962/1 Beyerle..was particularly helpful in establishing a system for analysing a quartet.
4. transitive. Grammar. To identify and describe the component parts of (a word, phrase, or sentence); esp. to resolve (a sentence or phrase) into its grammatical elements, to parse.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > analyse grammatically [verb (transitive)]
construe1362
analyse1660
1660 C. Hoole New Discov. Old Art of teaching Schoole iii. ii. 178 After they have construed a Chapter, and analysed some harder Nounes and Verbes, you may let them try who can recite the most Greek names of things.
1725 I. Watts Logick iv. i. 508 When a Sentence is distinguisht into the Nouns, the Verbs, Pronouns, Adverbs, and other Particles of Speech which compose it, then it is said to be analys'd grammatically. When the same Sentence is distinguisht into Subject and Predicate, [etc.]..then 'tis analys'd logically and metaphysically.
1750 S. Johnson Rambler No. 88. ⁋2 The employment..of analysing lines into syllables.
1852 J. D. Morell Anal. Sentences 43 The following method of analysing complex, compound, and contracted sentences is recommended.
1870 Daily News 16 Apr. She will take rhetoric..and also attempt to ‘analyse’ Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’ into subjects and predicates.
1916 L. Bloomfield Trans. & Proc. Amer. Philol. Assoc. 47 17 It presents the characteristic structure which allows us to analyze it into a linguistic subject and predicate.
1967 F. P. Dinneen Introd. Gen. Ling. ix. 263 In analyzing the sentence Poor John ran away, Bloomfield found that it contains five morphemes: poor, John, ran, a-, and way.
1997 G. M. Brown For Islands I Sing (1998) 29 To this day I can't parse a simple sentence, and could only manage to analyse a more complex sentence with a mighty furrowing of brows.
5. transitive. Philosophy. To subject (a proposition) to analysis; spec. to formulate a logically precise paraphrase of (a given word, phrase, or sentence). Cf. analysis n. 6.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > philosophy of language > language theories of individual philosophers > linguistic theories [verb (transitive)]
analyse1779
deconstruct1973
1779 Ld. Kames Ess. Princ. Morality & Nat. Relig. (ed. 3) 127 I have taken the more pains to analyse this proposition,..as accurate definitions and descriptions are of great moment in philosophy.
1844 Ladies' Repository June 161/2 Analyze the proposition, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved’.
1892 Mind 1 22 We must now analyse the proposition into elements which are not themselves propositions, and examine what further developments arise in the synthesis of propositions from a consideration of this analysis.
1910 A. N. Whitehead & B. Russell Principia Mathematica I. iii. 69 In all such cases, the proposition must be capable of being so analysed that what was the grammatical subject shall have disappeared. Thus when we say ‘the round square does not exist’, we may, as a first attempt at such analysis, substitute ‘it is false that there is an object x which is both round and square’.
1948 Mind 57 50 If ‘If Nero had been Seneca’ means anything at all, it is a quasi-general proposition which can be analysed either as ‘If Nero had had the character of Seneca’ or ‘If Seneca had been emperor’.
1990 J. D. Barrow Theories of Everything (1991) ix. 201 An analytic statement requires us to analyse the statement alone in order to ascertain its truth.
6. transitive. Psychoanalysis. To subject to or treat by psychoanalysis. Cf. psychoanalyse v., first attested slightly later, and analysis n. 9.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > psychology > theory of psychoanalysis > psychoanalyse [verb (transitive)]
analyse1909
psychoanalyse1911
psych1917
psycho1925
the world > health and disease > healing > psychiatry > treat psychiatrically [verb (transitive)] > subject to psychoanalysis
analyse1909
psychoanalyse1911
1909 A. A. Brill tr. S. Freud Sel. Papers on Hysteria v. 122 In those patients whom I have analyzed [Ger. bei den von mir analysierten Patienten] there existed psychic health until..there appeared an experience..that the person decided to forget.
1919 M. K. Bradby Psycho-anal. x. 126 I have had no nightmare..since I was analysed.
1967 Brit. Jrnl. Psychiatry 113 453/2 It is interesting to learn that at one time Freud and Jung analysed each other.
1995 I. D. Yalom Theory & Pract. Group Psychotherapy (ed. 4) vii. 204 He and the patient alternated roles: one hour he analyzed the patient; the next hour the patient analyzed him.
III. Chiefly technical uses involving analysis into physical components.
7. transitive. To reduce (a material thing or substance) to its constituent parts; to dissect, break down. (Now only in sense 8.)
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > wholeness > mutual relation of parts to whole > separation > separation or breaking up into constituent parts > separate into constituents [verb (transitive)]
resolvea1398
analyse1606
untwist1611
refract1646
disband1695
decomposea1751
decompounda1751
to break up1751
disintegrate1794
to break down1859
dissociate1869
factor1958
1606 H. Clapham Man. Bibles Doctr. xvii. 251 When shal ceremonies altogither end? I answer: when the world is consumed, & the heauens & earth analysed.
1655 W. Gouge & T. Gouge Learned Comm. Hebrewes Pref. Verses Its clear Analysis the Text unties, 'Twas sad that death did th'writer Analyze.
1686 C. Allen Operator for Teeth i. 8 In Analysing the Tooth, its substance is not found to be uniform every where, but manifestly distinguishable into two different sorts of make.
1742 G. Cheyne Nat. Method cureing Dis. i. 21 Chuse in these two different kinds of Food, those which..will not so readily, when analys'd by the animal Functions, run into greater Clusters so as to crystallise.
1794 R. J. Sulivan View of Nature I. 96 The elements of the fruit itself, after having analyzed and dissected it.
8.
a. transitive. Chemistry. To identify and measure, by chemical or instrumental means, the constituents of (a substance or specimen, or a particular component within one). Cf. analysis n. 11.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > chemistry > chemical assay or analytical chemistry > analyse chemically [verb (transitive)]
anatomize1617
analyse1666
1666 D. Coxe Let. 5 Feb. in R. Boyle Corr. (2001) III. 59 I am apt to suspect there may bee more of a metalline part in native gemms then in the Artificiall from the Triall wee have made with granates of Bohemia..which skilfully analyzed are found to abound with some metall.
1670 W. Marshall Answers upon Several Heads Philos. iii. 43 The Pyrotechnists analyse bodies, upon the consideration of several differences and contrarieties which are in their compositive parts, as that some will abide the fire, others not.
1727 S. Hales Veg. Staticks vi. 185 (heading) A Specimen of an attempt to analyze the Air by a great variety of Chymio-statical Experiments.
1793 J. Smeaton Narr. Edystone Lighthouse (ed. 2) §192 He taught me how to analyze limestones.
1812 H. Davy Elements Chem. Philos. 51 The attempts made to analyse vegetable substances previous to 1720 merely produced their resolution into the supposed elements of the chemists of those days—viz. salts, earths, phlegm and sulphur.
1874 C. Schorlemmer Man. Chem. Carbon Compounds 16 If the body to be analysed contains nitrogen.
1936 S. Glasstone Recent Adv. Gen. Chem. iii. 119 The resulting gas was passed through a liquid-air trap to remove the hydrogen atoms and then analysed.
1955 Sci. Amer. July 75/2 The six virus strains were analyzed for their content of three amino acids: tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine.
1992 S. Rose Making of Memory 51 Swedish labs had a tradition of developing micromethods for analysing tiny quantities of material.
2005 M. Balter Goddess & Bull viii. 155 Theya and Peter decided to analyze the teeth and bones for twenty-two different trace elements using a technique called induced plasma spectrometry.
b. transitive. Physics. To separate (light) into its constituent spectral colours. More widely: to ascertain the composition by wavelength of (radiation, a spectrum, etc.).
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > physics > electromagnetic radiation > light > chromatism > ascertain elements [verb (transitive)]
analyse1816
1816 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 106 49 Let the light transmitted through the glass DCEF be analysed by a prism of calcareous spar.
1854 R. Hunt Res. Light (ed. 2) xi. 303 Having obtained a very extensive series of coloured glasses..I analyse the luminous spectrum of a well-formed vertical opening between two knife-edges.
1917 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 93 433 This agrees closely with Rawlinson's figures, who analysed nickel radiation generated under a voltage of 30,000.
1956 H. S. Jones in A. Pryce-Jones New Outl. Mod. Knowl. 122 When the light of the corona is analysed with a spectroscope, it is found to contain radiations which have not been observed in the laboratory.
1968 M. A. El-Sayed & W. R. Moomaw in A. B. Zahlan Excitons, Magnons & Phonons in Molecular Crystals ii. 105 These facts..made it possible to fully analyse the phosphorescence spectrum.
1995 Sci. & Public Affairs Winter 63/2 The beam of electrons then causes materials in the field of view to emit X-rays, which the instrument analyses, allowing us to see what chemical elements are present.
Phrasal verbs
to analyse away to analyse out
transitive. To eliminate or reject by a process of analysis.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > enquiry > investigation, inspection > close examination, scrutiny > scrutinize [verb (transitive)] > analyse > so as to get rid of
to analyse away1857
1857 Biblical Repertory Apr. 276 The more philosophers..analyze away..the great landmarks, as shown in revelation or the communis sensus of our race, the less we trust them.
1877 R. H. Hutton Ess. (ed. 2) I. 43 This attempt to analyse away the positive additions of creative power.
1916 Jrnl. Philos., Psychol. & Sci. Methods 13 606 This bold and imaginative attempt to analyze away the genuine differentiae of consciousness is due not so much to observation as to reaction against the excesses of subjectivism.
1954 R. H. Lowie Toward understanding Germany iii. vii. 107 His Leben Jesu (1835) had mercilessly analyzed away every iota of the miraculous in the Scriptures.
1996 Times (Nexis) 15 July The story of the peace process so far is of a series of documents which have attempted to analyse away the harsh realities of ethnic conflict.
transitive. To discover or isolate by a process of analysis; (colloquial) to work out the elements or implications of (a situation).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > testing > try, test [verb (transitive)] > by analysis
tryc1325
to analyse out1845
1845 Athenæum 21 June 617/2 So long as no such process can be traced and analyzed out in this manner, so long the phenomenon is unexplained, [etc.].
1878 Proc. Royal Soc. 27 373 The same machine can serve for analysing out simultaneously the mean lunar and mean solar semi-diurnal tides from a tide-gauge curve.
1926 Jrnl. Philos. 23 50 A critical history of philosophy, that should allow for these illusions of historical perspective, and analyze out the real contribution from the uncriticized assumptions.
1952 M. McCarthy Groves of Academe (1953) ix. 169 ‘It's a dead give~away, Domna,’ he expatiated. ‘Analyse it out for yourself.’
1999 E. Frazer Probl. Communitarian Politics iv. 113 Some critics seem to say that ‘social constructionism’ reifies into a ‘thing’ or, rather, a pseudo-thing, sets of phenomena and processes which should be properly analysed out.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
<
n.a1638
v.1587