Etymology

Noun

1. The art of dissecting, or artificially separating the different parts of any organized body, to discover their situation, structure, and economy; dissection.
2. The science that deals with the form and structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization.
   • Let the muscles be well inserted and bound together, according to the knowledge of them which is given us by anatomy. --Dryden.

   Animal anatomy is also called zomy or zootomy; vegetable anatomy, phytotomy; and human anatomy, anthropotomy.

   Comparative anatomy compares the structure of different kinds and classes of animals.

3. A treatise or book on anatomy.
4. The act of dividing anything, corporeal or intellectual, for the purpose of examining its parts; analysis; as, the anatomy of a discourse.
5. A skeleton, or dead body.
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 68:

     So did the Ægyptians, who in the middest of their banquetings, and in the full of their greatest cheere, caused the anatomie of a dead man to be brought before them, as a memorandum and warning to their guests.