# analysis

Pronunciation: say "uh-NAL-i-sis" /əˈnæl.ɪ.sɪs/

## Noun

1. Detailed examination of something by studying its parts and how they relate, or the findings or account produced by that examination.
   - Simple: Careful study of something and its parts to understand it, or an explanation of what that study shows.
   - _His analysis of the novel focused on its recurring images of water._
   - _Careful analyses of the data exposed a flaw in the original argument._
2. The process of breaking a substance down into its constituent parts to find out what it contains, or the result of that process.
   - Simple: Finding out what a substance is made of by breaking it into its parts.
   - _The analysis revealed traces of lead in the old paint._
   - _Forensic analyses of the residue confirmed the presence of gunpowder._
3. A broad branch of modern mathematics that developed out of calculus, concerned with the behavior of functions, sequences, series, limits, and related structures.
   - Simple: A branch of math, grown from calculus, that studies how functions and number patterns behave.
   - _Mathematical analysis provides the rigorous foundations underlying calculus._
   - _Much of modern physics relies on tools developed in analysis._
4. Psychoanalytic therapy, which explores unconscious thoughts and feelings to treat emotional and mental difficulties.
   - Simple: A type of treatment that explores hidden thoughts and feelings to help with mental troubles.
   - _He spent three years in analysis with a Freudian therapist._
   - _Her analysis helped her uncover memories she had long suppressed._
5. A method of proof that assumes the result being sought and reasons from it back to truths already accepted, the reverse of synthesis.
   - Simple: A way of proving something by first supposing it is true and working back to facts already known.
   - _The geometer's analysis began by assuming the figure already drawn, then worked back to known theorems._
   - _In Greek geometry, an analysis was usually followed by a synthesis that ran the same steps forward._

## Origin

Greek ana- ("thoroughly") and lúō ("I loosen") combined in analúō ("I unravel, investigate"), from which came Ancient Greek análusis and then Medieval Latin analysis.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/analysis (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).