Meaning & use
anatomy
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Meanings
noununcountablebiology
The scientific study of how the bodies of people, animals or plants are built, including the parts and how they fit together.
Grammar: Uncountable when it names the subject: she studies anatomy, not an anatomy.
Patterns
- study anatomy
- the anatomy of something
Medical students spend their first year learning human anatomy.
He took a class in plant anatomy to understand how stems carry water.
A good drawing teacher knows anatomy well enough to get a shoulder right.
nouncountable or uncountable
The physical structure of a particular body or living thing, or of one part of it.
Grammar: Often used with a possessive or of: the anatomy of a bird, a dancer's anatomy.
Patterns
- the anatomy of something
- someone's anatomy
The anatomy of a bat's wing is quite different from that of a bird's.
The scan showed an unusual feature in the patient's anatomy.
Snakes have a very different internal anatomy from lizards.
nounsingularfigurative
The way something is made up or organized, studied part by part in order to understand it.
Grammar: Usually singular and followed by of: the anatomy of a crisis.
Patterns
- the anatomy of something
The report examines the anatomy of the bank's collapse step by step.
This book explores the anatomy of a successful startup.
nounsingularhumorousinformal
A humorous way to refer to a person's body.
Grammar: Usually singular with a possessive: his anatomy, not his anatomies.
Patterns
- part of someone's anatomy
The ladder fell on a rather sensitive part of his anatomy.
She tried to fit her whole anatomy into the tiny airplane seat.
Word forms
| plural | anatomies |
|---|
Common combinations
- human anatomy
- The museum has a room devoted to human anatomy.
- study anatomy
- Many artists study anatomy to draw figures accurately.
- the anatomy of something
- The documentary explains the anatomy of a hurricane.
- comparative anatomy
- Comparative anatomy shows that whales and bats share bone patterns with humans.
- basic anatomy
- Every first aid course teaches basic anatomy of the heart and lungs.
- internal anatomy
- The dissection showed the frog's internal anatomy clearly.
Synonyms and how they differ
- structure
- This is a general word for how anything is built, while anatomy is mainly used for living bodies or as a figure of speech for a detailed breakdown.
- physique
- This describes how a person's body looks, especially its shape and muscle, and does not refer to the study of internal parts.
- makeup
- This means what something is made of overall, with less emphasis on parts and their positions than anatomy.
- dissection
- This is the act of cutting a body apart to study it, so it is a method used in anatomy rather than a synonym for the subject.
Word family
- anatomical adjective
- relating to the structure of the body
- anatomically adverb
- in terms of body structure
- anatomist noun
- a person who studies anatomy
- dissect verb
- to cut open in order to study the parts
Commonly confused: anatomy or physiology?
anatomy vs physiology
Physiology studies how body parts work, such as how the heart pumps blood, while anatomy studies what the parts are and where they sit.
Practice
The nursing students studied the ____ of the hand, learning the names and positions of every bone.
Choose one answer.
Anatomy is the study of body structure, which matches learning names and positions of bones. Physiology is tempting but concerns how parts function, not their layout.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “anatomy”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.