Other forms: analyzed, analyzing, analyzes
To analyze is to take something apart in your mind to understand how it works. Analyze the data, carefully analyzed, analyze the results.
This is the American spelling; British English writes analyse, and both are pronounced the same. It means breaking a whole into parts and examining each — which is why analysis is the opposite of synthesis, a putting together. In chemistry it means determining what a substance contains. Note analysis, analyst, analytical; and that to analyze something is to explain it rather than to judge it.
1verbanalyzeTo take something apart in your mind to understand it.
“The detective analyzed every detail of the crime scene.”
analyze is an examining in parts.
Also accepted in games: analyse
Greek analysis means a loosening up — ana-, up, plus lyein, to loosen. To analyze is to untie a knot into its separate strands, which is a better description than taking apart.
Ancient Greek
ἀνάλυσις — a breaking up, a loosening, releasing
Medieval Latin
analysis
Middle French
analyser
English, today
analyze
Built from
Probably formed within English, by back-formation, or by haplology from analysis + -ize, or from Middle French analyser, from the noun analyse, from Medieval Latin analysis, from Ancient Greek ἀνάλυσις (“a breaking up, a loosening, releasing”), from ἀναλύω (“to unloose, release, set free”), from ἀνά (“on, up, above, throughout”) + λύσις (“a loosening”), from λύω (“to unfasten”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA