analyze

What it means

1. UStransitiveTo subject to analysis.

   This section addresses the recent homeless backlash by reviewing and analyzing antihomeless legislation[…]

   1995, Madeleine R. Stoner, The Civil Rights of Homeless People, page 136

   3 more examples

   The clearest lesson is that the F.D.A. needs the power to demand adequate postmarketing studies and the resources to analyze the results.

   2007 June 12, “Misdirected Studies on Avandia”, in New York Times

   The phase structure of the fabricated nanophosphor samples was analyzed by using an X-ray diffractometer (XRD; Mac Science, M18XHF-SRA) with Cu Kα ( λ = 1.5402 Å) radiation, and the JADE software was applied to analyze the XRD data.

   2015 August 12, Peng Du et al., “Enhanced Photovoltaic Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells by Efficient Near-Infrared Sunlight Harvesting using Upconverting Y2O3:Er3+/Yb3+ Phosphor Nanoparticles”, in Nanoscale Research Letters, volume 10, →DOI

   When sensors record a gunlike noise in, say, Cape Town or Chicago, software analyzes it for the sonic signatures of gunfire, and within seconds Beisner and his team listen to those audio files and look at those recorded waveforms at their office in Newark, Calif.

   2019 June 8, Malia Wollan, “How to Tell Gunfire From Fireworks”, in The New York Times Magazine

2. UStransitiveTo resolve (anything complex) into its elements.

   analyze a problem

3. UStransitiveTo separate into the constituent parts, for the purpose of an examination of each separately.

In a sentence

This section addresses the recent homeless backlash by reviewing and analyzing antihomeless legislation[…]

1995, Madeleine R. Stoner, The Civil Rights of Homeless People, page 136

Where it comes from

1. Ancient Greekἀνάλυσις“a breaking up, a loosening, releasing”
2. Medieval Latinanalysis
3. Middle Frenchanalyser
4. Englishanalyze

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 (análusis, “a breaking up, a loosening, releasing”), from ἀναλύω (analúō, “to unloose, release, set free”), from ἀνά (aná, “on, up, above, throughout”) + λύσις (lúsis, “a loosening”), from λύω (lúō, “to unfasten”).