autopsy

plural autopsies · alternative archaic autopsia

1. A dissection performed on a cadaver to find possible cause(s) of death.

   The autopsy revealed he had died of multiple bullet wounds.

   Synonyms: necropsy, necrotomy, postmortem

2. figurativelyAn after-the-fact examination, especially of the causes of a failure.

   This lack of built-in clutter makes the system easy to comprehend. Debugging facilities are few but powerful: snapshots, tracing, and autopsy.

   1977, National Science Foundation (U.S.), Washington State University. Computer Science Dept, Proceedings of Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula (issue 8)

   1 more example

   Understanding exactly what happened and why is an essential first step to winning back the White House. ¶ In addition to the autopsy, the DNC should abandon the penchant for secrecy and embrace the principles of transparency and accountability that helped inspire and engage millions of people to participate in the 2008 Obama campaign.

   2017 January 19, Steve Phillips, “The Next DNC Chair Must Abandon Color-Blind Politics”, in The Nation, new York, N.Y.: The Nation Company, L.P., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 Aug 2022

   Synonyms: postmortem

3. rareAn eyewitness observation, the presentation of an event as witnessed.

present singular third person autopsies · participle present autopsying · participle past autopsied · past autopsied · alternative archaic autopsia

1. transitiveTo perform an autopsy on.
2. transitiveTo perform an after-the-fact analysis of, especially of a failure.

   The user may define his own errors, and use DUMPAL to autopsy the system for him.

   1977, National Science Foundation (U.S.), Washington State University. Computer Science Dept, Proceedings of Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula (issue 8)