autopsy

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin autopsia (“a seeing with one's own eyes, careful visual examination”),^[2][3][4][5] and partly directly borrowed from Ancient Greek αὐτοψία (autopsía, “a seeing with one's own eyes”),^[2][6][7] formed from αὐτο- (auto-, “self”) and ὄψις (ópsis, “sight”),^[6][3][8] from Proto-Indo-European *okʷ- (“to see”).^[3][8] The OED traces the Greek noun to αὔτοπτος (aútoptos, “self-revealed”), recorded in Byzantine Greek,^[2] while the Oxford Dictionary of English and Barnhart take it from the Greek word for an eyewitness.^[9][4] The New Latin word was used in medical texts from 1586 for careful visual examination,^[2] and in the medical sense English probably followed French autopsie, recorded in a medical context in 1573.^[2][3][4] It shares its second element with optic.^[10][11][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Seeing with one's own eyes, personal observation: 1607, in Walkington's Optick Glasse of Humors.^[2] Barnhart dates this sense to 1651,^[4] and Etymonline to the 1650s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) knew only the old sense, "ocular demonstration; seeing a thing one's self".^[12] The medical sense, the examination of a dead body to find the cause of death, is dated to 1678 by Barnhart and to the 1670s by Etymonline,^[4][3] but the OED's first record is from 1805;^[2] the OED notes that French autopsie had this sense by 1671.^[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins explains the link: in an autopsy the cause of death is found by seeing the body with one's own eyes.^[13] The personal-observation sense is now rare.^[2][10] From 1835 the word was used figuratively for a critical dissection of a subject or work,^[2][5] and the verb, to perform an autopsy on, is recorded from 1839.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1607 – seeing with one's own eyes, personal observation.^[2]
• 1678 – dissection of a dead body (Barnhart).^[4]
• 1805 – post-mortem examination of a body (OED).^[2]
• 1835 – figurative, a critical examination of a subject or work.^[2]
• 1839 – verb, to perform an autopsy on.^[2][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. An examination of a dead body, including dissection of its organs, to find the cause of death or the extent of disease; a post-mortem or necropsy: The autopsy showed that the man had been poisoned.^[5][14][2]
2. A detailed critical analysis of something that has failed or ended: an autopsy of the election campaign.^[5][2]
3. (rare) Observation with one's own eyes; eyewitness observation.^[5][14][2]

Verb

1. To perform an autopsy on a body.^[14][2]

Word family

• autopsic
• autopsist

Related words

• optic
• biopsy
• necropsy
• synopsis
• autoptic

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster