noun
pl. -·ses·- a separating or breaking up of any whole into its parts, esp. with an examination of these parts to find out their nature, proportion, function, interrelationship, etc.
- any detailed examination
- a statement of the results of this process
- psychoanalysis
- Linguis. the use of word order and uninflected function words rather than inflection to express syntactic relationships
- Math. a branch of mathematics, including calculus, that deals with functions and limits and their generalizations
- systems analysis
Origin of analysis
Medieval Latin from Gr, a dissolving from ana-, up, throughout + lysis, a loosing from lyein, to loose: see loseanalysis Idioms
in the last analysis
after all factors have been considered
