Pl. analyses. [a. med. (or early mod.) L. analysis (found c. 1470), a. Gr. ἀνάλυσις, n. of action f. ἀναλύ-ειν to unloose, undo, f. ἀνά up, back + λύ-ειν to loose: see -SIS.]
I. Generally.
1. The resolution or breaking up of anything complex into its various simple elements, the opposite process to synthesis; the exact determination of the elements or components of anything complex (with or without their physical separation). † a. of things material. Obs., exc. as fig. from spec. uses.
1667. H. Stubbe, in Phil. Trans., II. 501. I tryed some Analysis of Bodies by letting Ants eat them.
1867. Sir J. Herschel, Fam. Lect. Sc., 70. A mechanical analysis of the contents of your basket.
b. of things immaterial.
1581. Kirke, Spenser’s Sheph. Cal., Argt. Which difinition albe … it agree with the nature of the thing, yet no whit answereth with the analysis and interpretation of the worde.
1590. Nashe, in Greene’s Arcad., Pref. 7. These men … doe bound their base humours in the beggerly straights of a hungry Analysis.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Analysis is most proper for the discovery of truth, and synthesis for teaching and explaining it in a systematical way.
1797. Godwin, Enquirer, I. vi. 46. The habits of investigation and analysis.
1825. Macaulay, Ess., Milton. Analysis is not the business of the Poet. His office is to portray, not to dissect.
1866. G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., 470. A time favourable to the analysis of feeling.
1873. H. Spencer, Sociol., 322. Analysis has for its chief function to prepare the way for synthesis.
2. concr. A tabular statement or other form embodying the results of the above process; an abridgement exhibiting the essential heads; a synopsis or conspectus; as an analysis of a textbook, of a General Charges account. Bowling analysis in Cricket, a register of the result of each ball bowled.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. i. § 1. 22. A Scheme or Analysis of all the Genus’s or more common heads of things belonging to this design.
1816. Gentl. Mag., LXXXVI. I. 11. So good an analysis of Mr. Park’s ‘History of Hampstead.’
1862. Robertson (title), Analysis of Mr. Tennyson’s In Memoriam.
1882. Daily Tel., 27 May, 3/7. The fielding of the Australians had been excellent, but it was as nothing compared with the bowling, the analysis of which we append below.
II. Specifically.
3. Chem. The resolution of a chemical compound into its proximate or ultimate elements; the determination of the elements of which it is composed; or, in the case of a substance of known composition, such as water, of the foreign substances that it may contain.
When the analysis determines only what the elements are, it is qualitative; when it determines the quantity of each present, it is quantitative; the latter is gravimetrical or volumetrical according as the weights or the volumes of the elements are measured.
a. 1655. Lett., in Hartlib, Commonw. Bees, 27. Manna … hath [not] the like nature as Honey, which in its Analysis more easily is apparent.
1686. W. Harris, Lemery’s Chem., II. xxii. 621. Let us examine now whether any such thing can probably be found in opium by the Analysis I have made of it.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. I. I. iii. 51. The quantity of charcoal which they yield by analysis.
1831. T. P. Jones, New Convers. Chem., xxviii. 282. Sugar, starch, and gum are proximate principles, and these we obtain by proximate analysis.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 83. A large number of analyses of air from various localities.
4. Optics. The resolution of light into its prismatic constituents.
1831. Brewster, Optics, xxiii. 205. The polarisation of the incident light, and the analysis of the transmitted light.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., II. § 6. 253. A delicate prismatic analysis of white light.
5. Literature. The investigation of any production of the intellect, as a poem, tale, argument, philosophical system, so as to exhibit its component elements in simple form.
1644. E. Huit (title), The whole Prophecie of Daniel Explained by a Paraphrase, Analysis and Briefe Comment.
1789. Belsham, Ess., II. xxxiv. 244. Of these [theories] I shall not descend to a particular analysis.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1868), I. vi. 357. Such, in brief analysis, was the memorable Declaration of Elizabeth.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. v. 105. The critical analysis of the text.
6. Gram. The ascertainment of the elements composing a sentence or any part of it. esp. (since 1852) Logical, Syntactic, or Sentence Analysis: the resolution of the sentence into elements performing distinct functions in the expression of thought, and thus having definite relations to the whole sentence and to each other, as subject and predicate with their respective enlargements.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., viii. (1627), 104. Of the analysis or resolving a sentence.
1724. Watts, Logic, IV. i. Wks. 1813, VII. 511. The word analysis has three or four senses … When a sentence is distinguished into the nouns, the verbs, pronouns, and other particles of speech which compose it, then it is said to be analysed grammatically. When the same sentence is distinguished into subject, predicate … then it is analysed logically, and metaphysically.
1852. Min. Comm. Council, I. 23. Geography, history, the analysis of language, arithmetic.
1852. Morell (title), Analysis of Sentences explained.
1869. Farrar, Fam. of Speech, i. 31. The name for grammar in Sanscrit means analysis.
7. Math. Ancient Analysis, The proving of a proposition by resolving it into simpler propositions already proved or admitted. Modern Analysis, The resolving of problems by reducing them to equations.
1656. Hobbes, Elem. Philos. (1839), 309. Analysis is continual reasoning from the definitions of the terms of a proposition we suppose true … and so on, till we come to some things known.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 162/2. Analysis as defined by the Scholiast upon Euclid, is a sumption of the thing sought, by the consequents (as if it were already known) to find out the truth.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., Simple Analysis is that employed in solving problems reducible to simple equations.
1798. Hutton, Course Math. (1827), I. 3. Analysis or the Analytic Method … is that which is commonly used in Algebra.
1879. Thomson & Tait, Nat. Phil., I. I. 171. Spherical harmonic analysis, has for its object the expression of an arbitrary periodic function of two independent variables in the proper form for a large class of physical problems involving arbitrary data over a spherical surface.
8. Logic. The tracing of things to their source, and the resolution of knowledge into its original principles; the discovery of general principles underlying concrete phenomena.
1665. Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., xxv. 154 (J.). We cannot know any thing of Nature but by an Analysis of its true initial causes.
1724. Watts, Logic, IV. i. (1822), 372. Analysis finds out causes by their effects.
1877. Caird, Philos. Kant, vii. 319. Analysis … is simply going back on the path which the mind has already travelled, proceeding from the more to the less determinate.
