[ad. mod.L. autopsia (also used in Eng.), a. Gr. αὐτοψία, n. of quality f. αὔτοπτ-ος seeing (or seen) for oneself (see AUTO-, OPTIC); cf. F. autopsie.]
1. Seeing with one’s own eyes, eye-witnessing; personal observation or inspection.
1651. Wittie, trans. Primrose’s Pop. Err., I. xiv. 53. Or by autopsie, when by our observation, wee get a certaine knowledge of things.
1858. De Quincey, Miracles, Wks. VIII. 237. The defect of autopsy may be compensated by sufficient testimony of a multitude.
2. Dissection of a dead body, so as to ascertain by actual inspection its internal structure, and esp. to find out the cause or seat of disease; post-mortem examination.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iii. 161. The Cartesian attempts to solve the motion of the heart mechanically seem … confuted by autopsy and experiment.
1859. F. Mahony, Mod. Lat. Poets, in Rel. Fr. Prout, ii. 548. Had an autopsia taken place after his death, the gall-bladder would have been found empty.
1881. Times, 22 Sept., 4/1. The physicians’ autopsy [of President Garfield] shows the bullet to be nowhere near where it was supposed to be.
b. fig. Critical dissection.
1835. Hist. Eng., in Lardner’s Cab. Cycl., IV. viii. 375. He [James I.] is, moreover, one of the least inviting subjects of moral autopsia.
1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, III. 143. This autopsy of a fine lady’s poem.
