Definition of "autopsy" in English

noun

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

   • The autopsy revealed he had died of multiple bullet wounds.

2. (figuratively) An 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.

3. (rare) An eyewitness observation, the presentation of an event as witnessed.

verb

1. (transitive) To perform an autopsy on.

2. (transitive) To 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.