noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The act or instance of cutting, surgery, or other invasive treatment of a living organism for the purposes of physiological or pathological scientific investigation. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   the act of operating on living animals (especially in scientific research) wordnet

Example

More examples

"Do you know what vivisection is?"

Etymology

From Latin vīvus (“alive”) + sectiō (“cutting”). Compare French vivisection. See also vivid and section.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.