dissection
/dɪˈsɛkʃən/noun
dissection is spelled D-I-S-S-E-C-T-I-O-N. The wrong spelling people search most is disection: about 200 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Dissection is a noun meaning “The act of dissecting”. The plural of dissection is dissections.
How many letters and syllables are in dissection?
| Letters | 10: D-I-S-S-E-C-T-I-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.0 times per million words; the 28,556th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, disection, about 200 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell dissection?
Dissection is spelled D-I-S-S-E-C-T-I-O-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for dissection in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is dissection?
Dissection appears 1.0 times per million words in written English, the 28,556th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce dissection?
- /dɪˈsɛkʃən/
- /daɪˈsɛkʃən/
Dissection has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vininn126-dissection.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of dissection
- dissections plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does dissection mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The act of dissecting.
- 2
Something dissected.
- 3
A minute and detailed examination or analysis.
- 4
Surgical removal.
neck dissection
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Dissection in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the act of dissecting, of cutting a dead body apart:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | dissection |
| German | Präparation, Dissektion |
| Portuguese | dissecação |
| Spanish | disección |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does dissection come from?
Borrowed from Latin dissectiōnem, perhaps via Middle French dissection. By surface analysis, dissect + -ion.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).