anatomy [LME] At first anatomy was not just the study of the structure of the human body, it was also specifically the practice of cutting up human bodies to learn about them. The word came into English from Greek anatomia, from ana- ‘up’ and tomia ‘cutting’. Anatomy used also to be applied to a skeleton, and in this meaning it was commonly found in the contracted form atomy, as in ‘His sides…looked just like an atomy, ribs and all’ (J. Fenimore Cooper, 1863).