1. to perform surgery on a living animal for scientific research
Usage: scientific; medical

Examples

• The researchers were required to follow strict ethical guidelines when they vivisected the laboratory mice.
• Animal rights activists protested the university’s decision to vivisect primates for neurological studies.
• Before modern anesthesia, scientists would vivisect animals while they were fully conscious.
• The medical school taught students how to properly vivisect frogs to study anatomy.
• Many countries now have laws regulating how scientists can vivisect animals for research.
• The biology professor explained why researchers sometimes need to vivisect specimens to understand organ function.