From Greek 'analyein' (to unloose), analytical preserves the ancient metaphor of understanding as untying — separating bound parts to examine them individually.
Relating to or using analysis; skilled in or habitually inclined toward breaking complex topics into component parts for examination.
From Medieval Latin 'analyticus,' from Greek 'analytikos' (able to analyze), derived from 'analyein' (to unloose, to resolve into elements), itself composed of 'ana-' (up, back, throughout) and 'lyein' (to loosen, to untie). The English form with the '-ical' suffix appeared in the late 1500s. The metaphor at the core of the word is physical: analysis is the act of untying or loosening something bound together, separating its parts to understand
Aristotle's lost work 'Analytika' (the Analytics) established the word's intellectual prestige. His Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics laid the foundations of formal logic. The title literally meant 'the unloosenings' — Aristotle saw logical reasoning as the process of untying knotted