An analysis of a circuit to be analyzed is made in correspondence with the name of each element which includes a cell configuring the circuit to be analyzed, and the meaning or the relationship of a signal to a terminal of each element, and a determination of whether or not a path from a starting point to an end point is a multi-cycle path is made by using a result of the analysis, thereby providing an analyzing method that can also cope with the use of a gated clock, and an increase in the scale of a circuit, has a short processing time, and can accurately detect a multi-cycle path.