Anthropological

How to spell anthropological

15 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce anthropological

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anthropological mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the scientific study of human beings, their societies, cultures and development.

Anthropological in a sentence

• The museum's anthropological collection traces early human migration across continents.

• Her anthropological research focused on kinship patterns in rural communities.

Where does anthropological come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word reaches back to two Greek roots that English assembled into a scientific adjective. The first part comes from anthropos, meaning 'human being', and the second from logos, which meant 'word', 'reason' or 'study'. Combined, they describe anything relating to the study of humankind, its societies, cultures and physical development. The noun 'anthropology' was first coined in the 1500s and 1600s from Latinised Greek, originally referring to the study of human nature in a broad sense, and the adjective 'anthropological' followed as the modern academic discipline took shape in the nineteenth century. The same anthropo- root appears in relatives such as 'philanthropy' (love of humankind) and 'misanthrope' (one who dislikes people), while the -logical ending links it to a vast family of study words like 'biological' and 'geological'. The spelling trap lies in the unstressed vowels in the middle, the 'o' after 'anthrop' and the schwa sounds, which are easy to misjudge when writing the word from memory.

How the word is built

• anthropo- (from Greek anthropos: human being)
• log (from logos: study, account)
• -ical (adjective suffix)