Anthropologist

How to spell anthropologist

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce anthropologist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anthropologist mean?

1. nounA person who studies human societies, cultures, and their development.

Anthropologist in a sentence

• The anthropologist spent two years living with a remote community to record its customs.

• As an anthropologist, she compared kinship systems across several continents.

Where does anthropologist come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built from two Greek elements: anthropos, meaning 'human being', and logos, meaning 'word', 'account', or 'study'. The combination 'anthropology' was coined in the modern era to name the scientific study of humankind, its cultures, societies, and physical development, and the agent suffix -ist was added to name the person who practises it. The term entered English in the seventeenth century, at first in a narrower sense concerning human anatomy and nature, before broadening in the nineteenth century into the academic discipline recognised today. The same anthropos root surfaces in relatives such as 'misanthrope', a person who dislikes humankind, and 'philanthropy', the love of humankind expressed through giving. The spelling trap lies in that buried 'h' after the 't' and the unstressed vowels, since the word is long and the middle 'o' of anthropo- is easy to drop or swap.

How the word is built

• anthropo- (from Greek anthropos: human being)
• -log- (from logos: study, account)
• -ist (one who practises)