Archaeologist

How to spell archaeologist

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce archaeologist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does archaeologist mean?

1. nounA person who studies human history and prehistory by excavating and examining physical remains such as artefacts, buildings, and bones.

Archaeologist in a sentence

• The archaeologist carefully brushed soil away from the buried coins.

• A team led by a respected archaeologist surveyed the ancient settlement.

Where does archaeologist come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built entirely from Greek parts. It begins with arkhaios, meaning 'ancient' or 'belonging to the beginning', which itself derives from arkhe, meaning 'beginning' or 'origin'. To this is joined logos, a hugely productive Greek word meaning 'word', 'reasoned account', or 'study', the same element that ends countless English subject names such as biology and geology. The combination archaeologia originally meant something like 'discourse about ancient things', and it passed through Latin and French into English in the seventeenth century, at first simply as the study of antiquity in general. The agent ending -ist, also Greek in origin, marks the person who carries out the activity. The spelling trap lives right at the front: the older Greek diphthong is preserved as 'ae', so the word keeps the easily forgotten 'a' after 'arch', giving archae- rather than the tempting but incomplete 'arche-'.

How the word is built

• archae- (from Greek arkhaios: ancient, old)
• -o- (connective vowel)
• -log- (from logos: word, study, account)
• -ist (one who practises)

British and American spelling

Archaeologist is the British spelling. American English spells it archeologist.