Neanderthal

American  

[nee-an-der-thawl, -tawl, -tahl, ney-ahn-der-tahl] / niˈæn dərˌθɔl, -ˌtɔl, -ˌtɑl, neɪˈɑn dərˌtɑl /

Also Neandertal

adjective

1. of or relating to Neanderthal man.

2. (often lowercase) primitive, unenlightened, or reactionary; culturally or intellectually backward.

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noun

• Neanderthals
  plural

1. Neanderthal man.

2. (often lowercase)

   1. an unenlightened or ignorant person; barbarian.

   2. a reactionary; a person with very old-fashioned ideas.

Neanderthal British  

/ nɪˈændəˌtɑːl /

adjective

1. relating to or characteristic of Neanderthal man

2. primitive; uncivilized

3. informal ultraconservative; reactionary

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noun

1. a person showing any such characteristics

Neanderthal Scientific  

/ nē-ăn′dər-thôl′,-tôl′ /

1. An extinct variety of human that lived throughout Europe and in parts of western Asia and northern Africa during the late Pleistocene Epoch, until about 30,000 years ago. Neanderthals had a stocky build and large skulls with thick eyebrow ridges and big teeth. They usually lived in caves, made flaked stone tools, and were the earliest humans known to bury their dead. Neanderthals were either a subspecies of modern humans (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or a separate, closely related species (Homo neanderthalensis). They coexisted with early modern humans (Cro-Magnons) for several thousand years before becoming extinct, but are not generally believed to have interbred with them.

2. See also Mousterian

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Neanderthal Cultural  

1. The ancient and now extinct relatives of modern humans. Neanderthals lived in Europe about 150,000 years ago and were the earliest form of the human species, Homo sapiens.

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Discover More

The term Neanderthal is sometimes used to refer to a person who is thought to have primitive or unenlightened ideas: “I tried talking politics to Joe, but he's a real Neanderthal.”

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• Neanderthaler
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• Neanderthals
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Neanderthal

First recorded in 1860–65; after Neanderthal, valley in Germany, near Düsseldorf, where evidence of Neanderthal man was first found

Explanation

A neanderthal is someone who is rude and not very smart. If your brother interrupts your garden party by spraying your guests with a hose, you can call him a neanderthal. When neanderthal is spelled with a lower-case n, it means a cretin or a dolt — a rough, mean, and slightly foolish person. If you spell it with a capital N, it means an extinct species of human being, and it's the root of the lower-case version. The word Neanderthal is German, named for the Neander Valley where human fossils have been found, and around 1926 neanderthal became popular British slang for a "big, brutish, stupid person."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Neanderthal Neanderthals

Their size corresponds to small arrowheads, which are directly comparable to those produced by Homo sapiens during an incursion into Neanderthal territory in the Rhône Valley, 25,000 years later.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026

Neanderthal chitinase genes appear to have supported more efficient insect digestion, a pattern also detected in the only Denisovan specimen included in the analysis.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

"We found that these contributions are widespread throughout the genome, and ghost ancestry is detected even in regions previously thought to be intolerant of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry."

From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026

For much of the novel, we inhabit the consciousness of Lok, a young male Neanderthal who hasn’t yet acquired the habits of abstraction on which narrative usually depends.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026

Our societies are built from the same building blocks as Neanderthal or chimpanzee societies, and the more we examine these building blocks—sensations, emotions, family ties—the less difference we find between us and other apes.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

Many other ancient regions, however, matched neither Neanderthals nor Denisovans.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026

Modern humans who left Africa roughly 50,000 years ago encountered Neanderthals and Denisovans in Eurasia and interbred with both groups.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026

Its premise—the first, disastrous encounter between a family of placid Neanderthals and a ruthless “new people,” Homo sapiens—is simple, though its execution is anything but.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026

This is where archaeology and cultural anthropology become decisive again, because genes are not enough to reconstruct the social scene based on encounters between Neanderthals and Sapiens.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 7, 2026

Why couldn’t even the strong, brainy, cold-proof Neanderthals survive our onslaught?

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari