anthropologist

American  

[an-thruh-pol-uh-jist] / ˌæn θrəˈpɒl ə dʒɪst /

noun

• anthropologists
  plural

1. a person who specializes in anthropology.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• anthropologists
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of anthropologist

First recorded in 1790–1800; anthropolog(y) + -ist

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Explanation

If you like to go people watching and enjoy studying the ways that humans behave, then you might be a future anthropologist. Anthropologists are people that practice anthropology, which is the study of humanity. Basically they want to figure out what makes humans human. An anthropologist might be interested in everything from the traditions of a tribe on a remote island to the culture of an urban community and everything in between. Biological anthropologists spend their time with fossils and artifacts trying to figure out how early humans might have behaved and what makes us different from other primates.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

anthropologist anthropologists

Earlier population estimates often relied heavily on calculations made during the 1930s by anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026

In my decades as a cultural anthropologist studying authoritarianism in Russia and the United States, I’ve learned that one of power’s most useful tricks is making responsibility vanish.

From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2026

Det Ch Insp Mel Sutherland said forensic anthropologist Dr Micol Zuppello worked for several days to "painstakingly extract the body", with all but the tip of a toe and some small eye socket bones recovered.

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

"And the trend continues," said cultural anthropologist Peter Hoerz.

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

Sahagun is known as the first American anthropologist, for he labored for decades to understand the Indians he sought to convert.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

FY: I think that architects and designers have to be anthropologists.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026

Daniel Aliyu Kwali, president of the FCT Stakeholders' Assembly, noted that some anthropologists and historians say that communities have lived there for over 6,000 years.

From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2026

At the same time, anthropologists have documented enormous variation in human marriage systems.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 22, 2026

If fear of the undead is a human universal, is it a consequence of common cognition, as some psychologists suggest, or cultural transmission, as anthropologists might prefer?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2025

Some philosophers and nearly all anthropologists agreed: standards of rationality were, they insisted, local and highly variable.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

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