anthropologist
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of anthropologist
First recorded in 1790–1800; anthropolog(y) + -ist
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.
Vocabulary lists containing anthropologist
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Anthropologist Anstice Justin, 71, took part in the government's limited contact missions to the restricted North Sentinel island in the Andaman Sea between 1986 and 2004.
From Barron's • May 18, 2026
Anthropologist Emma Tarlo, author of a richly detailed ethnographic work of the period, wrote that during the Emergency, the poor were subjected to "forced choices".
From BBC • Jun. 24, 2025
Anthropologist Roger Zuniga of San Luis Gonzaga National University in Ica Peru said researchers had studied five similar specimens over four years.
From Reuters • Nov. 8, 2023
But that story's not true, according to research by University of Delaware anthropology professor Sarah Lacy, which was recently published in Scientific American and in two papers in the journal American Anthropologist.
From Science Daily • Oct. 20, 2023
Evans’s is a talent so exceptional that Oliver Sacks, in An Anthropologist on Mars, devotes a passage to him in a chapter on autistic savants–quickly adding that "there is no suggestion that he is autistic."
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
