anthropologist
Americannoun
-
anthropologists
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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
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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.
See Examples For:
The European origin of the hypothesis has been used to blame Europe in part for the Rwandan genocide, a position held by anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani, whose son is mayor of New York.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Until the early 1990s, the police kept a close eye on such funerals for fear of human sacrifices, according to the American anthropologist Janet Hoskins.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
Anoko, the WHO anthropologist, says it takes patience to help a community at a time like this.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
Dodd was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, and asked his friend Lockhart, a medical anthropologist, to help him figure out what brought him to his lowest moment.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
Peruvian anthropologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe first brought these famous drawings to the attention of the outside world in 1927.
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
The group included anthropologists, geneticists, an archaeologist, an archaeobotanist, stable isotope specialists, radiocarbon experts, and dentists.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 2025
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
The Amazon is not wild, archaeologists and anthropologists retort.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
