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

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.

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

That, says digital anthropologist Payal Arora, is what makes its journey into parliament significant.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 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

Her mother, an anthropologist, is doing fieldwork on midwives in Thailand.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

In recent decades, many biologists and anthropologists have come to view Homo sapiens as what’s called a “cooperative breeder.”

From Slate ● May 10, 2026

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 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

Like the landscapes of Cahokia and the Maya heartland, some anthropologists say, the great Amazon forest is also a cultural artifact—that is, an artificial object.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann