ethnographic

American  

[eth-nuh-graf-ik] / ˌɛθ nəˈgræf ɪk /

Rarely ethnographical

adjective

1. of or relating to ethnography, the branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures.

   Ethnographic information indicates that trips to harvest wild hot peppers were important social and economic ventures among Apache peoples in the region.

---

Other Word Forms

• ethnographically
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of ethnographic

ethno- ( def. ) + -graphic ( def. )

Explanation

Anything that describes a specific culture's customs, like a movie about a small village in China or a book about French Canadians, can be described as ethnographic. You're most likely to hear the word ethnographic in an anthropology class, since it's a scientific way to describe books, films, research, or lectures that have to do with the study of human societies and their customs. The word comes from two Greek roots, ethnos, or "people," and grapho, "to write." So if you write a paper about the customs of American teenagers in the 1980s, your work is ethnographic.

Example Sentences

Dr Conor Murray, a senior lecturer in criminology at Ulster University, is the author of Young Men, Masculinities and Imprisonment: An ethnographic study in Northern Ireland.

From BBC • Mar. 29, 2026

It is the summation of the ethnographic fieldwork, bold hypotheses and sweeping synthesis unique to this scholar of rural resistance.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025

Matrilineal avuncularity is known from a few ethnographic and historical examples, he notes, such as the Iroquois of North America, and is often unrelated to concerns about female fidelity.

From Science Magazine • Jun. 3, 2024

Joonmo Kang, assistant professor of social welfare, spent a year living in Jjokbang-chon, an extremely impoverished neighborhood in Seoul, as part of an ethnographic research project.

From Science Daily • Apr. 23, 2024

The one thing that is clear from the survey data and ethnographic research is that African Americans in ghetto communities experience an intense “dual frustration” regarding crime and law enforcement.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander