ethologist
Americannoun
-
ethologists
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Explanation
A scientist who studies how animals behave is an ethologist. Are you fascinated by the waggle dance that bees do to show other bees where to find food? You might want to consider becoming an ethologist! A zoologist who specializes in animal behaviors is an ethologist, and their field is called ethology. These scientists are interested in the characteristic behaviors of different animals, especially how they act in their natural environments. An ethologist might study courtship rituals among various species, compare the way birds express aggression, or investigate animals that exhibit altruistic behavior. The word ethologist derives from the Greek ethos, "character."
Vocabulary lists containing ethologist
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:
Yet studies show that flat-faced dogs possess “kindchenschema” or “baby schema,” a term coined by ethologist Konrad Lorenz to describe infantile features that elicit caregiving reactions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
“For decades there has been a debate about whether animals are capable of such a level of abstraction,” said study leader Marianna Boros, a neuroscientist and ethologist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 22, 2024
“It’s an elegant study. The results are so clear, and the experimental design is so simple,” says ethologist Julia Hyland Bruno of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who wasn’t connected to the work.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 6, 2023
“It is really surprising that nobody else noticed this before,” says Patrizia d’Ettorre, an ethologist at Sorbonne Paris North University, France.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 2, 2022
Others, like Niko Tinbergen, another very famous early ethologist, do experiments out in the place where the animals live.
From "My Life with the Chimpanzees" by Jane Goodall
For that, we need ethologists, not just ethicists.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
Much of that, as it happens, is regarded as nonsense by ethologists — scientists of animal behavior — who focus on dogs.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 10, 2021
It’s long been known that female elephants cooperate, but before ethologists began systematically studying free-roaming horses, few people suspected that cooperating mares were capable not only of waging such a fight—but of winning it.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2015
By studying other species, as comparative psychologists and ethologists do, we may in time be able to trace the biological roots and evolutionary history of our abilities to think, use language, and feel emotions.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 26, 2013
Then there are other ethologists who also go to the home of the animals they wish to study but do not do experiments.
From "My Life with the Chimpanzees" by Jane Goodall
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.
