An extinct hominid postulated from bones found in Java in 1891 and originally designated Pithecanthropus erectus because it was thought to represent a species evolutionarily between apes and humans. Pithecanthropus is now classified as Homo erectus.
Also called Java man
See more at Homo erectus
First recorded in 1870–75; from New Latin: literally “ape-man”; from Greek píthēk(os) “ape” + Greek ánthrōpos “human being”
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But after further inspection, he changed the name to Pithecanthropus erectus, an upright “ape-man.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2019
Professor Eugene Dubois, 82, Dutch anthropologist who in 1891 found the first skull of the Java ape man, concluded he had discovered the "missing link," called it Pithecanthropus erectus; in Haelen, Belgium.
From Time Magazine Archive
Britain's Sir Arthur Keith, however, world's greatest authority on fossil man, considers Pithecanthropus the earliest known form of man.
From Time Magazine Archive
But for a long time the Dubois find remained the only known Pithecanthropus skull, and comparisons seemed dangerous on the basis of single samples.
From Time Magazine Archive
The remains consisted of the walls of the skull, which indicate a large brain, and a high forehead without the beetling eyebrows of the Neanderthal man and Pithecanthropus.
From The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told by Thomson, J. Arthur
In the museum, the clergyman remarks: "It is not certain that there has been much change in our intellectual and moral attainments since pithecanthropus dropped the first half of his name."
From Time Magazine Archive
The early haunt of the pithecanthropus was in the south of France, at Aix.
From Time Magazine Archive
They claim the pithecanthropus lived 750,000 years ago; later the guess is reduced to 375,000.
From The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproved In 50 Arguments by Williams, William A. (William Asbury)
They called this strange creature pithecanthropus, and fixed its age at 750,000 years; others reduced it to 375,000 years.
From The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproved In 50 Arguments by Williams, William A. (William Asbury)
At the conclusion of the brief ceremony Tarzan, glancing in the direction of the hairless pithecanthropus, discovered that the latter had recovered consciousness and was sitting erect watching them intently.
From Tarzan the Terrible by Burroughs, Edgar Rice
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.
