man

men (plural)
mang (alternative)
mane (alternative)
mans (alternative)
mon (alternative)
mxn (alternative)
mans (alternative)
mens (alternative)
mandem (alternative)
mens (alternative)
mxn (alternative)
myn (alternative)

Tok Pisin: man

→ Cantonese: man

→ Chinook Jargon: man

→ Korean: 맨 (maen)

→ Mandarin: man (mān)

→ Spanish: man

→ Thai: แมน (mɛɛn)

→ Volapük: man

From Middle English man, from Old English mann m (“human being, person, man”), from Proto-West Germanic *mann, from Proto-Germanic *mann- m, from Proto-Indo-European *mon- (“human being, man”). Doublet of Manu.
See also Saterland Frisian Mon, West Frisian man, Dutch man, Low German Mann, German Mann, Swedish man, Norwegian Nynorsk mann, Danish mand.

inh

чолові́к m (čolovík) (now usually means "man", "male human")

a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle

a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle

behind every great man there stands a woman

behind every successful man there stands a woman

every man is the architect of his own fortune

give a man a fish and you feed him for a day

teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God

the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray

the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

The evidence suggests that close relatives of early man, in lineages that later became extinct, also were able to use tools.

1990, The Almanac of Science and Technology, →ISBN, page 68:

(anthropology, archaeology, paleontology) A member of the genus Homo, especially of the species Homo sapiens.


Indo-European

Indo-Europeans (plural)
Indoeuropean (alternative)
IE (alternative abbreviation)
IE. (alternative abbreviation)

/ˌɪndəʊˌjʊəɹəˈpiːən/

Coined by English polymath Thomas Young in 1813, from Indo- + European, relating to the geographical extremes in India and Europe (which was valid before the discovery of Tocharian languages in the early 20th century).

coin

Two theories of the origins of the Indo-Europeans currently compete. M. Gimbutas believes that early Indo-Europeans entered southeastern Europe from the Pontic Steppes starting ca. 4500 B.C. and spread from there. C. Renfrew equates early Indo-Europeans with early farmers who entered southeastern Europe from Asia Minor ca. 7000 BC and spread through the continent.

1992, R.R. Sokal, N.L. Oden, B.A. Thomson, “Origins of the Indo-Europeans: genetic evidence”, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, volume 89, →DOI, →PMID:

Thus, although at least one term for ‘alder’ can be reconstructed to PIE, the wide distribution of this tree prevents it from being diagnostic of the earlier location of the Indo-Europeans.

1997, J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams, “ALDER”, in Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, London, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, →ISBN, page 12:

(anthropology, archaeology, linguistics) A member of the original ethnolinguistic group hypothesized to have spoken Proto-Indo-European and thus to have been the ancestor for most of India and Western Eurasia.

հնդեվրոպացի

member of Proto-Indo-European ethnolinguistic group


transcultural

(sociology, anthropology) Extending through more than one human culture.

ylikulttuurinen

extending through more than one human culture


tribe

PIE word
 *tréyes
From Middle English tribe, tribu, from Old French tribu, from Latin tribus. Doublet of tribus.

the Twelve Tribes of Israel; Germanic tribes; Celtic tribes

The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-state

If two persons bore the same name, […] ambiguity was avoided by […] indicating their place of origin, the name of the tribe or deme being added for persons of the same town […], and the name of the country or town for foreigners […].

1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xiii:

There have been other encounters with uncontacted tribes in recent years.
In February, a young man from an isolated Indigenous tribe in Brazil made brief contact with the outside world before returning to the Amazon rainforest.

2025 April 4, Lex Harvey and Esha Mitra, “US tourist arrested after allegedly attempting to contact ‘world’s most isolated’ tribe”, in CNN:

(history, anthropology) An ethnic group larger than a band or clan (and which may contain clans) but smaller than a nation (and which in turn may constitute a nation with other tribes). The tribe is often the basis of ethnic identity.


archaic

archaics (plural)
archaeic (alternative archaic hypercorrect)
archæic (alternative archaic hypercorrect)
archaïc (alternative archaic)
archaick (alternative obsolete)

From archaism (“ancient or obsolete phrase or expression”) or from French archaïque, ultimately from Ancient Greek ἀρχαϊκός (arkhaïkós, “old-fashioned”), from ἀρχαῖος (arkhaîos, “from the beginning, antiquated, ancient, old”), from ἀρχή (arkhḗ, “beginning, origin”), from ἄρχω (árkhō, “I am first”), from ἄρχω (árkhō, “I begin”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ergʰ- (“to begin, rule, command”).

der

[...] prefer the third explanation for the advanced-looking features of Neandertals (Chapter 7) and the Ngandong hominins (Chapter 6), but they have had little to say about the post-Erectine archaics from China.

(paleoanthropology) (A member of) an archaic variety of Homo sapiens.


sedentary

en-adj

sedentary (comparative more sedentary, superlative most sedentary)

more sedentary (comparative)
most sedentary (superlative)

migratory

antonym(s) of “living in a fixed geographical location”

From Middle French sédentaire, from Latin sedentārius (“sitting”), from sedeō (“I sit, I am seated”).

(anthropology, of a human population) Living in a fixed geographical location; the opposite of nomadic.


state

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *steh₂-
Latin statuslbor.
Old French estatbor.
Middle English stat
English state
From Middle English stat (as a noun); adopted c. 1200 from both Old French estat and Latin stātus (“manner of standing, attitude, position, carriage, manner, dress, apparel; and other senses”), from stāre (“to stand”). Doublet of estate and status. The sense of "polity" develops in the 14th century. Compare French être, Greek στέω (stéo), Italian stare, Portuguese estar, Romanian sta, and Spanish estar. The verb is first attested around the beginning of the 16th century. Related to English stand.

der

something is rotten in the state of Denmark

there is something rotten in the state of Denmark

(anthropology) A society larger than a tribe. A society large enough to form a state in the sense of a government.


band

→ Cantonese: band

→ German: Band (colloquial)

→ Japanese: バンド (bando)

→ Korean: 밴드 (baendeu)

Derived from Middle English band, from Old French bande, from Old Occitan banda (“regiment of troops”), perhaps from Frankish *bend, from Proto-Germanic *bandiz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ- (“to tie; bond, band”). Compare German Bande (“band”).

(anthropology) A small group of people living in a simple society, contrasted with tribes, chiefdoms, and nations.

banda

anthropology: small group of people living in a simple society


AI

en-noun

AI (countable and uncountable, plural AIs)

Audio (US)

(linguistics, anthropology) Initialism of atavistic-idiosyncratic.


function

From Middle French function, from Old French fonction, from Latin functiō (“performance, execution”), from functus, perfect participle of fungor (“to perform, execute, discharge”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewg- (“to enjoy”).

der

(anthropology) The role of a social practice in the continued existence of the group.


Mongolian

en-adj

Mongolian (comparative more Mongolian, superlative most Mongolian)

more Mongolian (comparative)
most Mongolian (superlative)
mongolian (alternative)

Originally from Mongol + -ian, a translation (1706) of the German mongolisch, mongalisch. Subsequently, from the name of the country of Mongolia + -an.

The Mongolian variety inhabits eastern Asia, Finland, and Lapland in Europe, and includes the Esquimaux of North America.

1828, John Stark, Elements of natural history:

The white (or Caucasian), the yellow (or Mongolian), and the black (or Ethiopian)

1834, Penny cyclopædia of the Society for the diffusion of useful knowledge, volume II:

It was not so much their Mongolian features that impressed everyone...

1990, Louis de Bernières, The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts:

(anthropology, dated) Resembling or having some of the characteristic physical features of the mongoloid racial type.


culture

en-noun

culture (countable and uncountable, plural cultures)

cultures (plural)
culcha (alternative pronunciation-spelling)

From Middle French culture (“cultivation; culture”), from Latin cultūra (“cultivation; culture”), from cultus, perfect passive participle of colō (“till, cultivate, to grow, worship”) (related to colōnus and colōnia), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to move; to turn (around)”).

der

(anthropology) Any knowledge passed from one generation to the next, not necessarily with respect to human beings.

ܡܲܪܕܘܼܬܵܐ

anthropology: any knowledge passed from one generation to the next


Aberdonian

From Medieval Latin Aberdonia (“Aberdeen”) + -an.

(British English, Scotland, ethnography) A citizen or inhabitant of, or person born in, Aberdeen, NE Scotland.


MBD

en-noun

MBD (countable and uncountable, plural MBDs)

Four kinds of first-cousin marriages are possible. A man could marry (1) his father's brother's daughter (FBD), (2) his mother's brother's daughter (MBD), (3) his father's sister's daughter (FZD), or (4) his mother's sister's daughter[…]

2015 January 4, Bobbi S. Low, Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior - Revised Edition, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 63:

(anthropology) Initialism of mother's brother's daughter.


PIE

(linguistics, anthropology, etc.) Initialism of Proto-Indo-European.


liminal

en-adj

liminal (comparative more liminal, superlative most liminal)

more liminal (comparative)
most liminal (superlative)

From Latin limināris, from līmen (“doorstep, threshold; doorway, entrance; beginning, commencement”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship from nouns). Līmen is possibly derived from līmus (“askew; sideways”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *Heh₃l- (“to bend, bow; elbow”)) + -men (suffix forming neuter nouns of the third declension) (from Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ (suffix forming action nouns or result nouns from verbs)).

der

(anthropology, literary theory) Pertaining to or in a state that is in-between or transitional between two (or more) other states, while belonging to neither; pertaining to or in a state such as to be neither definitively in a particular other state or category nor definitively outside it.


clan

→ Catalan: clan

→ Danish: klan

→ Dutch: clan

→ French: clan
→ Turkish: klan

→ Galician: clan

→ German: Clan

→ Italian: clan

→ Norwegian Bokmål: klan

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: klan

→ Polish: klan

→ Russian: клан (klan)

→ Portuguese: clan, clã

→ Spanish: clan

→ Swedish: klan

Borrowed from Irish clann (“offspring, children of the family”) and Scottish Gaelic clann, both from Old Irish cland, borrowed from Old Welsh plant, itself borrowed from Latin planta (“shoot, offspring”). Doublet of plant and planta.

bor

Coordinate term: lineage

(anthropology) A group of people all descended from a common ancestor, in fact or belief, especially when the exact genealogies are not known.

отог

group of relatives with some degree of political organization


Proto-Indo-European

/ˌpɹəʊ̯təʊ̯ˌɪndə(ʊ̯)ˌjʊə̯ɹəˈpiːən/

/ˌpɹoʊ̯toʊ̯ˌɪndoʊ̯ˌjʊɹəˈpi.ən/

(anthropology, countable) A person who spoke the Proto-Indo-European language.


Proto-Indo-European

/ˌpɹəʊ̯təʊ̯ˌɪndə(ʊ̯)ˌjʊə̯ɹəˈpiːən/

/ˌpɹoʊ̯toʊ̯ˌɪndoʊ̯ˌjʊɹəˈpi.ən/

(linguistics, anthropology) Of or pertaining to the Proto-Indo-European language, or the people who spoke it.

նախահնդեվրոպական

pertaining to the Proto-Indo-European language, or the people who spoke it — see also Indo-European

Wiktionary’s coverage of Proto-Indo-European terms


Aryan

General American, Mary–marry–merry merger

From Sanskrit आर्य (ā́rya, “noble; noble one”) + -n. The Sanskrit word is from Proto-Indo-Iranian *áryas (the original Indo-Iranian autonym). Borrowed into English in the 19th century, at first as a term for the Indo-Iranian languages, and later partly extended to the Indo-European languages and peoples following a theory by Friedrich Schlegel that connected the Indo-Iranian words arya/ā́rya with German Ehre (“honor”) and some older Germanic names, thus assuming that it was the original Indo-European autonym meaning "the honorable people". The original meaning of the Indo-Iranian autonym and its possible Indo-European origin/cognates are disputed (see the Wikipedia article for further details).
The same Proto-Indo-Iranian root is the ultimate source of the country name Iran.

der

[The] Caucasian race includes two sub-races, — the Xantho-chroic and Melanochroic of Huxley. The seat of this race is Europe, northern Africa, and southwestern Asia, its linguistic division being into Aryans, Semites, and Hamites.

1892, Charles Morris, The Aryan Race: Its Origins and Its Achievements:

The surest principle of classification is based on language, but the results must be tested by a study of the physical characteristics of the various races. According to this method of classification, the races of the world may be divided as follows: Aryan, Semitic, Hamitic, Turanian, Negroid. The name Caucasian is generally applied to the first three divisions, — Aryans, Semites, and Hamites. Aryan. — This includes the ancient Hindus […] the Persians, Greeks, Italians, Celts, Teutons, and Slavs.

1900, Frank Moore Colby, Outlines of General History:

(ethnography, dated) A subdivision of the Caucasian racial and linguistic grouping, when that grouping is defined as consisting of Aryans, Semites, and Hamites.

আর্য

in ethnography, a subdivision of the Caucasian race


patrilineal

The Xhosa are a proud and patrilineal people with an expressive and euphonious language and an abiding belief in the importance of laws, education and courtesy.

1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 4:

(anthropology) Pertaining to descent through male lines.


Yup'ik

Yup'iks (plural)
Yup'ik (plural)
Yupik (alternative)
Yu'pik (alternative)

Borrowed from Yup'ik Yup'ik (“real person”), from Proto-Eskimo *iŋuɣpiɣ, from *iŋuɣ (“human, person”).

(ethnology) A member of an Eskimo people of western and southwestern Alaska.


affine

1970 [Routledge and Kegan Paul], Raymond Firth, Jane Hubert, Anthony Forge, Families and Their Relatives: Kinship in a Middle-Class Sector of London, 2006, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page 135,
The element of personal idiosyncracy may be expected to be most marked in regard to affines (i.e. those related by marriage) and particularly with the consanguines of affines, who are linked by still more tenuous bonds. There are many possible degrees of affinal relationship here, but broadly affines separate into two main types: spouse of consanguine of Ego, and consanguine of spouse of Ego—exemplified by my brother's wife, and my wife's brother.

In contrast to bonds of kaḅisu membership, which require ritual maintenance and can produce intense factional rivalries, and those of affines, which demand ongoing exchanges, unmediated relations of blood are created by nothing more than physical procreation.[…]People's ability to swivel between these two rhetorical possibilities reflects the inherent tension that lies between affines, who are both others and extensions of oneself.

1997, Webb Keane, Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society, University of California Press, page 51:

For the Cubeo the Vekürüwá and Okómiwa were, as they say, designated to be their affines, in a manner that was calculated to emphasize their similarities rather than the formal differences that set contemporary intermarriages apart. I suspect that Cubeo themselves sense that an excessive intimacy with the contingent of affines may have been suitable for a formative period of still ambiguous distinctions, but not for the real social world.

2004, Irving Goldman, Cubeo Hehénewa Religious Thought, Columbia University Press, page 64:

(anthropology, genealogy) A relative by marriage.


lithic

(anthropology) A stone tool or projectile


robust

en-adj

robust (comparative more robust or (uncommon) robuster, superlative most robust or (uncommon) robustest)

more robust (comparative)
robuster (comparative uncommon)
most robust (superlative)
robustest (superlative uncommon)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-robust.wav

robust association of massive baryonic objects

(chiefly zoology, anthropology, paleontology) Of an individual or skeletal element: strongly built; muscular; not gracile.


ethnology

en-noun

ethnology (usually uncountable, plural ethnologies)

Coordinate term: ethnography

(anthropology) The branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes different human cultures and the relationships between them.


negroid

en-adj

negroid (comparative more negroid, superlative most negroid)

more negroid (comparative)
most negroid (superlative)
Negroid (alternative)

They were human and yet not human. I should say that they were a little higher in the scale of evolution than Ahm, possibly occupying a place of evolution between that of the Neanderthal man and what is known as the Grimaldi race. Their features were distinctly negroid, though their skins were white. A considerable portion of both torso and limbs were covered with short hair, and their physical proportions were in many aspects apelike, though not so much so as were Ahm's. They carried themselves in a more erect position, although their arms were considerably longer than those of the Neanderthal man. As I watched them, I saw that they possessed a language, that they had knowledge of fire and that they carried besides the wooden club of Ahm, a thing which resembled a crude stone hatchet. Evidently they were very low in the scale of humanity, but they were a step upward from those I had previously seen in Caspak.

1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

(anthropology, dated, offensive) Pertaining to a racial classification of humanity including people indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa and their diaspora in other parts of the world.


negroid

"Round-headed," he muttered. "Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume?"

1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

(anthropology, dated, offensive) A person with characteristics of Africans, particularly coiled hair and dark skin.


matrilineal

/ˌmeɪtɹɪˈlɪnɪəl/

Kerala traditionally has matrilineal inheritance.

Enkidu expresses the values of nature, matrilineal conservatism, and the populism of the assembly, the assembly of village elders from the days before military dictatorship.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 191:

(anthropology) Tracing descent only through female ancestors.


alterity

en-noun

alterity (countable and uncountable, plural alterities)

Nominal declensions, verbal case endings, gerundival constructions, in short, the full range of grammatical alterations—for which Sanskrit has a particular genius and meticulous order—announce language itself as a field of alterity.

2014, Dan Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology, →ISBN:

(philosophy, anthropology) Otherness; the entity in contrast to which an identity is constructed.


clever

en-adj

clever (comparative cleverer or more clever, superlative cleverest or most clever)

cleverer (comparative)
more clever (comparative)
cleverest (superlative)
most clever (superlative)

dull

antonym(s) of “smart, intelligent or witty”

ineffectual

antonym(s) of “resourceful, perhaps cunning”

→ German: clever

→ Limburgish: klevver

From East Anglian dialectal English cliver (“expert at seizing”), from Middle English cliver (“tenacious”).
* perhaps from Old English *clifer, clibbor (“clinging”);
* or perhaps from Dutch, Low German, or East/Saterland Frisian (compare kluftich (“clever, prudent”), probably derived from Proto-West Germanic *kleuban (“to cleave, split”));
* or dialectal Norwegian klover (“ready, skillful”), itself borrowed from Middle Low German klever, related to kleven (“to stick”), from Old Saxon klibōn, from Proto-West Germanic *klibēn, related to the Old English word above;
* possibly influenced by Old English clifer (“claw, hand”) (compare clawian (“to claw”)).
Related to cleave. Perhaps influenced by Welsh celfydd (“talented, dexterous, expert”).

cog

When a clever man is out hunting and comes across the tracks of, say, a kangaroo, he follows them along and talks to the footprints all the time for the purpose of injecting magic into the animal which made them.

1904, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, volume XXXVIII, page 255:

Prior to this, the two women, who were “clever,” and possessed a certain amount of magical “power,”[…].

1947, Oceania,, volumes 16-17, page 330:

Fred is the clever fellow or tribal doctor who practises with the Kuku-Yalanji people. The tribal doctor’s work includes curing sickness, finding out the causes of death, predicting the future and making and stopping rain.

1991, John & Sue Erbacher, Aborigines of the Rainforest:

(anthropology, of an Aboriginal Australian) Possessing magical abilities.


xanthous

The xanthous variety springs up out of every black-haired race.

1841, James Cowles Prichard et al., Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind, page 227:

[…] the xanthous, or fair class, comprises those who have brown, auburn, yellow, flaxen, or red hair; […]

1842, James Laurie, System of Universal Geography: Founded on the Works of Malte-Brun and Balbi, London: Stevenson & Co., page 106:

(archaic, ethnology) Pertaining to people with yellowish, red, auburn, or brown hair.


cranium

From Medieval Latin crānium (“skull”), from Ancient Greek κρᾱνίον (krāníon, “skull”).

cranio

upper part of skull without the mandible

In this study, the cranium recovered from the River Witham in Lincoln exhibited a black metallic staining on the surfaces of the teeth.

2014, Emma L. Brown, Ronald A. Dixon, Jason W. Birkett, “The Discolouration of Human Teeth from Archaeological Contexts: Elemental Analysis of a Black Tooth from a Roman Cranium Recovered from the River Witham, Lincoln, UK”, in Journal of Anthropology, volume 2014, →DOI:

(anthropology, informal) The upper portion of the skull, including the neurocranium and facial bones, but not including the jawbone (mandible).


gens

Bilecik Province
Marcus Aurelius
Roman emperor

Borrowed from Latin gēns (“gens; people, tribe”), from Proto-Italic *gentis, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (“birth; production”), from *ǵenh₁- (“to beget; to give birth; to produce”) + *-tis (suffix forming abstract or action nouns from verb roots). Doublet of kind, genesis, and jati. See also gender, generate, gentile, genus; also Latin gigno (“I bring forth”).

gentile

of or pertaining to a gens or several gentes

The Kamilaroi are divided into six gentes, standing with reference to the right of marriage, in two divisions, […] Originally the first three gentes were not allowed to intermarry with each other, because they were subdivisions of an original gens; but they were permitted to marry into either of the other gentes, and vice versâ.

1877, Lewis H[enry] Morgan, “Organization of Society upon the Basis of Sex”, in Ancient Society: Or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, part II (Growth of the Idea of Government), pages 51–52:

The taboos, the laws, the rules of gentes, tribes, and nations, from the lowest to the highest, are upheld by a vague terror and sacred awe which society impresses on man by threats of ill-luck, fearful evil, and terrible punishments befalling sinners and transgressors of the tabooed, of the holy and the forbidden, charged with a mysterious, highly contagious, and virulently infective life-consuming energy.

1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress, Boston, Mass.: Richard G. Badger, the Gorham Press, →OCLC, page 25:

While a woman and a man [who are native Hawaiians] primarily establish a family, they nonetheless remain members of different genses, and it is only as members of different genses that they are able to set up the family. At the same time, the children belong to the family of their parents, but owing to the validity of their mother's side—exclusively, to the gens of their mother. Thus, the members of one and the same family, the closest blood-related community, are members of two different genses.

2006, Dzemal Sokolovic, “Man (between Individualism and Totalitarianism)”, in Nation vs. People: Bosnia is Just a Case, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, →ISBN, part I (Man and Social Grouping), page 15:

(anthropology) A tribal subgroup whose members are characterized by having the same descent, usually along the male line; clan.


monogenesis

en-noun

monogenesis (usually uncountable, plural monogeneses)

/mɒnəˈd͡ʒɛnəsɪs/

Some held that negritude was a product of living under the tropical sun, a perhaps beneficial adaptation to a fierce climate – an environmentalist solution chiming with monogenesis and Lockean malleability models.

2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Penguin, published 2004, page 248:

(anthropology) The theory that mankind originated with a single ancestor or ancestral couple.


insular

en-adj

insular (comparative more insular, superlative most insular)

more insular (comparative)
most insular (superlative)

Borrowed from Latin insularis (“of or belonging to an island”), from insula (“an island”), perhaps, from in (“in”) + salum (“the main sea”).

bor

(linguistics, anthropology) (often with a capital letter) Relating to the varieties of a language or languages spoken chiefly on islands. Insular Latin, Latin as it was spoken in Britain and Ireland. Insular Celtic, the Celtic languages of Britain, Ireland and also Brittany, as opposed to those spoken in mainland Europe other than Brittany. Insular Scandinavian, relating to the Icelandic and Faroese languages as opposed to the ones spoken in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.


Caucasian

en-adj

Caucasian (comparative more Caucasian, superlative most Caucasian)

more Caucasian (comparative)
most Caucasian (superlative)
caucasian (alternative)

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Mugan plain
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
The Big Lebowski

From Caucasus (“mountain range in Eastern Europe between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea”) + -ian (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘from, related to, or like’, or forming nouns with the sense ‘one from, belonging to, relating to, or like’). The anthropological sense (no longer regarded as scientific) was popularized by the German anthropologist and physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), based on the belief that the first humans originated from there.
Noun sense 2 (“cocktail”) was popularized by the film The Big Lebowski (1998): see the quotation.

nb...

Praemissa est epistola ad virvm perillvstrem Iosephvm Banks baronetvm regiae Societatis Londin. praesidem

Caucasian bear

Ursus arctos syriacus or Ursus arctos arctos

(anthropology, dated) Of a racial classification pertaining to people having certain phenotypical features such as straight, curly, or wavy hair and very light to brown pigmented skin, and originating from Europe, parts of Northern Africa and Central, South, and Western Asia.

indaa

of a racial classification pertaining to people having certain phenotypical features such as straight, curly, or wavy hair and very light to brown pigmented skin


Caucasian

Caucasians (plural)
caucasian (alternative)

(anthropology, dated) A member of the Caucasian racial classification (adjective sense 2).


cultural anthropology

/ˌkʊltʃəɹəl ˌænθɹəˈpɑlədʒi/

(anthropology) The field of anthropology that studies human behavior, culture, and social interaction; one of four commonly recognized fields of anthropology.


affinal

The names of their affinal relatives must be avoided in speaking either to a man or woman, or even when speaking in their presence.

2018, Daniel Elazar, Kinship in the Admiralty Islands, Routledge, →ISBN:

(anthropology) Of a family relationship by marriage of a relative (or through affinity), as opposed to consanguinity; in-law.


environmentalist

As we remarked once before, there are two extreme views with respect to life, one attributing everything to the environment, the other to inherent abilities. If, for example, an unusual number of distinguished men are born and reared in the same locality, the environmentalists assert that the causes for their appearance were entirely external and that had their parents changed habitats with those residing elsewhere the result would have been the same, except that the family names of these eminent men would have been different.

1926, Clark Wissler, The Relation of Nature to Man in Aboriginal America, published 1971, pages 211–212:

(anthropology, social sciences) One who holds the view that environment, rather than heredity or culture, is the primary factor in the development of an individual or group.


Caucasoid

en-adj

Caucasoid (comparative more Caucasoid, superlative most Caucasoid)

more Caucasoid (comparative)
most Caucasoid (superlative)
Caucazoid (alternative)

It's also nice to see some non-white skin in these pages since almost all of the skin aimed at the "gay market" is distinctly Caucasoid.

1990 August 31, Christopher Wittke, “Athletes (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 7, page 16:

(anthropology, dated) Being a member of a human racial classification composed of several peoples inhabiting Europe, North Africa, West Asia, and parts of East Africa, South Asia and Central Asia – as well as their descendants in other world regions.


Caucasoid

Caucasoids (plural)
Caucazoid (alternative)

(anthropology, dated, offensive) A member of this racial classification.


mongoloid

mongoloids (plural)
Mongoloid (alternative)
Mongolioid (alternative)

/ˈmɒŋɡəˌlɔɪd/

/ˈmɑŋɡəˌlɔɪd/

Both American Indians and Mongoloids have shovel-shaped incisor teeth and, at birth, display the Mongoloid spot — a blue spot above the rump, which fades within a short time; many also have the Mongoloid, or epicanthic, fold of the inner part of the upper eyelid.

1983, Bertha Pauline Dutton, American Indians of the Southwest, page 3:

On the average, he found caucasoids to have the longest heads and mongoloids the roundest; mongoloids the straightest hair and negroids the most tightly curled; caucasoids the narrowest noses and negroids the broadest.

1991, Floyd James Davis, Who is Black?: One Nation's Definition, page 19:

As before, the genetic distance between Caucasoid and Mongoloid is the smallest and that between Negroid and Mongoloid is the largest.

1997, Masatoshi Nei, Arun K. Roychoudhury, Genetic Relationship and Evolution of Human Races, page 38:

(anthropology, dated) A member of the racial classification of humanity composed of peoples native to North Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Pacific Oceania, the Americas, and parts of Central Asia and South Asia (and sometimes eastern Fennoscandia) – as well as their descendants in other parts of the world.


mongoloid

mongoloid (comparative more mongoloid, superlative most mongoloid)

more mongoloid (comparative)
most mongoloid (superlative)
Mongoloid (alternative)
Mongolioid (alternative)

/ˈmɒŋɡəˌlɔɪd/

/ˈmɑŋɡəˌlɔɪd/

(anthropology, dated, offensive) Being a member or pertaining to characteristics of this racial classification.


Australoid

(anthropology, historical) A historical grouping and racial classification which mainly includes aboriginal Australians but also Andamans, Melanesians, Micronesians, Negritos, New Guineans, and Veddas.

australoide

a person with Australoid characteristics


matrilocal

In barring the way, he is enacting a ritual which demands that the new way of patrilocal marriage pay its respect to the more ancient way of matrilocal marriage.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 191:

(anthropology, of a people or culture) In which newly married couples live with the wife's family.


patrilocal

(anthropology, of a people or culture) In which newly married couples live with the husband's family.


Ulotrichi

From Ancient Greek οὖλος (oûlos) and θρίξ (thríx).

(archaic, anthropology) Human races that have "crisp" or "woolly" hair, according to a system by Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent of classifying different races of humans as separate species.


moiety

moieties (plural)
moietie (alternative)
moyity (alternative)

Borrowed from Middle French moytié, from Old French meitié (“half”) (modern French moitié (“half”)), from Late Latin medietās (“centre, midpoint; half”), from Latin medius (“half; middle”) + -tās (from Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts (suffix forming nouns indicating a state of being)). Medius is ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“middle”), possibly from *me-dʰi- (“among; with”), from *me (“in the middle of; among; with”). The word is a doublet of mediety.

der

The villages are divided into two patrilineal totemic moieties and two patrilineal ceremonial moieties. The totemic moieties are subdivided into patrilineal clans (ngaiva): there are between fifty and a hundred clans of which between ten or twenty are represented in any one village[…].

1973, Francis Korn, “A Question of Preferences: The Iatmül Case”, in Elementary Structures Reconsidered: Lévi-Strauss on Kinship, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 83:

The moieties are linked to or bear the names of beings or forces expressing the cosmic dichotomy. Most common are heaven and earth moieties, "above" and "below," or moieties named after birds and land animals (or aquatic animals), as is the case among the Winnebago and in the phratry system of the Northwest Coast Indians.

1979, Åke Hultkrantz, “The Great Tribal Ceremonies”, in Monica Setterwall, transl., The Religions of the American Indians, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, published 1980, →ISBN, part I (Tribal Religions), page 112:

(anthropology) Each descent group in a culture which is divided exactly into two descent groups.


rite of passage

en-noun

rite of passage (plural rites of passage)

/ɹaɪt əv ˈpæsɪd͡ʒ/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-rite of passage.wav

After John officially attained his majority, Robert bought him his first beer. This is a common American rite of passage.

The so-called rites of passage, which occupy such a prominent place in the life of a primitive society (ceremonials of birth, naming, puberty, marriage, burial, etc.), are distinguished by formal, and usually very severe, exercises of severance, whereby the mind is radically cut away from the attitudes, attachments, and life patterns of the stage being left behind.

1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 10:

In the final, affirming piece, "They Tell Me...Now I Know," the girlchild narrator begins menstruation, thus undergoing her rite of passage into womanhood.

1989 December 17, Terri L. Jewell, “The Power Of Black Women Together”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 23, page 13:

Not only did these holiday resorts become a rite of passage for TV's biggest talents – Red Coats comedians, magicians and presenters were often scouted, then sent to perform live at places like the London Palladium, before securing a television contract – but the culture within them meant that the audience were already invested in this type of entertainment once they returned home.

2021 September 15, Laura Martin, “How talent shows became TV's most bizarre programmes”, in BBC:

(anthropology) A ceremony or series of ceremonies, often very ritualized, to celebrate a transition in a person’s life.


IE

See also: PIE

(linguistics, anthropology, etc.) Initialism of Indo-European.


PST

(linguistics, anthropology) Initialism of Proto-Sino-Tibetan.


agonistic

en-adj

agonistic (comparative more agonistic, superlative most agonistic)

more agonistic (comparative)
most agonistic (superlative)

From Ancient Greek ἀγωνιστικός (agōnistikós).

Although most agonistic interactions consist of signals of threat and submission, symbolic aggression is effective only because the possibility of escalation exists […]

1978, Donald Symons, “The Question of Function: Dominance and Play”, in Euclid O. Smith, editor, Social Play in Primates, New York: Academic Press, page 207:

This was clearly such an event, but like the ancient religion of Israel, it was also deeply agonistic.

2006, Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation, Atlantic Books, published 2007, page 66:

Sociality swung wildly between extremes of collective affiliation and agonistic striving for dominance.

2014, Lucas Bessire, Behold the Black Caiman: A Chronicle of Ayoreo Life, The University of Chicago Press, Introduction, p. 8:

(zoology, anthropology) Characterised by conflict or hostility.


AAS

(anthropology) Initialism of Australian Anthropological Society.


shinny

shinny (canonical)
shinny hockey (canonical)

(US, anthropology) A hockey-like game played by American Indians.


mateship

en-noun

mateship (usually uncountable, plural mateships)

From mate + -ship. Cognate with Dutch maatschap (“partnership”).

The mateships of the three last-named animals are solitary, though in the case of wolves, the separated members of various mateships gather in packs during the winter months.

1942, Fred August Moss, Edward Lee Thorndike, Comparative Psychology, page 370:

Further, in most cultures without systems of codified laws, long-term mateships are ritually sanctioned by the community. If we are not to have too provincial a conception of marriage, these mateships should also count as marriages.

2005, David J. Buller, Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology And The Persistent Quest For Human Nature, page 259:

In Homo sapiens we find two types of polygamous mateships, polygyny and polyandry, and social structures based on these are ordinarily called “families.” Relatively rare in man in an institutionalized form, polyandrous mateships appear to be absent in infrahuman primates.

2010, A. Irving Hallowell, “15: The Protocultural Foundations of Human Adaptation”, in Yehudi A. Cohen, editor, Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background, page 164:

The most frequent conflict within human mateships is the conflict between male sexual persistence and female sexual resistance.

2012, Dietrich Klusmann, Wolfgang Berner, “Chapter 14: Sexual Motivation in Mateships an Sexual Conflict”, in Todd K. Shackelford, Aaron T. Goetz, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans, page 233:

(countable, zoology, psychology, anthropology) A relationship based on mating.


bilateral

en-adj

bilateral (comparative more bilateral, superlative most bilateral)

more bilateral (comparative)
most bilateral (superlative)

(anthropology) Involving descent or ascent regardless of sex and side of the family (bilateral linearity).

bilateral

involving descent or ascent regardless of sex and side of the family


domus

Borrowed from Latin domus. Doublet of dome and duomo.

The domus was a unique and unprecedented concentration of tilled fields, seed and graain stores, people, and domestic animals, all coevolving with consequences no one could possibly have foreseen.

2017, James C Scott, chapter 2, in Against the Grain, New Haven and London: Yale University, →ISBN, page 73:

(anthropology, archaeology) A farmstead with its people, plants and animals, considered as a unit.


bricoleur

From French bricoleur; apparently a borrowing from the work of French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.

The engineer has science to guide him; the bricoleur has intuition. Significantly, while the bricoleur can only classify perceived differences, the engineer's scientific system enables him to classify things not yet seen.

2002, Sherene H. Razack, editor, Introduction: Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society, page 12:

The bricoleur’s awareness of constructivism and historicity helps her point out these omissions and their effects on the knowledge-production processes.
In this context critical hermeneutics facilitates bricoleurs’ attempts to identify socially oppressive forms of meaning-making and research processes.

2004, Joe L. Kincheloe, Kathleen S. Berry, Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research: Conceptualizing the bricolage, page 11:

Glassie was attracted to Claude Lévi-Strauss's metaphor of the artisan as bricoleur — someone who brings together materials that happen to be at hand and uses them to carry out the task of building what needs to be built.

2005, Sandra K. Dolby, Self-Help Books: Why Americans Keep Reading Them, page 85:

The bricoleur is a specialist in combinatorial logic, a craftsman who creates objects by rearranging other objects.

2007, Boris Wiseman, Levi-Strauss, Anthropology, and Aesthetics, Cambridge University Press, page 208:

Through playful exploration (rather than deductive/analytic reasoning) of what is possible, the bricoleur adjusts past solutions, reframes, or manipulates technical memories of past events and projects to make them bear upon or even redefine the problem at hand.[…]Rather than having been designed in advance with specific purposes in mind, the bricoleur’s instrumental resources are experiential leftovers that summarize his technical life journey.

2012, Jannis Kallinikos, “4: Form, Function, and Matter: Crossing the Border of Materiality”, in Paul M. Leonardi, Bonnie A. Nardi, Jannis Kallinikos, editors, Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World, page 75:

We see in this picture what a potent political bricoleur he is, borrowing images and rhetoric from any source and combining them in new, lucid collages with changed meanings.

2024 July 15, Jonathan Jones, “‘Is this what a second Trump presidency will be like?’ – our art critic on the chilling shooting image”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(anthropology, art) A person who constructs bricolages; one who creates using whatever materials are available.


Samoyed

From Russian самое́д (samojéd), probably from Sami *saam-edne (“land of the people”); compare Finnish Suomi (“Finn”). In the course of borrowing, the word was folk-etymologically reinterpreted as сам (sam, “self, own”) + есть, ед- (jestʹ, jed-, “eat”), "self-eater."

The Samoyeds are Idolaters and Witches, obſeruing diuelliſh ſuperſtitions

1613, Samuel Purchas, “[Asia.] Of other Northerne people adioyning to the Tartars.”, in Purchas His Pilgrimage. Or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discouered, from the Creation vnto this Present. […], London: […] William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, […], →OCLC, book IV (Of the Armenians, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Scythians, Tartarians, Chinois, and of Their Religions), page 363:

(anthropology) A member of the Samoyedic peoples of the Siberian Urals, who speak Samoyedic languages.


fictive kin

en-noun

fictive kin (countable and uncountable, plural fictive kin or fictive kins)

fictive kin (plural)
fictive kins (plural)

Ebaugh (2000) described three types of fictive kin (family-type) relationships, based not on blood or marriage, but rather on religious rituals or close friendship ties, that constitutes a type of social capital which many immigrants bring with them that facilitates their adjustment to the host society. […] Fictive kin are shared widely in Spanish-speaking countries, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

2005, John G. Bruhn, The Sociology of Community Connections, New York, N.Y.: Springer Science+Business Media, →ISBN, page 59:

Most studies indicate that Black family members live in proximity, in part an outcome of segregated communities. These close-knit communities helped to produce strong fictive kin relations with neighbors and fellow church members, which in turn provided support in the face of discrimination from the larger society.

2006, Roberta L. Coles, “African American Families”, in Race & Family: A Structural Approach, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 166:

In the socialist era […] [t]he custom of making fictive kin became less popular or went underground. Since the late 1970s, however, the custom has revived in Nanying. While many features of fictive kin relationships remain the same, the motive for establishing the relationship has changed. Most commonly, people attempt to improve household status through the establishment of fictive kin links.

2007, Xiyi Huang, “Network of Social Relationships in Resource Distribution”, in Power, Entitlement and Social Practice: Resource Distribution in North China Villages, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, →ISBN, page 143:

Attaining fictive kin status requires that a person have prolonged physical proximity to a family member in order to develop a relationship that is both interdependent and mutually beneficial. Persons generally obtain fictive kin status by consistently contributing to the emotional or material needs of an individual over time.

2011, Constance Dallas, “Fictive Kin Relationships”, in Martha Craft-Rosenberg, Shelley-Rae Pehler, editors, Encyclopedia of Family Health, volume 1, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, →ISBN:

(anthropology, ethnography) Someone who, though unrelated by birth or marriage, has such a close emotional relationship with another that they may be considered part of the family.


nomadic

en-adj

nomadic (comparative more nomadic, superlative most nomadic)

more nomadic (comparative)
most nomadic (superlative)
nomadick (alternative)

From Ancient Greek νομαδικός (nomadikós), equivalent to nomad (“a member of a society or class of herdsmen”) + -ic (forming adjectives).

(anthropology) Of or related to itinerant herdsmen.

Of or relating to nomads.
Of or related to itinerant herdsmen.


pyknic

From Ancient Greek πυκνός (puknós, “thick”) + -ic, as a calque of German pyknisch.

af

(anthropology) A short, thickset person characterised by thick neck, large abdomen and relatively short limbs; an endomorph.


paleoanthropology

paleanthropology (alternative)
palaeoanthropology (alternative)
palæoanthropology (alternative)

(anthropology) The scientific study of ancient human remains.


nomad

From Middle French nomade, from Latin Nomas (“wandering shepherd”), from Ancient Greek νομάς (nomás, “roaming, wandering, esp. to find pasture”), from Ancient Greek νομός (nomós, “pasture”). Compare Numidia.

der

The life of the people called the Nomads or Grazyers...

1587, Philippe de Mornay, translated by Philip Sidney et al., A Woorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion, viii, p. 113:

Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.

2013 August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:

(anthropology) A member of a society or class who herd animals from pasture to pasture with no fixed home.

بَدَوِيّ

a member of society or class who wander with their herds


culture shock

en-noun

culture shock (countable and uncountable, plural culture shocks)

Having grown up in rural Arkansas, I experienced tremendous culture shock on moving to Harlem.

I went through another, reverse culture shock when I got back to Israel and the efort ^([sic]) required to change from cherished and catered-to visitor to an ordinary working woman kept me away from my typewriter jor ^([sic]) months.

1982 December 4, Ilana Weinstock, “Letters From My Aunt”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 20, page 4:

(anthropology, sociology) A state of anxious confusion experienced by someone exposed to an alien or unfamiliar environment.


survival

survival (countable and uncountable, plural survivals)

Thus, if some old rhyme or saying has in one place a solemn import in philosophy or religion, while elsewhere it lies at the level of the nursery, there is some ground for treating the serious version as the more original, and the playful one as its mere lingering survival.

1871, Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive culture: researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom^([IA]), Volume 1, chapter 3: "Survival in culture", page 78:

Another survival of marriage by capture is discovered among the Ceylonese, where it is common at royal marriages for the king and queen to throw perfumed balls and squirt scented water at each other.

1894, James William Black, “Savagery and survivals”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 45, page 391:

The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns — a gay survival from Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms — days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average.

1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Phase the First: The Maiden, chapter 2:

(anthropology) A custom or belief that persists in folklore from earlier times, when the rationale behind it is forgotten.


monoculture

monoculture (countable and uncountable, plural monocultures)

/ˈmɒnəˌkʌlt͡ʃə(ɹ)/

It also isn’t going to be broadcast on TV networks that yearn to re-create the previous century’s monoculture. Our attention spans and tastes keep fracturing, and the ratings for late-night comedy keep declining.

2023 September 27, Spencer Kornhaber, “The Weirdos Living Inside Our Phones”, in The Atlantic:

We must end the collusive relationship between government, Big Tech, Big Finance and corporate media that creates an ideological monoculture eager to punish people for their beliefs.

2025 January, Kristen Waggoner, quotee, “A New Direction for Religious Freedom”, in Decision: The Evangelical Voice for Today, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 13, column 1:

(anthropology) A culture or society that lacks diversity; a society marked by monoculturalism.


ethnography

ethnography (countable and uncountable, plural ethnographies)

/ɛθˈnɑɡɹəfi/

/ɛθˈnɒɡɹəfi/

Holonym: anthropology

Coordinate term: ethnology

By the end of the century, the APS’s membership included the leaders of the American anthropological establishment, whose primary investigative interests were the ethnography, linguistics, archeology, and physical anthropology of the American Indian, within a theoretical structure that was essentially historical.

1997, Jacob W. Gruber, “American Philosophical Society”, in History of Physical Anthropology, page 64:

(anthropology) The branch of anthropology that scientifically describes specific human cultures and societies.


melanic

en-adj

melanic (comparative more melanic, superlative most melanic)

more melanic (comparative)
most melanic (superlative)

The melanic, or black class, includes all individuals or races who have black hair; […]

1842, James Laurie, System of Universal Geography: Founded on the Works of Malte-Brun and Balbi, London: Stevenson & Co., page 106:


headhunter

headhunters (plural)
head hunter (alternative)

→ German: Headhunter m

Theirs was the spirit which upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among the head-hunters of Malaya.

1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

en:person who kills others for their heads

(anthropology) A person who practises headhunting, the taking and preserving of a person's head after killing them.


patriarchy

en-noun

patriarchy (countable and uncountable, plural patriarchies)

/ˈpeɪ̯tɹɪɑːkɪ/

/ˈpætɹɪɑːkɪ/

From Latin patriarchia, from Byzantine Greek πατριαρχία (patriarkhía), from Koine Greek πατριάρχης (patriárkhēs, “patriarch”), from πατρία (patría) and ἄρχω (árkhō). By surface analysis, patri- + -archy.

der

(anthropology, history) A social system in which the father is head of the household, having authority over women and children, and in which lineage is traced through the male line.


ergology

en-noun

ergology (countable and uncountable, plural ergologies)

(ethnology) Knowledge originating from the study of the object culture of non-European traditional societies.


gracile

en-adj

gracile (comparative more gracile, superlative most gracile)

more gracile (comparative)
most gracile (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-gracile.wav

/ˈɡɹeɪˌsaɪl/

Borrowed from Middle French gracil, gracile (“slender, thin”) (modern French gracile (“gracile”)), or directly from its etymon Latin gracilis (“slender, slim, thin; lean, meagre, scanty; simple, unadorned”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kerḱ- (“to become thin; to wane”). The sense “graceful or gracefully slender” was apparently influenced by the non-cognate word grace. The English word is cognate with Italian gracile (“delicate, frail; slender, thin”), Portuguese grácil, Spanish grácil (“graceful; delicate; slender”), and a doublet of gracilis.

cog

This tentative comparison, plus consideration of individual skulls, shows the Neolithic pre-Greeks more Mediterranean than the Greeks, with emphasis on intermediate or gracile Mediterranean rather more than on the rugged Basic White trend, [...]

1945, J. Lawrence Angel, “Neolithic Ancestors of the Greeks”, in American Journal of Archaeology, volume 49, number 3, →DOI, page 256:

Where stratified fossil sequences are known, "gracile" fossils precede robust ones. The extremely robust hominids do not appear on the scene until about 2 million years ago, followed shortly thereafter by an "advanced" gracile. Both the advanced gracile and robust forms probably evolved from earlier gracile australopithecines.

1981, Nancy Makepeace Turner, “Early Hominid Lifeways: The Critical Role of an Interpretive Framework”, in On Becoming Human, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 254:

At various times since Homo first appeared in Africa, it shared the continent with more robust hominids, perhaps several different species of them. [...] They seem to have evolved from more ‘gracile’ apes (gracile being the opposite of robust). The gracile apes are also placed in the genus Australopithecus, and we too almost certainly emerged from among gracile australopithecine ranks.

2004, Richard Dawkins, “Ape-men”, in The Ancestor’s Tale: The Dawn of Life, New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, pages 86–87:

We would also expect increasing home-range size in Neanderthals in 'edge' regions (bordering the MLB and the plains), such as south-west France, in response to habitat fragmentation during periods of expansion of open vegetation. A more gracile morphology would have been far more efficient over larger areas.

2004, Clive Finlayson, “Comparative Behaviour and Ecology of Neanderthals and Modern Humans”, in Neanderthals and Modern Humans: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 117:

(chiefly zoology, anthropology, paleontology) Of an animal or skeletal element: having a slender frame.


polygenism

/pəˈlɪd͡ʒənɪzəm/

2003: Such pigmental indelibility spelt polygenism for some: blacks formed a distinct species altogether, a separate creation. — Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 248)

(ethnology) The belief that humans descended from more than one ancestral pair.


avunculate

(anthropology) The relationship between a man and his sister's children, generally her sons.

avunkulát

(anthropology) Among certain tribal peoples, for example, the Korowai, a special relationship between a man and a maternal uncle, and the mutual responsibilities between them.


berdache

From French bardache, from Italian bardassa, perhaps from Arabic بَرْدَج (bardaj, “slave”). Doublet of bardash.

These culturally bound assumptions have bedevilled the entire anthropological literature on the berdache in Native American cultures, and it is because of this that I have followed the lead of Angelino and Shedd when referring to the phenomenon of the berdache-transgenderal, for as Fitzgerald (1977) points out: "A berdache . . . may be a transvestite, but a transvestite need not be a berdache; and neither need be homosexual."

1980, Kenneth E. Read, “Observations on the Current State of Anthropological Research on Homosexual Behavior”, in Other Voices: The Style of a Male Homosexual Tavern, Novato, Cali.: Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 187:

Gender is the sociocultural designation of biobehavioral and psychosocial qualities of the sexes; for example, woman (female), man (male), other(s) (e.g., berdaches²). Notions of gender are culturally specific and depend on the ways in which cultures define and differentiate human (and other) potentials and possibilities. While many people in Western society may think first of heterosexual women and men when the word "gender" is mentioned, there are more gender possibilities than just those two.

1989, Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Christine Roberts, “Sex, Sexuality, Gender, and Gender Variance”, in Sandra Morgen, editor, Gender and Anthropology: Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching, Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 439:

Male berdache have been documented in nearly 150 North American societies, while female berdache (females who take on the lifeways of males) appear in half as many groups.

2005, Michael J Horswell, Decolonizing the Sodomite, University of Texas, published 2006, page 20:

(anthropology, dated, now offensive, ethnic slur) Among Native Americans, a person who identifies with any of a variety of gender identities which are not exclusively those of their biological sex; a transgender person.

bardache

Native American who identifies with a gender identity not exclusively corresponding to their biological sex — see also two-spirit


polygynandry

If you've never heard of polygynandry before, this isn't surprising because it is a very unusual mating system, found only in a tiny number of vertebrate species and in no other primates.

2016, David P. Barash, Out of Eden, Oxford, page 29:

(anthropology, zoology) A mating pattern involving multiple males and multiple females.


mother-in-law style

(linguistics, anthropology) The style of speech and manners which are to be observed between an Australian aboriginal man and his mother-in-law (i.e. wife's mother). Depending on the particular people, this can go so as far as an entirely separate vocabulary of words.


Siberian

[saɪˈbɪəɹɪən]


patriclan

Patrilect is a marker of patriclan membership and thus a symbol of identity.

1991, Philip Baldi, Patterns of Change - Change of Patterns, →ISBN:

(anthropology) A clan, with membership determined by patrilineal descent from a common ancestor.


chiefdom

en-noun

chiefdom (countable and uncountable, plural chiefdoms)

(anthropology, countable) A society larger than a tribe, but smaller or simpler than a state.


Proto-Polynesian

(anthropology, countable) A person who spoke the Proto-Polynesian language.


Proto-Polynesian

(linguistics, anthropology) Of or pertaining to the Proto-Polynesian language, or the people who spoke it.

Próta-Pholainéiseach

of or pertaining to the Proto-Polynesian language, or the people who spoke it


Capoid

(anthropology) a member of the racial classification of humanity composed of the Khoi and San people of Southern Africa.


companionate marriage

companionate marriage (plural companionate marriages)

(social history, anthropology) A conception of marriage where complicity, communication and support between spouses are considered important, rather than purely material questions of inheritance etc.


homology

homology (countable and uncountable, plural homologies)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-homology.wav

Henri Poincaré
Homology
MathWorld
singular homology

From Latin homologia, from Ancient Greek ὁμολογία (homología, “agreement, assent”); compare French homologie. By surface analysis, homo- + -logy.
In topology, first used by French polymath Henri Poincaré, in the sense (close to what is now called a bordism) of a relation between manifolds mapped into a reference manifold: that is, the property of such manifolds that they form the boundary of a higher-dimensional manifold inside the reference manifold. Poincaré's version was eventually replaced by the more general singular homology, which is what mathematicians now mean by homology.

homologia

biology, psychology: relationship of having a common evolutionary or developmental origin

The relationship of being homologous; a homologous relationship.

(anthropology) The relationship, between temporally separated human beliefs, practices or artefacts, of possessing shared characteristics attributed to genetic or historical links to a common ancestor.


Arabist

(anthropology, linguistics) A scholar who studies Arab or Arabic culture, politics, or language.

arabista

a scholar who studies Arab or Arabic culture, politics, or language


Skraeling

Skraelings (plural)
skraeling (alternative)
Scraeling (alternative)
scraeling (alternative)
Skræling (alternative)

After Old Norse skrælingi (of disputed etymology), the Norse name for the native inhabitants of Greenland and continental North America (Eastern Canada).

1974, H. F. McGee, Native Peoples of Atlantic Canada, Carleton University Press, page 2,
This time all the staves were being swung anti-sunwise, and the Skraelings were all yelling aloud, so they took red shields and held them out against them.

2005, Jonathan Clements, A Brief History of the Vikings, Constable & Robinson (Robinson), unnumbered page,
The Skraelings were soon back in greater numbers, and openly hostile. The Vikings killed many of them in the ensuing battle, and witnessed a Skraeling chief hurling a captured Viking axe into the lake – purportedly in fear of its magical properties.

2014 [1911, William Heinemann], Arthur G. Chater (translator), Fridtjof Nansen, In Northern Mists, [1911, Nansen, Nord i Tåkeheimen], Cambridge University Press, page 80,
A valuable piece of evidence of the Norsemen having early had intercourse with the Skrælings in Greenland is a little carved walrus, of walrus-ivory, which was found during excavations on the site of a house in Bergen, and which appears to be of Eskimo workmanship.

(historical, ethnology) A member of a race of native people encountered by early Norse settlers to Greenland, often equated with Inuit or American Indians.


emic

en-adj

emic (comparative more emic, superlative most emic)

more emic (comparative)
most emic (superlative)

Coined by American linguist Kenneth Pike in 1954 from phonemic.
* Kenneth Lee Pike (1982) Linguistic Concepts: An Introduction to Tagmemics, page 44: “Generalizing from phonemics, I coined the term emic in 1954.”

coin

A useful example of the emic-etic distinction may be made by comparing the concept “waves on the ocean or sea” from the perspective of a European American with that of a Truk Islander […] The proposed etics here might be that both cultures understand the use of waves as vehicles for surfing and as movement reflecting the transfer of energy […] certain differences, or emics exist, for European Americans the waves may be sources of beauty — the Truk Islander has learned to use them […] as a road map.

1996, Advanced Methodological Issues in Culturally Competent Evaluation for Substance Abuse Prevention:

In contemporary Anglophone usage, the term 'dhow' has come to refer generically and exonymically to traditional wooden vessels of the western Indian Ocean, whatever their particular forms or emic classification.

2015, John P. Cooper, Dionisius A. Agius, Tom Collie, Faisal al-Naimi, “Boat and ship engravings at al-Zubārah, Qatar: the dāw exposed?”, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, volume 45: Papers from the forty-eighth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held at the British Museum, London, 25 to 27 July 2014 (2015), →ISSN, pages 35–47:

(social sciences, anthropology) Of or pertaining to the analysis of a cultural system or its features from the perspective of a participant in that culture.


etic

en-adj

etic (comparative more etic, superlative most etic)

more etic (comparative)
most etic (superlative)

Coined by American linguist Kenneth Pike in 1954 from phonetic.
* Kenneth Lee Pike (1962) With Heart and Mind: A Personal Synthesis of Scholarship and Devotion, page 37: “I have coined the term etic to refer to the detached observer’s view […]”

(social sciences, anthropology) Of or pertaining to analysis of a culture from a perspective situated outside all cultures.


nuncle

From rebracketing of phrases an uncle, mine uncle, thine uncle, etc. Compare neam and naunt.
For the verb, OED suggests an evolution in sense "to claim to be one's uncle" > "to cheat". It compares this derivation with cozen, which it derives from cousin.
For the technical anthropological sense, compare nibling.

(linguistics, anthropology, in the study of kinship terminology) Aunt or uncle; sibling of a parent (regardless of gender).


tectiform

tectiform (comparative more tectiform, superlative most tectiform)

more tectiform (comparative)
most tectiform (superlative)

From New Latin tēctiformis (“roof-shaped”), from tēctum (“roof”) + -ifōrmis.

(biology, anthropology) Roof-shaped; sloping downwards on two sides from a raised central ridge.


tectiform

1924, American Anthropologist, Volume 26, New Series, page 48,
The tectiforms reproduce in a remarkable manner the simple shelters, tents, and huts in use today among primitive and nomadic races in various parts of the world.

Because of their composition and the coexistence in them of meanders and tectiforms they differ from chimpanzee drawings, which are in many other ways a comparable phenomenon.

2014, David Maclagan, Line Let Loose: Scribbling, Doodling and Automatic Drawing, page 8:

Inclusion of both ideomorphs and tectiforms as proto-art, and adaptation of the images to the natural textures of the rock surfaces as proto-cinema, suggests that the need to animate and annotate go beyond mere literal representation.

2015, Molly Fuller, Robert Miltner, “Chapter 9: Land as Ekphrastic Prompt for Memoirist Prose Poems in N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain”, in Sandra Lee Kleppe, editor, Ekphrasis in American Poetry: The Colonial Period to the 21st Century, page 162:

(anthropology) A type of cave painting or engraving, having in its simplest form the shape of an upward-pointing wedge or arrow, thought to represent the roof of a tent or rudimentary building.


asili

From Swahili asili (“origin”); introduced in this sense by Marimba Ani.

Law, religion and worldview emerge from the chrysalis of the asili. In western culture, the asili is characterised by separation and universalism.

2002, Susan Hawthorne, Wild Politics: Feminism, Globalisation, Bio/diversity, page 381:

(anthropology) The central seed or "germinating matrix" of a culture.


headhunting

en-noun

headhunting (usually uncountable, plural headhuntings)

(anthropology) The practice of cutting off and preserving the head of one's enemy.


Lōmāfānu

(anthropology, archaeology) Copperplates on which inscriptions of Old Maldivian are found.


uxorilocal

In Gogni (Chad) a Sokoro, clad in his traditional tunic, a tunic as long as a raglan coat such as a snobbishly insular Parisian might sport whilst on safari, paid a visit to a son of his who was living in Mokulu as a willing victim of an unusual (and, until now, unknown) marital status constituting a paradoxical - or, as anthropologists say, "uxorilocal" - form of subjugation.

1969, Georges Perec, translated by Gilbert Adair, A Void:

This grammar is just what one would expect from an SIL-trained linguist who has specialized in a language for a number of years: it contains a great deal of information in relatively few pages. The introduction begins by ubicating the Desano people and providing a very brief set of ethnographic comments. They live on the Vaupés River in Colombia, are patrilineal, and have a sex-gendered language. There is some uxorilocal residence, though its frequency is not estimated.

2003 January, Paul Proulx, “Desano Grammar: Studies in the Languages of Colombia 6. By Marion Miller. Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, no. 132. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1999. Pp. xii + 178. $25.00 (paper) [book review]”, in International Journal of American Linguistics, volume LXIX, number 1, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 100:


patrilateral

en-adj

patrilateral (comparative more patrilateral, superlative most patrilateral)

more patrilateral (comparative)
most patrilateral (superlative)

/ˌpætɹɪˈlæt(ə)ɹəl/

Jim's blond hair is one of his patrilateral traits.

(anthropology) From kin 'on the father's side' (related to the father).


levirate

From Latin lēvir (“husband's brother, brother-in-law”) + -ate (adjective-forming suffix), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dayh₂wḗr (“one's brother-in-law”).

der

And it is, he says, impossible not to believe that the Levirate—that is, the practice of marrying a dead brother's widow—is derived from polyandry.

1894, Edward Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, 2nd edition, Macmillan and Co., page 510:

It is only a secondary purpose of the levirate that the property of the deceased passes on to the one who is heir to his name, and is probably a later accretion.

1986, Claus Westermann, translated by John S. Scullion, Genesis 37-50: A Continental Commentary, Fortress Press, →ISBN, page 52:

The levirate is found in patrilineal societies in which the bride marries into her husband's family while essentially severing her ties with her original family.

2006, Gary P. Ferraro, Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective, Thomson Wadsworth, →ISBN, page 219:

(anthropology) The institution of levirate marriage.


xanthochroid

en-adj

xanthochroid (comparative more xanthochroid, superlative most xanthochroid)

more xanthochroid (comparative)
most xanthochroid (superlative)

/zænˈθəʊkɹɔɪd/

(anthropology, dated) Pertaining to the Xanthochroi; having fair hair and a pale complexion.


xanthochroid

/zænˈθəʊkɹɔɪd/

(anthropology, dated) A member of the Xanthochroi.


cymotrichy

(anthropology) The state of having wavy hair.


cymotrichous

From Ancient Greek κῦμα (kûma, “wave”) + Ancient Greek τριχ- (trikh-), stem of θρίξ (thríx, “hair”), + English -ous.

The hair is cymotrichous: one had flat wavy hair, in 19 it was very wavy, and in 7 it was markedly curly.

1907, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Man, Volumes 7-8, page 123:


matriclan

(anthropology) A clan, with membership determined by matrilineal descent from a common ancestor.


Proto-Indo-Iranian

en-noun

Proto-Indo-Iranian (countable and uncountable, plural Proto-Indo-Iranians)

(anthropology, countable) A person who spoke the Proto-Indo-Iranian language.


Proto-Indo-Iranian

(linguistics, anthropology) Of or pertaining to the Proto-Indo-Iranian language, or the people who spoke it.

პროტოინდოირანული

Wiktionary’s coverage of Proto-Indo-Iranian terms


Argobba

(ethnology) A member of a Muslim group of traders and merchants, spread out through isolated village networks and towns in the northeast and east of Ethiopia.


Japhetic

en-adj

Japhetic (comparative more Japhetic, superlative most Japhetic)

more Japhetic (comparative)
most Japhetic (superlative)
Iapetic (alternative)
Japhethic (alternative)

The English Japheth or the Latin Iapetus, + -ic. Coined in the first half of the 19th century alongside Semitic and Hamitic.

(obsolete, ethnography) Of or pertaining to the supposed descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible.


prestation

From Latin praestatio (“a performing, paying”), from praestare: compare French prestation.

der

(sociology, anthropology) A gift in the context of a non-market society; a giving that takes place in a non-economic sphere


just-so story

/ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsəʊ ˌstɔːɹi/

PIE word
 *swé
From just so (“(almost) exactly or precisely like something”, adjective) + story, referring to the series of short stories called Just So Stories (collected in book form in 1902) by the English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) which described how various animals acquired their distinctive characteristics, such as how the leopard got its spots. According to Kipling, the stories were so titled because they were intended to put his daughter Josephine (“Effie”) to sleep, “and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence.”

Sociobiological explanations of human behaviour encounter two special difficulties, suggesting that a Darwinian model may be generally inapplicable in this case. […] Secondly, the standard foundation of Darwinian just-so stories does not apply to humans. That foundation is the implication: if adaptive, then genetic—for the inference of adaptation is usually the only basis of a selective story, and Darwinism is a theory of genetic change and variation in populations.

1978 November 16, Stephen Jay Gould, “Sociobiology: The Art of Storytelling”, in Bernard Dixon, editor, New Scientist, volume 80, number 1129, London: IPC Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 532:

(social sciences, especially anthropology, philosophy, chiefly derogatory) An untestable explanation for something, such as a form of behaviour, a biological trait, or a cultural practice.


fisherfolk

en-noun

fisherfolk (countable and uncountable, plural fisherfolks)

/ˈfɪʃɚˌfoʊk/

From fisher (“person who catches fish, especially for a living or for sport”) + folk; compare fisherman.

compound

(anthropology) Members of a culture that is dominated by fishing.

kalastajakansan jäsen

members of a culture that is dominated by fishing


FBS

en-noun

FBS (countable and uncountable, plural FBSs)

Even more, cross-cousins on the mother's side (MBS and MBD) are called by different terms – the same as for M and MB, respectively – than those on the father's side (FBS and FBD). Finally, FB is called by the same term as F,[…]

2009 June 24, Jack David Eller, Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives, Routledge, →ISBN, page 196:

(anthropology) Initialism of father's brother's son.


comparative ethics

(anthropology, sociology, ethics) A type of descriptive ethics, focused on studying the nature and origins of beliefs about morality held by people in diverse social or cultural groups.


avunculocal

(anthropology, of a society, culture, or system) Characterized by couples living with the husband's maternal uncle.


stirp

(biology, anthropology) A line descended from a single ancestor.


massify

en-verb

massify (third-person singular simple present massifies, present participle massifying, simple past and past participle massified)

massifies (present singular third-person)
massifying (participle present)
massified (participle past)
massified (past)

(transitive and intransitive, anthropology) To become, or cause to become, oriented toward mass production, mass consumption, and high throughput rather than individuality.


Natufian

Coined by Dorothy Garrod after Wadi an-Natuf, the location of the Shuqba cave in West Bank where these people lived, + -ian.

(archaeology, anthropology) Of, or relating to a Mesolithic-era hunter-gatherer people in the Mediterranean area around Levant, at about 13,000 to 11,000 BC.


autonym

Deutsche is the autonym of the people known in English as Germans.

(linguistics, anthropology) A name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups.


australopithecine

australopithecines (plural)
Australopithecine (alternative)

/ˌɒstɹələ(ʊ)ˈpɪθɪsiːn/

Originally in reference to a now-obsolete subfamily Australopithecinae, formed in New Latin, from Latin austrālis (“southern”) + Ancient Greek πίθηκος (píthēkos, “ape”).

It is as if there were enshrined in these legends a racial memory of the Australopithicines who came close but never did make it to full humanity.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 28:

Australopithecines came in several varieties, some slender and gracile, like Raymond Dart's Taung child, others more sturdy and robust, but all were capable of walking upright.

2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, published 2003, page 391:

Caspari and Lee carried out comparisons ranging from ancient hominins such as australopithecines through to Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, assessing the ratios of young adults to old adults.

2011, Chris Stringer, The Origin of Our Species, Penguin, published 2012, page 151:

(anthropology, paleontology) Any of several extinct hominids, belonging to the genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus in the subtribe Australopithecina when seen as distinct, and sometimes other closely related genera.

αυστραλοπιθηκίνος

member of the subtribe Australopithecina


australopithecine

en-adj

australopithecine (comparative more australopithecine, superlative most australopithecine)

more australopithecine (comparative)
most australopithecine (superlative)
Australopithecine (alternative)

/ˌɒstɹələ(ʊ)ˈpɪθɪsiːn/

(anthropology, paleontology) Of or pertaining to these hominids.


coresidence

en-noun

coresidence (countable and uncountable, plural coresidences)

The question of coresidence is of special interest in the Northwest Amazon region because among tribes that do not have sibs but are organized on the basis of patrilocal families it is coresidence rather than kinship that has been reported to be the governor of exogamy (Kirchoff, 1931).

1979, Irving Goldman, The Cubeo: Indians of the Northwest Amazon, Second Edition, University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, pages 42–3:

(anthropology) Living together, sharing a residence, as of an adult child with a parent.


hypodigm

Coined in 1940 by George Gaylord Simpson, Types in Modern Taxonomy, published in American Journal of Science #238, p. 418.

(taxonomy, anthropology) A sample from which the characters of a population are to be inferred.


agropastoralist

(anthropology) A member of a people living by a mixture of agriculture and livestock herding


keyness

The keyness of a summarizing symbol derives from the relative fundamentality (or ultimacy) of the meanings which it formulates, relative to other meanings of the system.

1973, Sherry B. Ortner, “On Key Symbols”, in American Anthropology, volume 75:

(anthropology) The degree to which something is key, or important.


Proto-Yeniseian

(anthropology) A person who spoke the Proto-Yeniseian language.

Proto-ienisseïen

person who spoke the Proto-Yeniseain language


Proto-Yeniseian

(linguistics, anthropology) Of or pertaining to the Proto-Yeniseian language, or the people who spoke it.


endocannibalism

(anthropology) A form of cannibalism, the eating of dead members of one's own social group, often associated with spiritual beliefs.


exocannibalism

(anthropology) A form of cannibalism, the eating of members of other social groups than one's own, as opposed to endocannibalism.


animatism

animatism (countable and uncountable, plural animatisms)

From animate + -ism. Originally coined by British anthropologist Robert Marett to refer to "a belief in a generalized, impersonal power over which people have some measure of control".

(anthropology) The belief that everything is pervaded by a life force giving each inanimate object a consciousness or personality, but not a soul as in animism.


Abitibi

From Algonquin abi'ta-bi-g (“halfway across water”), from abi'ta (“halfway”) + bi (“water”).

bor

(ethnography, Canada) A member of a certain Algonquin people of Ontario.


urtext

urtexts (plural)
urtexte (plural)
ur-text (alternative)
Ur-text (alternative)

(music, linguistics, anthropology) The original version of a piece of music or text, as created by the composer or writer.


matrilineality

(anthropology) The condition of being matrilineal


patrilineality

en-noun

patrilineality (countable and uncountable, plural patrilinealities)

(uncountable, anthropology) The state or condition of conforming to agnatic lineality, the condition of being patrilineal.

(countable, anthropology) An example of patrilineal descent or kinship.


spearthrower

spearthrowers (plural)
spear-thrower (alternative)

1988, Joyce A, Tyldesley, S. R. Snape, Nazlet Tuna: An Archaeological Survey in Middle Egypt, British Archaeological Reports International Series: 414, page 50,
The broad spearthrowers and the long spearthrowers, depicted in ‘early’ and ‘late’ styles respectively, can likewise be related to Cundy′s analysis.

The bearer usually also holds a spearthrower (atlatl), fashioned as an arm-length wand that has circular white (shell) finger holds and a hooked end to launch the spears; these spearthrowers may be embellished with eagle feathers and down balls (Fig. 19ac).

2007, Elizabeth Hill Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate, page 58:

In the Bunjilaka Gallery of the Melbourne Museum the spearthrower, shown in Figure 4, is on display. The lines on the spearthrower interpret the Journey of the Great Snake Liru, a Dreamtime ancestor.

2010, Dale Kerwin, Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trading Routes: The Colonisation of the Australian Economic Landscape, page 10:

(anthropology, archaeology) A hand-held tool used as a lever to increase the throwing distance and penetrating force of a spear or dart, an atlatl; a woomera.


liminality

liminality (countable and uncountable, plural liminalities)

The second way Novalis seeks to repotentize his thought is by striving to evoke feelings conducive to liminality.

1998, Joseph Frederick Bailey, Theorizing night vision: Novalis's "Hymnen an die Nacht.", page 209:

(anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology) The state or quality of ambiguity which exists in the middle stage of certain events or rituals (such as a rite of passage or a society-wide revolution), during which the participating individual or group no longer holds its pre-ritual status but has not yet attained the status it will hold when the ritual has been completed.


matrifocal

en-adj

matrifocal (comparative more matrifocal, superlative most matrifocal)

more matrifocal (comparative)
most matrifocal (superlative)

(anthropology) Family structure in which mothers head families and fathers play a less important role in the home and in bringing up children.


matrilateral

(anthropology) Related through one's maternal side.


uncontacted

There have been other encounters with uncontacted tribes in recent years.

2025 April 4, Lex Harvey and Esha Mitra, “US tourist arrested after allegedly attempting to contact ‘world’s most isolated’ tribe”, in CNN:

(anthropology, of a tribal society) Without regular contact with non-tribal societies.


Xanthochroi

Coined by Thomas Henry Huxley, from Ancient Greek ξανθός (xanthós, “fair, yellow, golden, blond”), and either χρώς (khrṓs, “skin”), or ὠχρός (ōkhrós, “pale”).

der

The furthermost limit of the Xanthochroi north-westward is Iceland and the British Isles

1865, Thomas H. Huxley, On the Methods and Results of Ethnology:

(dated, anthropology) A division of the human population having fair skin and wavy blond hair.


cross-cousin

cross-cousins (plural)
cross cousin (alternative)

Many societies forbid marriage between parallel cousins, but encourage marriage between cross-cousins or second cross-cousins.

(anthropology) The child of one's father's sister or of one's mother's brother; a cousin related via opposite-gender siblings rather than same-gender ones (the latter being a parallel cousin).

geparenca kuzo

relationship between two cousins or two groups of cousins whose parents are brother and sister, respectively


Hittitologist

(anthropology, linguistics) An archaeologist, historian, linguist, or art historian who specializes in the study of the Ancient Hittites and their Near Eastern Empire which was based in Hattusa in modern day Anatolia.


calling name

(anthropology, linguistics) The name by which a person is normally identified in conversation.

roepnaam

name by which a person is identified in conversation


ethnolinguistic

Baker (1972) identified four varieties of Mauritian creole associated with different ethnolinguistic groups.

1989, John Holm, Pidgins and Creoles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 398:

(anthropology) Associated with a particular ethnicity and a particular variety of language.


lissotrichous

en-adj

lissotrichous (comparative more lissotrichous, superlative most lissotrichous)

more lissotrichous (comparative)
most lissotrichous (superlative)

From Ancient Greek λισσός (lissós, “smooth”) + θρίξ (thríx) + -ous.

(anthropology, rare) Straight-haired or smooth-haired; belonging to the lissotrichi.


matrifocality

(anthropology) The state or condition of being matrifocal.

matrifocalidad

the state or condition of being matrifocal


IEA

w:Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography

(ethnography, anthropology) Initialism of Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography: a Russian institute of research, specializing in ethnographic studies of cultural and physical anthropology.


phratry

PIE word
 *bʰréh₂tēr
From Latin phrātria, from Ancient Greek φρατρία (phratría, “tribe, clan”), from φράτηρ (phrátēr) + -ία (-ía).

uder

The moieties are linked to or bear the names of beings or forces expressing the cosmic dichotomy. Most common are heaven and earth moieties, "above" and "below," or moieties named after birds and land animals (or aquatic animals), as is the case among the Winnebago and in the phratry system of the Northwest Coast Indians.

1979, Åke Hultkrantz, “The Great Tribal Ceremonies”, in Monica Setterwall, transl., The Religions of the American Indians, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, published 1980, →ISBN, part I (Tribal Religions), page 112:

(anthropology, dated) A former kinship division consisting of two or more distinct clans with separate identities but considered to be a single unit.


australopith

australopiths (plural)
Australopith (alternative)

/ˈɒstɹələˌpɪθ/

The incisors are more similar in size to the molars compared to earlier australopiths—a condition which is also more humanlike.
The limb bones indicate A. garhi had small stature like earlier australopiths.

2007, Holly M. Dunsworth, Human Origins 101, page 78:

Most authorities would nowadays concur that the australopiths were generally committed to habitats with at least some trees, to which they were more or less tied for sleeping and for shelter from predators during the day, as well as for a large part of their sustenance.

2008, Rob DeSalle, Ian Tattersall, Human Origins: What Bones And Genomes Tell Us About Ourselves, page 118:

Later we'll consider how these principles apply to australopith craniofacial function, but first let's review briefly how different australopiths accommodated large teeth and big masticatory muscles, and how they grew large, buttressed faces.

2011, Daniel E. Lieberman, The Evolution of the Human Head, page 451:

(anthropology, paleontology) Any of the hominids of the extinct genus Australopithecus.

australopithecine

depending on the classification scheme used


australopith

en-adj

australopith (comparative more australopith, superlative most australopith)

more australopith (comparative)
most australopith (superlative)
Australopith (alternative)

/ˈɒstɹələˌpɪθ/

(anthropology, paleontology) Of or pertaining to the hominids of the extinct genus Australopithecus.


alexithymic

alexithymic (comparative more alexithymic, superlative most alexithymic)

more alexithymic (comparative)
most alexithymic (superlative)

/əˌlɛksɪˈθaɪmɪk/

From a- + Ancient Greek λέξις (léxis, “speech”) + θυμός (thumós, “soul”) + -ic.

(anthropology) Lacking in emotion or emotional expression.


sedentism

Coordinate term: nomadism

Where sedentism does occur amongst hunters and gatherers it seems generally to be related to a number of recurrent features.

1982, Eric S. Higgs, M. R. Jarman, Early European Agriculture: Its Foundation and Development, page 46:

The implicit correlations between mobility, sedentism, complexity, and progressive evolutionary change are so interwoven and all pervasive as to be all but impossible to disentangle in adaptationist theory.

2012, Thomas E. Emerson, Dale L. McElrath, Andrew C. Fortier, Archaic Societies, page 30:

Assuming sedentism made children less costly, as is often said to be true, our theory predicts a shift toward increased fertility, increased child mortality, decreased food per capita, and increased regional population.

2023, Gregory K. Dow, Clyde G. Reed, Economic Prehistory: Six Transitions That Shaped The World, page 116:

(anthropology) The practice of living in one place for a long time.


sedentarise

en-verb

sedentarise (third-person singular simple present sedentarises, present participle sedentarising, simple past and past participle sedentarised)

sedentarises (present singular third-person)
sedentarising (participle present)
sedentarised (participle past)
sedentarised (past)

(British, anthropology) Alternative spelling of sedentarize.


sedentarize

sedentarize (third-person singular simple present sedentarizes, present participle sedentarizing, simple past and past participle sedentarized)

sedentarizes (present singular third-person)
sedentarizing (participle present)
sedentarized (participle past)
sedentarized (past)
sedentarise (alternative)

(US, anthropology) to settle a nomadic population through sedentism


sedentarization

From sedentarize + -ation or sedentary + -ization.

Coordinate term: nomadization

(anthropology) The settling of a nomadic population; the transition from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one.


ANT

en-noun

ANT (countable and uncountable, plural ANTs)

actor–network theory
w:actor–network theory

(anthropology, semiotics) Abbreviation of actor–network theory.


bilocal

(anthropology) Describing a situation in which a married couple alternate their residence between that of the wife's and husband's group


first contact

first contact (usually uncountable, plural first contacts)

(anthropology) The first meeting between people of two previously unknown cultures.


Paiute

From Spanish payuchi, payuta, compare Spanish yuta (“Ute”).

(anthropology) Any member of two related groups of North American aboriginal peoples: the Northern Paiute of California, Nevada, and Oregon, and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.


Bajau

Bajaus (plural)
Bajau (plural)
Badjao (alternative)
Bajao (alternative)

Learned borrowing from Indonesian Bajau bajau.

lbor

The Bajaus, or sea gypsies, live in boats, their occupation being fishing.

1905, United States. Bureau of the Census, Census of the Philippine Islands, volume 1, page 565:

The largest tribe is the 60,000-member Bajau. The Bajaus were once sea nomads and pirates.

1969, James W. Gould, The United States and Malaysia, page 30:

The Bajau are a group of seafarers who migrated from the Philippines only a couple hundred years ago. The Bajau on the eastern coast of Sabah carry on their traditional connection to the water, living as sea gypsies and coming to shore only for burials. On the west coast, however, many Bajau have settled on dry land as farmers and cattle raisers.

2011, Daniel White, Ron Emmons, Jennifer Eveland, Jen Lin-Liu, Frommer's Southeast Asia, page 569:

(ethnology) The indigenous people native to Bajau island (part of modern-day Indonesia), these ethnic group nowadays predominantly inhabit the Bajau island and its adjacent regions in Indonesia and also expanded to the southern Philippines.

sea gypsy

member of people in Indonesia and southern Philippines


seclusion lodge

en-noun

seclusion lodge (plural seclusion lodges)

The huts were seclusion lodges, where we were to live isolated from society.

1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 30:

The seclusion lodge houses circumcision initiates, keeping them separate from the rest of the community.

1996, Jerry D Moore, Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes, page 140:

The birth lodge, the puberty rite lodge, the menstrual seclusion lodge, as well as the family dwelling built and owned by the woman, show that previously the Plateau-built environment was almost exclusively under women's purview.

2006, Mary C Wright, in Kelm & Townsend, In the Days of our Grandmothers, p. 265

(chiefly anthropology) A traditional dwelling placed apart from a community, tribe etc., for the use of those under ceremonial or taboo restrictions.


war dance

war dances (plural)
wardance (alternative)

There was a greyness in the east by the time we had completed the Navajo war dance on the front lawn.

1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 20:

(anthropology) A ceremonial dance performed before a major battle or after a victory, usually by a tribe.


Cushite

From Cush + -ite, coined in the 1820s. In the early 19th century, the term referred to the tan to dark-skinned people of the Horn of Africa (synonymous with Herodotus' Ethiopians) in general. The technical linguistic sense is due to Friedrich Müller (1876).

(anthropology, dated in academic contexts) A member of one of various peoples native to the Horn of Africa, generally restricted to those that speak Cushitic languages.

Kuschite

member of one of the peoples of the Horn of Africa


Jin

Cambridge University Press
Jin
Jin (Chinese surname)
Jin Prefecture (Shaanxi)
Jurchen Jin
Linfen

From the atonal Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 金 (Jīn, literally “gold, golden”). As a surname, legendarily derived from the descendants of Shaohao who took a golden phoenix as their tribal emblem. As an area and town in Shaanxi, named for the placer deposits of gold on the Yue River. As a Jurchen empire and dynastic name, a Chinese calque of Jurchen name of the Ashi River within modern Harbin, preserved in Chinese transcription as 按出虎 (Ànchūhǔ) (Middle Chinese: ʔan-tsyhwit-xu). As a Manchu empire and dynastic name, an early continuation of the former Jurchen name prior to the 1636 proclamation of the Qing.

der

(historical, ethnography, uncommon) Synonym of Jurchen: the Tungusic people who ruled this empire.


protoculture

Life in this primitive condition of nature is not, in the words of Hobbes, "nasty, brutish, and short"; it is a world of rules, a world in which physical aggression and sexuality are shaped by a protoculture.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 67:

(physical anthropology) The passing of behaviours from one generation to another among non-human primates. These cultures are very rudimentary, and do not exhibit complex cultural technology.


Papuasia

(anthropology) Melanesia: New Guinea and neighboring islands to the west and east


craniometry

en-noun

craniometry (usually uncountable, plural craniometries)

But regardless of what they made of phrenology, those who saw craniometry as a means of measuring the relative weight of intelligence and emotion in psychological makeup were generally sceptical as to whether, as Blumenbach and Camper believed, humanity had branched from one ancestral pair into varietal types as a result of colonising different continents.

2020 October 5, Paul Turnbull, “Thinking About Craniometry- The Racial Turn”, in Paul Turnbull:

Similarly, some forensic companies have started to engage in “DNA phenotyping” – e.g. predicting skin color and facial features based on DNA data – something that’s best understood as 21st century re-run of long-debunked craniometry.

2025 March 31, Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, “Sunsetting openSNP - a personal retrospective”, in Bastian Greshake Tzovaras:

physical anthropology
physical anthropology

(especially physical anthropology, medicine) The practice of taking measurements of the skull.