Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The branch of anthropology that analyzes and compares human cultures, as in social structure, language, religion, and technology; cultural anthropology.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The science of the races of men and of their character, history, customs, and institutions. See the extract.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The science which treats of the division of mankind into races, their origin, distribution, and relations, and the peculiarities which characterize them.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun anthropology The branch of anthropology that studies and compares the different human cultures.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the branch of anthropology that deals with the division of humankind into races and with their origins and distribution and distinctive characteristics

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἔθνος (ethnos, "a people, nation") + -λογία (-logía, "-logy, branch of study, to speak")

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