NEANDERTHAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Neanderthal

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/niˈændərθˌɔl/ Listen

adjective

neanderthal adj.

Uncouth in manners or appearance.

Synonyms: boorish, clownish, loutish, oafish.

Neanderthal man, Neanderthal race, Neanderthal adj.

(Anthropol.) Of, pertaining to, or named from, the Neanderthal, a valley in the Rhine Province, in which were found parts of a skeleton of an early type of man. The skull is characterized by extreme dolichocephaly, flat, retreating forehead, with closed frontal sutures, and enormous superciliary ridges. The cranial capacity is estimated at about 1,220 cubic centimeters, being about midway between that of the Pithecanthropus and modern man. Hence, Pertaining to or designating the, or, a species of extinct robust humans, believed to have been widespread in the Middle Paleolithic in Europe and western Asia; as, a Neanderthal skull.

Synonyms: Neanderthalian.

Similar to or reminiscent of a neanderthal human; troglodytic; primitive and uncultured.

proper noun

Neanderthal n.

(Anthropol.) A neanderthal human being; a member of the race Homo sapiens neanderthalensis; as, neanderthals were shorter than modern humans.

One resembling a neanderthal human; a troglodyte; a cave man.

Hence: (Fig.) A person of primitive, unenlightened or uneducated opinions or attitudes; one with a regressive social or political outlook; used disparagingly.

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Etymology of 'Neanderthal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Neanderthal" Quotes from Famous Books

... confine myself, in discussing this question, to those fragmentary Human skulls from the caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, in Belgium, and of the Neanderthal near Dusseldorf, the geological relations of which have been examined with so much care by Sir Charles Lyell; upon whose high authority I shall take it for granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a contemporary of the Mammoth ('Elephas primigenius') ...

— On Some Fossil Remains of Man • Thomas H. Huxley

... Polygenism which seems now to be opening, with successive discoveries of the quaternary stratification of races, and Keith's analysis of the family tree of the Hominidae, starts from wholly different data, unembarrassed by fears or hopes of a 'Neanderthal' origin for the Negro, or for ...

— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... palaeontology, excites in us a very different feeling. Though with the keenest interest we ransack every nook and corner of the earth's surface for information about him, we are all the while aware that what we are studying is human zoology and not history. Our Neanderthal man is a specimen, not a character. We cannot ask him the Homeric question, what is his name, who were his parents, and how did he get where we found him. His language has died with him, and he can render no account of himself. ...

— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... warm and humid as evidenced by the wild growth of fig-trees and laurels. The animals characteristic of the epoch are the Elephas antiquus, the rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the hippopotamus and the striped hyaena. Man existed and belonged to the Neanderthal type. The implements characteristic of the period are flints chipped into leaf-shaped forms and held in the hand when used. The drift-beds of St Acheul (Amiens), of Menchecourt (Abbeville), of Hoxne (Suffolk), and the detrital ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... or the man who left us the Neanderthal skull, could have a look at us now, here in Berlin, in many ways the centre of the most enlightened people in the world, they would undoubtedly go mad trying to understand what we mean by the word ''progress.'' And yet we smile indulgently ...

— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... lot, evidently the leader of them, who bore a close resemblance to the so-called Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. There was the same short, stocky trunk upon which rested an enormous head habitually bent forward into the same curvature as the back, the arms shorter than the legs, and the lower leg ...

— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... in general with a bigger head, that in the end you find yourself comparing mere abstractions. Again, the European may be the first to cry off on the ground that comparisons are odious; for some specimens of Neanderthal man, in sheer size of brain cavity, are said to give points to any of our modern poets and politicians.... Nor, if the brain itself be examined after death, and the form and number of its convolutions compared, is this criterion of hereditary brain-power ...

— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen