anthropoid
noun
H. L. Mencken
Did you know?
With its suffix -oid, meaning "resembling", the word anthropoid means literally "resembling a human being". Anthropoid apes are so called because they resemble humans more closely than do other primates such as monkeys and lemurs. Some even spend a good deal of time walking on their hind legs. Anthropoids are, of course, highly intelligent (though maybe no more so than many monkeys), and some of them use sticks and stones as tools. (But if you call someone an anthropoid, you're probably not complimenting his intelligence.)
Examples of anthropoid in a Sentence
Armond White, National Review, 10 Jan. 2025
But thanks to a meager fossil record, the question of where this first anthropoid was born has remained open.
—Rachel Preiser, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
Because the fossil indicates that the tarsier and anthropoid primate groups split before that era, the anthropoid lineage is also at least that old, says Beard.
—Sid Perkins, Scientific American, 5 June 2013
The Chinese, conversely, have been convinced forc enturies that the entire rest of the world is inhabited by an alien species of lower anthropoid.
—Jean Shepherd, Car and Driver, 18 Dec. 2022
Solo’s first mate on the Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca, a 7-foot monkey-face anthropoid has his own following.
—Merrie Monteagudo, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 May 2021
This 65-67 million-year-old relic looked down from on high on the anthropoids enjoying their time of evolutionary flourishing.
—Bradley J. Fikes, sandiegouniontribune.com, 18 June 2017
Since humans are apes, and apes are anthropoid primates, the last common ancestor of all anthropoids would be one of our distant primate ancestors.
—Brian Switek, WIRED, 1 July 2009
Cite this Entry
“Anthropoid.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anthropoid. Accessed 5 Apr. 2025.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
anthropoid
1 of 2 adjective
anthropoid
2 of 2 noun
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