hunter-gatherer

noun

hunt·​er-gath·​er·​er ˈhən-tər-ˈga-t͟hər-ər 

: a member of a culture in which food is obtained by hunting, fishing, and foraging rather than by agriculture or animal husbandry

Examples of hunter-gatherer in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The fact that hunter-gatherers built Poverty Point challenges conventional ideas about early civilizations. —Yaakov Katz, Newsweek, 8 Feb. 2025

The researchers found that around 6,000 years ago, the CLV people began migrating in two directions: One group moved west into what is now Ukraine and mixed with local hunter-gatherers, eventually forming the Yamnaya genome. —Ella Jeffries, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Feb. 2025

Through migration, both hunter-gatherer and early farming groups mixed and mingled, sharing their genomes and, more importantly for this study, their languages. —Stephanie Edwards, Discover Magazine, 5 Feb. 2025

This was a shamanic site of the San, the nomadic hunter-gatherers who first inhabited South Africa. —Kendall Hunter, Travel + Leisure, 11 Jan. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1938, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

hunter-gatherer

noun

hunt·​er-gath·​er·​er

-ˈgat͟h-ər-ər,

-ˈget͟h-

: a member of a culture in which food is gotten by hunting, fishing, and gathering rather than by agriculture