neanderthal
/niˈæn.dɚˌθɑl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.95 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Alternative letter-case form of Neanderthal.
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Neanderthal.
adj
Of or pertaining to Homo neanderthalensis.
adj
Of or pertaining to the Neander Valley in Germany.
Example Sentences
- "The capacity of the Neanderthal skull was 10% larger than that of modern humans."
- "[…]In short, many assessments conclude that East Asians have more Neanderthal ancestry than Europeans, who have more Neanderthal ancestry than people in the Middle East."
- "These injuries may reflect the rigors of hunting with the Neanderthals' limited repertoire of weapons; the Neanderthals never seem to have developed projectiles, so they would have to have gotten more or less on top of their prey in order to kill them."
Etymology
From obsolete German Neanderthal, now spelled Neandertal, the name of a valley (German Tal, older also spelled Thal) near Düsseldorf where the first Neanderthal was discovered in 1856. A hollow near the valley was known as Neanderhöhle (“Neander Hollow”) and Neandershöhle (“Neander’s Hollow”) in the early 19th century, and the valley had been renamed to Neanderthal in 1850, in honour of the German Calvinist theologian and hymn writer Joachim Neander (1650–1680). Before, the valley was known as das Gesteins (literally “The Rocks [sg.]”) and Hundsklipp (literally “Dog Cliff”). The name of Joachim Neander is based on the Ancient Greek translation (νέος (néos) + ᾰ̓νήρ (ănḗr)) of his original surname Neumann (“Newman”). The pronunciation with the "th" sound (/θ/) is a spelling pronunciation; the original German word is pronounced with a "t" sound (/t/).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Neanderthal, -
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /niˈæn.dɚˌθɑl/
- British English: /niːˈæn.dəˌtɑːl/