noun
extinct robust human of Middle Paleolithic in Europe and western Asia
• Syn: ↑Neandertal man, ↑Neandertal, ↑Neanderthal, ↑Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
• Derivationally related forms: ↑Neanderthal (for: ↑Neanderthal), ↑Neanderthalian (for: ↑Neanderthal), ↑Neandertal (for: ↑Neandertal)
• Hypernyms: ↑homo, ↑man, ↑human being, ↑human
• Member Holonyms: ↑genus Homo
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noun also neandertal manUsage: usually capitalized N
Etymology: from Neanderthal (Neandertal), valley in western Germany where the remains were first discovered
: a type or race or species of Middle Paleolithic man (Homo neanderthalensis or Palaeoanthropus neanderthalensis) known from skeletal remains found at many sites in Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia usually in association with Mousterian artifacts and distinguished by a stocky, heavily muscled build, proportionally short forearm and lower leg, and an extremely dolichocephalic skull with projecting occiput, heavy supraorbital torus, receding forehead, and undeveloped chin
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a member of an extinct subspecies of powerful, physically robust humans, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, that inhabited Europe and western and central Asia c100,000-40,000 B.C. See illus. under hominid.
[1860-65]
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Neanderthal man UK US noun [singular]
a member of the neanderthal people
Thesaurus: time before history was written downhyponym
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Neanderthal man,
an extinct species of man widespread in Europe, North Africa, and western and central Asia, in the early Stone Age, the first fossils of which were discovered in 1856 at the Neander Gorge near Düsseldorf, Germany. The Neanderthal man of Europe had a large, heavy skull and low forehead, a broad, flat nose, and a heavy lower jaw with teeth intermediate in shape between those of modern man and the apes. »
We now reach the immediate forerunner of modern man, homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthal man (Melville J. Herskovits).
Useful english dictionary. 2012.