Meaning & use
archeologist
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Meaning
nouncountable
A person who studies ancient societies by examining the objects and structures they left behind.
Grammar: Countable noun: one archeologist, two archeologists. Often followed by 'of' or a place name.
Patterns
- an archeologist studying something
- an archeologist working in a place
- a team of archeologists
The archeologist carefully brushed the dirt off the ancient coin.
She trained as an archeologist and now works on sites in Greece.
An archeologist can tell how old a bone is by testing it in a lab.
Word forms
| plural | archeologists |
|---|
Common combinations
- marine archeologist
- A marine archeologist studies shipwrecks and other sites under water.
- field archeologist
- Field archeologists spend months digging at remote sites.
- lead archeologist
- The lead archeologist decided where to dig next.
- archeologist's findings
- The archeologist's findings changed what we knew about the region.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- archeology noun
- The study of ancient societies through their remains.
- archeological adjective
- Relating to archeology or its methods.
Commonly confused: archeologist or paleontologist?
archeologist vs paleontologist
A paleontologist studies fossils of plants and animals, while an archeologist studies human-made objects and human history.
Practice
The archeologist was excited to find a Roman coin. What does 'archeologist' mean?
Choose one answer.
An archeologist studies past human societies by examining the things they left behind. Option 1 is wrong because that describes a geologist; option 2 is a historian, who mainly uses written records; option 3 is a prospector or miner, not a scientist of the past.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “archeologist”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.