Meanings
plural hunter-gatherers
- A member of a group of people who live by hunting animals and gathering edible plants for their main food sources, and who do not keep animals or farm land.
He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.
2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 13 Feb 2012, page 1622 more examples
[…] Wengrow and Graeber argue that the life of hunter-gatherers before widespread farming was nothing like “the drab abstractions of evolutionary theory,” which hold that early humans lived in small bands in which they acted almost entirely on instinct, either brutish (as in Hobbes) or egalitarian and innocent (as in Rousseau).
2022 July 11, Virginia Hefferman, “Humans Have Always Been Wrong About Humans”, in Wired, archived from the original on 16 Jul 2022“DNA from hunter-gatherers is present at higher levels in Northeastern Europe, which means the region has an elevated genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease,” Barrie said.
2024 January 11, Katie Hunt, “Gene that protected humans 5,000 years ago may be linked to debilitating modern disease”, in CNN
Origin
Translations
Basque ehiztari-biltzaile
- ehiztari-biltzaileperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Catalan caçador-recol·lector
- caçador-recol·lectorperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Chinese Mandarin 狩獵採集者 /狩猎采集者, 狩獵採集民 /狩猎采集民
- 狩獵採集者 /狩猎采集者 (shòuliè cǎijí zhě)person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
- 狩獵採集民 /狩猎采集民 (shòuliè cǎijí mín)person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Dutch jager-verzamelaar
- jager-verzamelaarperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Finnish metsästäjä-keräilijä
- metsästäjä-keräilijäperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
French chasseur-cueilleur
- chasseur-cueilleurperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
German Jäger und Sammler, Wild- und Feldbeuter
- Jäger und Sammlerperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
- Wild- und Feldbeuterperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
- Wildbeuter und Feldbeuterperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Greek κυνηγός-συλλέκτης, τροφοσυλλέκτης
- κυνηγός-συλλέκτης (kynigós-sylléktis)person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
- τροφοσυλλέκτης (trofosylléktis)person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Hungarian vadászó-gyűjtögető
- vadászó-gyűjtögetőperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Irish fiagaí cnuasaitheoir
- fiagaí cnuasaitheoirperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Italian cacciatore-raccoglitore
- cacciatore-raccoglitoreperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Japanese 狩猟採集民
- 狩猟採集民 (shuryō saishūmin)person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Korean 수렵채집민
- 수렵채집민 (suryeopchaejimmin)person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Polish łowca-zbieracz
- łowca-zbieraczperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Portuguese caçador-recoletor, caçador-coletor
- caçador-recoletorperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
- caçador-coletorperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Russian охо́тник-собира́тель
- охо́тник-собира́тель (oxótnik-sobirátelʹ)person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Spanish cazador-recolector
- cazador-recolectorperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Thai คนเก็บของป่าล่าสัตว์
- คนเก็บของป่าล่าสัตว์person whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Welsh heliwr-gasglwr
- heliwr-gasglwrperson whose main food source is hunting and gathering
Cite this entry
hunter-gatherer. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hunter-gatherer
“hunter-gatherer.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hunter-gatherer. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hunter-gatherer,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hunter-gatherer.
Source: hunter-gatherer on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.