Neanderthals

plural of Neanderthal
1
2
as in barbarians
a man with crude manners and habits and outmoded attitudes made the mistake of dining with some Neanderthal who repeatedly mistook his shirtsleeve for a napkin

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for Neanderthals
Noun
  • Winners, losers, and the suppliers caught in between Rivals are catching on.
    Sarwant Singh, Forbes.com, 2 July 2026
  • That is a big risk investors take when trying to find the winners and losers within the biotech sector.
    Jay Woods, CNBC, 2 July 2026
Noun
  • The world drew heavily from the paintings of fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta, who depicted scenes of barbarians and beasts in conflict, of pulp fiction heroes, femme fatales, and fierce warrior women.
    Steve Appleford, SPIN, 29 June 2026
  • To an outsider, the scene may spark a certain Schadenfreude, like an army of tiny barbarians sacking Rome.
    Burkhard Bilger, New Yorker, 29 June 2026
Noun
  • Can turkey tail mushrooms shrink lipomas, the soft, fatty lumps that show up under the skin of countless aging dogs?
    Samantha Agate, Charlotte Observer, 25 June 2026
  • Far from lumps of rock, the trojans, along with DJ and Dinkinesh (which is the Ethiopian name for the Lucy fossil), are windows into the past, and the storytellers of the Earth's most ancient history.
    Keith Cooper, Space.com, 19 June 2026
Noun
  • Many wonders made the list, including royal burial grounds in Egypt, an Indonesian archipelago of 1,500 islands and Turkish cliffs formerly inhabited by Bronze Age troglodytes (cave dwellers).
    John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 24 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • No one is suggesting these idiots are more than a small minority of the golf fans who did show up at Bethpage Black, and then at Shinnecock Hills.
    Mike Lupica, New York Daily News, 27 June 2026
  • Kids, let’s face it, are idiots by nature, and that’s not their fault.
    Matt Reigle OutKick, FOXNews.com, 27 May 2026
Noun
  • The sheriff said animal control officers are visiting the property three days a week and have found that the remaining dogs, as well as other animals, including cats and birds, appear to be receiving proper care.
    Thao Nguyen, USA Today, 30 June 2026
  • Investigators preliminarily determined many of the animals died from gunshot wounds, and the shelter has initiated legal action to recover remaining dogs.
    Ruyuan Li. Summary produced by AI assistance, Sacbee.com, 30 June 2026
Noun
  • There are complicated brain-chemistry factors involved that have to do with testosterone, and dopaminergic systems, and kappa-opioid receptors, all of which seem to add up to a Jim Gaffigan joke about how men are morons compared with their wives.
    McKay Coppins, The Atlantic, 12 Mar. 2026
  • The Dilbert principle — traced back to a quote in a 1995 strip — posited that managers and higher-ups are actually successful morons whose stubbornness is confused for real leadership qualities.
    Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 13 Jan. 2026
Noun
  • The findings add to a growing body of evidence that Neanderthals — our closest extinct human relatives — were cognitively and psychologically more similar to modern humans than previously thought, rather than the simple-minded, brutish cavemen of earlier stereotypes.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 13 May 2026
  • The strip explored the life of a group of cavemen and their anthropomorphic animals and dinosaurs in prehistoric times, and has been in production for nearly 70 years, currently managed by Hart’s family.
    Arushi Jacob, Variety, 2 Apr. 2026
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Neanderthals.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/Neanderthals. Accessed 5 Jul. 2026.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster