Anthropoi

Anthropoi is the transliteration of the ancient Greek noun ἄνθρωποι, the plural of ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos), meaning “humans” or “people.” In classical Greek, anthrōpos referred to a human being in general, and anthrōpoi could denote either the human race as a whole or a specific group of people. The term appears across Greek literature and philosophy, where discussions of human nature, virtue, and social life commonly involve references to people, sometimes in contrast with gods or nonhuman beings.

The word is the source of a broad family of modern terms built from the Greek root anthrōpos, combined with different suffixes such as -logia (study), -morphē (form), or -centric (centered). In English, words like anthropology, anthropomorphic, and anthropocentric derive from these roots and reflect enduring interest in humans as a subject of study or description. In contemporary Greek, the familiar everyday term for “people” is άνθρωποι (ánthrōpoi), showing the continuity of meaning from ancient to modern usage.

In scholarly contexts, anthropoi is used when translating or discussing Greek texts that refer to people in a general sense. The term thus functions both as a linguistic unit in classical sources and as the etymological basis for a wide range of scientific and humanities terms that center on human beings.