Word.ws English Dictionary

anthroposophy

/ˌænθɹəˈpɒsəfi/US/ˌænθɹəˈpɑsəfi/

anthroposophy noun: knowledge or understanding of human nature.

Noun

anthroposophy (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) Knowledge or understanding of human nature.
  2. A philosophy founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner (also capitalized as Anthroposophy), postulating the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development.
    • Anthroposophy was having definite effects. I couldn't take any of this to heart. Other-worldliness tinged it all and every little while my spirit seemed to dissociate itself.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 223

Proper noun capitalized: Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy

  1. Alternative letter-case form of anthroposophy.

Origin of anthroposophy

From anthropo- + -sophy, from Renaissance Latin anthroposophia (attested in Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, d. 1535, and Thomas Vaughan, d. 1666), popularized from the 1910s via German Anthroposophie (Rudolf Steiner, 1861–1925).

Words formed from anthroposophy

Questions about anthroposophy

What does anthroposophy mean?
Anthroposophy means knowledge or understanding of human nature.
What part of speech is anthroposophy?
Anthroposophy can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce anthroposophy?
Anthroposophy is pronounced /ˌænθɹəˈpɑsəfi/ (US).

Words near anthroposophy in the dictionary

  1. anthroposophic
  2. anthroposophical
  3. anthroposophically
  4. anthroposophist
  5. anthroposophists
  6. anthroposophy
  7. anthroposphere
  8. anthropospheres
  9. anthropotechnic
  10. anthropotechnical
  11. anthropotechnically

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anthroposophy (page history and authors); Anthroposophy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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