Definition of "ethnology" [eth•nol•o•gy]

• The science that analyzes and compares human cultures, as in social structure, language, religion, and technology; cultural anthropology. (noun)
• The branch of anthropology that deals with the origin, distribution, and characteristics of human racial groups. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It will be seen, in fine, that in the main Obermüller does not differ from accepted theories in German ethnology, which have long carefully dissevered the Celts from the Teutons, and assigned to each tribe with approximate accuracy its earliest fixed abode in Europe."
• "The Museum's holdings in Asian ethnology constitute one of the finest such collections in the Western Hemisphere."
• "Political ethnology, which is no genuine science, excused the ambition of the Germans to themselves, and helped them to wage war; it has suggested to the Allies a method of waging peace."