neanderthal

The word 'Neanderthal' entered English in the mid-19th century as a direct borrowing from German, serving as the geographical name of the site of the first fossil discovery. The valley's name, Neanderthal, has its own layered history: it honors the 17th-century German theologian and poet Joachim Neander, whose surname was a Greek translation (Neander, from neos 'new' + aner 'man') of his original family name Neumann. Thus, etymologically, 'Neanderthal' literally means 'Neander's valley'. The scientific and later colloquial meanings of the word are entirely derived from the characteristics attributed to the hominid fossils found there, with the derogatory figurative sense developing from now-outdated perceptions of Neanderthals as brutish and primitive.

This is a loanword from German, derived from the name of the Neander Valley (Neanderthal) in Germany where the first fossil remains were discovered. The German name "Neanderthal" itself is a compound of "Neander" (a Hellenized form of the surname Neumann, meaning 'new man') and "Thal" (an older spelling of 'Tal', meaning 'valley').