History of anthropology
The first use of the term "anthropology" in English to refer to a natural science of humanity was apparently in Richard Harvey's 1593 "Philadelphus, a defense of the legend of Brutus in British history", which, includes the passage: "Genealogy or issue which they had, Artes which they studied, Actes which they did. This part of History is named Anthropology."
History of anthropology
The term "anthropology" ostensibly is a produced compound of Greek "anthrōpos", "human being" (understood to mean "humankind" or "humanity"), and a supposed -λογία "-logia", "study". The compound, however, is unknown in ancient Greek or Latin, whether classical or mediaeval. It first appears sporadically in the scholarly Latin "anthropologia" of Renaissance France, where it spawns the French word "anthropologie", transferred into English as anthropology. It does belong to a class of words produced with the -logy suffix, such as archeo-logy, bio-logy, etc., "the study (or science) of".