Anthropocene

noun

An·​thro·​po·​cene ˈan(t)-thrə-pə-ˌsēn 

an-ˈthrä-

: the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological time interval

In the long history of this planet, our current time, the human age known as the Anthropocene, is the first in which a single species will so rapidly reshape the future of Earth's climate and all the other conditions that make life as we know it livable.

—Erle C. Ellis

Most scientists agree that humans have had a hand in warming Earth's climate since the industrial revolution—some even argue that we are living in a new geological epoch, dubbed the Anthropocene.

—Betsy Mason

Examples of Anthropocene in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The desert — churned, sucked and acid-washed — rests in these graveyards of the Anthropocene. — Cristina Dorador, The Dial, 14 July 2026

And, notes Fredriksen, in the big picture disasters of the Anthropocene, even glimmers are important. — Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 6 July 2026

So the question is why and how our moment of—pick your poison—late capitalism, permanent emergency, the death of the Anthropocene—has turned to an old form to describe the oxymoronic simultaneity of pathos and bathos, horror and the risible. — Eugenie Brinkema, ARTnews.com, 14 June 2026

Henrik Österblom, Director of the Anthropocene Lab at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, described research showing how a relatively small number of dominant corporations can shape entire industries. — Ingmar Rentzhog, Forbes.com, 22 May 2026

Word History

Etymology

anthropo- + -cene

Note: The name was formally proposed by the Dutch chemist Paul J. Crutzen and the American biologist Eugene F. Stoermer in "The 'Anthropocene'," Global Change Newsletter (newsletter of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, International Council for Science), No. 41 (May, 2000), pp. 17-18. According to his own recollection, Stoermer employed the word earlier ("I began using the term 'anthropocene' in the 1980s, but never formalized it until Paul [Crutzen] contacted me." —J. Grinevald, La Biosphère de l'Anthropocène [Geneva, 2007], p. 243, cited in Will Steffen, et al., "The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, vol. 369 [2011], p. 843).

First Known Use

2000, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for Anthropocene

• acetylene
• adamantine
• adenosine
• amphetamine
• apoprotein
• aquamarine
• arsphenamine
• azobenzene
• buprenorphine
• catecholamine
• chlorobenzene
• chlorpromazine