culture

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: cul=ture

CIDE DICTIONARY

culture, n. [F. culture, L. cultura, fr. colere to till, cultivate; of uncertain origin. Cf. Colony.].

•  The act or practice of cultivating, or of preparing the earth for seed and raising crops by tillage; as, the culture of the soil.  [1913 Webster]
•  The act of, or any labor or means employed for, training, disciplining, or refining the moral and intellectual nature of man; as, the culture of the mind.  [1913 Webster]

  "If vain our toil
  We ought to blame the culture, not the soil."  [1913 Webster]
•  The state of being cultivated; result of cultivation; physical improvement; enlightenment and discipline acquired by mental and moral training; civilization; refinement in manners and taste.  [1913 Webster]

  "What the Greeks expressed by their paidei`a, the Romans by their humanitas, we less happily try to express by the more artificial word culture."  [1913 Webster]

  "The list of all the items of the general life of a people represents that whole which we call its culture."  [1913 Webster]
•  The cultivation of bacteria or other organisms (such as fungi or eukaryotic cells from mulitcellular organisms) in artificial media or under artificial conditions.

  "The growth of cells obtained from multicellular animals or plants in artificial media is called tissue culture."  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

  " The word is used adjectively with the above senses in many phrases, such as: culture medium, any one of the various mixtures of gelatin, meat extracts, etc., in which organisms cultivated; culture flask, culture oven, culture tube, gelatin culture, plate culture, etc."  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
•  Those details of a map, collectively, which do not represent natural features of the area delineated, as names and the symbols for towns, roads, houses, bridges, meridians, and parallels.  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

Culture fluid, Culture medium a fluid in which microscopic organisms are made to develop, either for purposes of study or as a means of modifying their virulence. If the fluid is gelled by, for example, the use of agar, it then is called, depending on the vessel in which the gelled medium is contained, a plate, a slant, or a stab.

culture, v. t. 

 To cultivate; to educate.  [1913 Webster]
"They came . . . into places well inhabited and cultured."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

culture, n. & v.
--n.
1 a the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively (a city lacking in culture). b a refined understanding of this; intellectual development (a person of culture).
2 the customs, civilization, and achievements of a particular time or people (studied Chinese culture).
3 improvement by mental or physical training.
4 a the cultivation of plants; the rearing of bees, silkworms, etc. b the cultivation of the soil.
5 a quantity of micro-organisms and the nutrient material supporting their growth.
--v.tr. maintain (bacteria etc.) in conditions suitable for growth.

Idiom

culture shock the feeling of disorientation experienced by a person suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture or way of life. culture vulture colloq. a person eager to acquire culture. the two cultures the arts and science.

Etymology

ME f. F culture or L cultura (as CULT): (v.) f. obs. F culturer or med.L culturare

THESAURUS

culture

Acheulean, Aurignacian, Azilian, Chellean, Eolithic, Neolithic, Paleolithic, Pre-Chellean, Solutrean, acculturation, acquired taste, agrarianism, agricultural geology, agriculture, agrology, agronomics, agronomy, appreciation of excellence, background, backset, bibliolatry, bibliomania, bluestockingism, book learning, book madness, bookiness, bookishness, booklore, breed, breeding, cation, choiceness, civility, civilization, civilized taste, civilizedness, class, classical scholarship, classicism, community, complex, contour farming, contour plowing, cultivate, cultivated taste, cultivating, cultivation, cultural drift, culture area, culture center, culture complex, culture conflict, culture contact, culture pattern, culture trait, customs, cut, daintiness, delicacy, delve, dig, dirt farming, discernment, discrimination, donnishness, dress, dressing, dry farming, dryland farming, education, elegance, enculturation, enlightenment, eruditeness, erudition, ethnic group, ethos, excellence, fallow, fallowing, farm, farm economy, farming, fastidiousness, fatten, feed, fertilize, finesse, folkways, force, fruit farming, furrowing, genteelness, gentility, gentlemanlikeness, gentlemanliness, gentleness, geoponics, good breeding, good taste, grace, gracefulness, gracility, graciosity, graciousness, grain farming, grow, harrow, harrowing, hatch, hoe, hoeing, humanism, humanistic scholarship, husbandry, hydroponics, intellectualism, intellectuality, intensive farming, keep, key trait, ladylikeness, learnedness, learning, letters, list, listing, literacy, mixed farming, mores, mulch, nation, nationality, niceness, nicety, nurture, pedantism, pedantry, people, plow, plowing, polish, prune, pruning, quality, race, raise, rake, ranch, reading, rear, refinement, run, rural economy, savoir faire, savoir-faire, scholarship, sharecropping, socialization, society, sophist, sophistication, spade, speech community, stock, strain, strip farming, suavity, subsistence farming, subtlety, tank farming, taste, tastefulness, thin, thin out, thinning, thremmatology, till, till the soil, tillage, tilling, tilth, trait, trait-complex, truck farming, urbanity, way of life, weed, weed out, weeding, work, working

ROGET THESAURUS

culture

Improvement

N improvement, amelioration, melioration, betterment, mend, amendment, emendation, mending, advancement, advance, ascent, promotion, preferment, elevation, increase, cultivation, civilization, culture, march of intellect, menticulture, race-culture, eugenics, reform, reformation, revision, radical reform, second thoughts, correction, limoe labor, refinement, elaboration, purification, oxidation, repair, recovery, revise, new edition, reformer, radical, improving, progressive, improved, better, better off, better for, all the better for, better advised, reformatory, emendatory, reparatory, remedial, corrigible, improvable, accultural, on consideration, on reconsideration, on second thoughts, on better advice, ad melius inquirendum, urbent latericiam invenit marmoream reliquit.

Taste

N taste, good taste, refined taste, cultivated taste, delicacy, refinement, fine feeling, gust, gusto, tact, finesse, nicety, to prepon, polish, elegance, grace, judgment, discernment, dilettantism, dilettanteism, virtu, fine art, culture, cultivation, aesthetics, man of taste, connoisseur, judge, critic, conoscente, virtuoso, amateur, dilettante, Aristarchus, Corinthian, arbiter elegantiarum, stagirite, euphemist, caviare to the general, in good taste, cute, tasteful, tasty, unaffected, pure, chaste, classical, attic, cultivated, refined, dainty, esthetic, aesthetic, artistic, elegant, euphemistic, to one's taste, to one's mind, after one's fancy, comme il faut, tire a quatre epingles, elegantly, nihil tetigit quod non ornavit, chacun a son gout, oculi pictura tenentur aures cantibus, taste, flavor, gust, gusto, savor, gout, relish, sapor, sapidity, twang, smack, smatch, aftertaste, tang, tasting, degustation, gustation, palate, tongue, tooth, stomach, sapid, saporific, gustable, gustatory, gustful, strong, gamy, palatable.

Knowledge

N knowledge, cognizance, cognition, cognoscence, acquaintance, experience, ken, privity, insight, familiarity, comprehension, apprehension, recognition, appreciation, intuition, conscience, consciousness, perception, precognition, acroamatics, light, enlightenment, glimpse, inkling, glimmer, glimmering, dawn, scent, suspicion, impression, discovery, system of knowledge, body of knowledge, science, philosophy, pansophy, acroama, theory, aetiology, etiology, circle of the sciences, pandect, doctrine, body of doctrine, cyclopedia, encyclopedia, school, tree of knowledge, republic of letters, erudition, learning, lore, scholarship, reading, letters, literature, book madness, book learning, bookishness, bibliomania, bibliolatry, information, general information, store of knowledge, education, culture, menticulture, attainments, acquirements, acquisitions, accomplishments, proficiency, practical knowledge, liberal education, dilettantism, rudiments, deep knowledge, profound knowledge, solid knowledge, accurate knowledge, acroatic knowledge, acroamatic knowledge, vast knowledge, extensive knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge, encyclopedic learning, omniscience, pantology, march of intellect, progress of science, advance of science, advance of learning, schoolmaster abroad, scholar, knowing, cognitive, acroamatic, aware of, cognizant of, conscious of, acquainted with, made acquainted with, privy to, no stranger to, au fait with, au courant, in the secret, up to, alive to, behind the scenes, behind the curtain, let into, apprized of, informed of, undeceived, proficient with, versed with, read with, forward with, strong with, at home in, conversant with, familiar with, erudite, instructed, leaned, lettered, educated, well conned, well informed, well read, well grounded, well educated, enlightened, shrewd, savant, blue, bookish, scholastic, solid, profound, deep-read, book- learned, accomplished, omniscient, self-taught, known, ascertained, well-known, recognized, received, notorious, noted, proverbial, familiar, familiar as household words, familiar to every schoolboy, hackneyed, trite, trivial, commonplace, cognoscible, cognizable, to one's knowledge, to the best of one's knowledge, one's eyes being opened, ompredre tout c'est tout pardonner, to know all is to pardon all, empta dolore docet experientia, gnothi seauton, half our knowledge we must snatch not take, Jahre lehren mehr als Bucher, years teach more than books, knowledge comes but wisdom lingers, knowledge is power, les affaires font les hommes, nec scire fas est omnia, the amassed thought and experience of innumerable, was ich nicht weiss macht mich nicht heiss.