culture

From Middle French culture (“cultivation; culture”), from Latin cultūra (“cultivation; culture”), from cultus, perfect passive participle of colō (“till, cultivate, worship”) (related to colōnus and colōnia), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to move; to turn (around)”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌlt͡ʃɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌlt͡ʃə/

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• Audio (UK)

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culture (countable and uncountable, plural cultures)

1. the arts, customs, lifestyles, background, and habits that characterize a particular society or nation
   • 2013 September 7, “Farming as rocket science”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8852:

     Such differences of history and culture have lingering consequences. Almost all the corn and soyabeans grown in America are genetically modified. GM crops are barely tolerated in the European Union. Both America and Europe offer farmers indefensible subsidies, but with different motives.

2. the beliefs, values, behaviour and material objects that constitute a people's way of life
3. the conventional conducts and ideologies of a community; the system comprising of the accepted norms and values of a society.
   • 2012 March-April, Jan Sapp, “Race Finished”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 164:

     Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution.

4. (anthropology) any knowledge passed from one generation to the next, not necessarily with respect to human beings
5. (botany) cultivation
   • http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/suffolk/grownet/flowers/sprgbulb.htm

     The Culture of Spring-Flowering Bulbs

6. (microbiology) the process of growing a bacterial or other biological entity in an artificial medium
7. the growth thus produced

   I'm headed to the lab to make sure my cell culture hasn't died.

8. the collective noun for a group of bacteria
9. (cartography) the details on a map that do not represent natural features of the area delineated, such as names and the symbols for towns, roads, meridians, and parallels

• agriculture

culture (third-person singular simple present cultures, present participle culturing, simple past and past participle cultured)

1. (transitive) to maintain in an environment suitable for growth (especially of bacteria) (compare cultivate)
2. (transitive) to increase the artistic or scientific interest (in something) (compare cultivate)

• "culture" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 87.

From Latin cultūra (“cultivation; culture”), from cultus, perfect passive participle of colō (“till, cultivate, worship”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to move; to turn (around)”).

• IPA^(key): /kyl.tyʁ/

• Audio

  (file)

culture f (plural cultures)

1. crop
2. culture (“arts, customs and habits”)

• “culture” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• Rhymes: -ure

culture f

1. plural of cultura

cultūre

1. vocative masculine singular of cultūrus

• IPA^(key): /kulˈtuɾe/, [kul̪ˈt̪uɾe]

culture

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of culturar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of culturar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of culturar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of culturar.