culture
Pluralcultures
Pluralcultures
Formscultures, culturing, cultured
- 1The customs, beliefs, arts, values, and way of life shared by a particular society, nation, or people, or by humanity as a whole.
Ancient Greek culture gave the world theater, philosophy, and the Olympic Games.
Scholars debate how technology is reshaping modern culture.
UsageNo article for a way of life in general (French culture); use a culture or cultures for distinct societies.
Similarcivilization
Note
The broadest sense, and the one that carries the word's history most openly. Latin cultūra meant "cultivation," from colō, "to till, to worship." A society's culture is what it has grown on top of nature, which is why William Irwin Thompson could write in 1981 that, once a bull became an ox, "nature became culture."
- 2The accepted norms, values, and ideologies of a community, forming the system that guides how a society behaves.
Reformers tried to change a political culture built on bribery and favors.
The team's culture rewarded careful debate over quick decisions.
UsageOften preceded by a noun or adjective: company culture, workplace culture, political culture.
- 3A person's ethnicity or race, together with the arts and customs associated with it.
He wrote movingly about growing up between two cultures.
Her culture shaped the food, music, and holidays of her childhood.
UsageWhen you mean ancestry, ethnicity or the specific heritage is clearer; when you mean customs, culture is the right word.
Similarheritage, background
Note
A euphemism: the word steps in where a speaker would rather not say race or ethnicity. "Her culture" can then mean her ancestry as much as her customs, and the listener may not know which.
- 4A population of bacteria, cells, or other microorganisms grown in an artificial medium.
The culture showed dense colonies after forty-eight hours of incubation.
Technicians stained the culture to identify the bacteria under a microscope.
UsageCommon combinations include grow a culture, a bacterial culture, and a culture of bacteria.
- 5Short for archaeological culture: objects found together repeatedly in one region and period, thought to represent a past society.
The Clovis culture is identified by its distinctive stone spear points.
Excavators assigned the burial site to a Bronze Age culture.
UsageUsually named, with the or a: the Clovis culture, a Bronze Age culture.
Note
An archaeologist's shorthand: culture here stands for archaeological culture. The full term is defined cautiously, as a recurring set of artifacts that may be the remains of one past society. Careful writers keep that hedge, since a shared style of spear point does not prove a shared people.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- In archaeology, culture is an ellipsis of archaeological culture. en.wiktionary.org
- An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage that may represent a past society. en.wikipedia.org
- A single shared artifact trait does not establish a shared people. en.wikipedia.org
Less common meanings
- 6The process of growing bacteria or another biological organism in a prepared artificial medium.
Culture of the pathogen required a nutrient-rich medium and a sterile incubator.
Successful culture of anaerobic bacteria demands the complete exclusion of oxygen.
UsageOften followed by of (culture of the pathogen) or used in compounds such as cell culture.
Similarcultivation
Note
Microbiology uses one word for both the act and its result: the growing is culture, and the growth itself is a culture too. The same lab sense drives the verb, so a technician cultures a sample to get a culture.
- 7To keep bacteria or other organisms in conditions suitable for their growth.
Researchers culture the cells for several weeks before testing them.
Technicians cultured the sample to confirm the infection.
UsageCulture is the usual word for growing bacteria or cells in a lab; for plants and crops, cultivate is more common.
- 8The tending and cultivation of plants, crops, or the soil they grow in.
The culture of olives dates back thousands of years in the Mediterranean.
The college offers courses in fruit culture, from pruning trees to controlling pests.
UsageUsually the culture of a crop, or the crop first: grape culture, rice culture.
Similarcultivation, growing, farming
Note
The farmer's and gardener's sense, nearest to the Latin cultūra traced under the "way of life" meaning. It covers the whole regime of soil, planting and care. It also survives as the second half of agriculture and horticulture.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Culture ultimately derives from Latin cultūra. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin cultūra includes the agricultural sense of care and cultivation. en.wiktionary.org
- The cultivation element in agriculture derives from Latin cultūra. en.wiktionary.org
- Horticulture contains culture as its second element. en.wikipedia.org
- 9Knowledge passed from one generation to the next, not only among humans but among animals too.
Researchers describe whale song traditions as a form of culture.
Culture in animals includes learned skills like cracking nuts with stones.
UsageUsually without a: culture in animals, animal culture, often set against instinct.
Note
Anthropology's widest use, where the test is how something is learned, not who learns it. Whale song traditions or cracking nuts with stones count as culture because individuals pick them up from others rather than being born with them.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Animal culture involves learning from others, regardless of species. nhm.ac.uk
- Whale songs are examples of socially learned cultural traditions. news.uq.edu.au
- Stone nut-cracking is a cultural behaviour transmitted between generations of chimpanzees. mpg.de
- 10To increase the artistic or scientific interest in something, refining or developing it.
- 11The map details that do not show natural features: names and symbols for towns, roads, meridians, and parallels.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of culture apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
This word comes from Middle French "culture" (cultivation; culture), from Latin "cultura" (cultivation; culture). That derived from "cultus," the perfect passive participle of "colo" (to till, cultivate, grow, or worship), and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (to move; to turn around).
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- English culture comes through Middle French culture, meaning cultivation or culture. en.wiktionary.org
- The Middle French word derives from Latin cultura, meaning cultivation or culture. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin cultura derives from cultus, the perfect passive participle of colo. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin colo means to till, cultivate, grow, or worship. en.wiktionary.org
- The word ultimately derives from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel-. en.wiktionary.org
- The reconstructed root has the sense of movement or turning around. en.wiktionary.org