culture

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the raising of plants or animals

   the culture of oysters

2. 2
   noun

   the growing of microorganisms in a nutrient medium, such as gelatin or agar

   In high school, we made a culture from a swab of the locker room floor.

3. 3
   noun

   the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization

   the developing drug culture

4. 4
   noun

   The arts, customs, lifestyles, background, and habits that characterize humankind, or a particular society or nation.

   Castration of bulls was a socialization process that turned a bull into an ox; in this transformation something wild became something very useful; nature became culture.

5. 5
   noun

   The beliefs, values, behaviour, and material objects that constitute a people's way of life.

   I condemn neither way; but culture works differently. It does not try to teach down to the level of inferior classes; it does not try to win them for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made judgments and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; […]

6. 6
   noun

   The conventional conducts and ideologies of a community; the system comprising the accepted norms and values of a society.

   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.

7. 7
   noun

   Cultivation.

   http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/suffolk/grownet/flowers/sprgbulb.htm The Culture of Spring-Flowering Bulbs

8. 8
   noun

   The growth thus produced.

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

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁- Proto-Indo-European *kʷélh₁-e-ti Proto-Italic *kʷelō Latin colō Proto-Indo-European *-tew-? Proto-Indo-European *-r-eh₂? Latin -tūra Latin cultūrader. Middle French cultureder. English culture From Middle French culture (“cultivation; culture”), from Latin cultūra (“cultivation; culture”), from cultus, perfect passive participle of colō (“till, cultivate, to grow, worship”) (related to colōnus and colōnia), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to move; to turn (around)”).