culture

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
2. n. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty.
3. n. These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture.
4. n. The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization.
5. n. Intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it.
6. n. Development of the intellect through training or education.
7. n. Enlightenment resulting from such training or education.
8. n. A high degree of taste and refinement formed by aesthetic and intellectual training.
9. n. Special training and development: voice culture for singers and actors.
10. n. The cultivation of soil; tillage.
11. n. The breeding of animals or growing of plants, especially to produce improved stock.
12. n. Biology The growing of microorganisms, tissue cells, or other living matter in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
13. n. Biology Such a growth or colony, as of bacteria.
14. v. To cultivate.
15. v. To grow (microorganisms or other living matter) in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
16. v. To use (a substance) as a medium for culture: culture milk.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of tilling and preparing the earth for crops; tillage; cultivation.
2. n. The act of promoting growth in animals or plants, but especially in the latter; specifically, the process of raising plants with a view to the production of improved varieties.
3. n. Hence— In bacteriology: The propagation of bacteria or other microscopic organisms by the introduction of the germs into suitably prepared fluids or other media, or of parasitic fungi upon living plants. Also called cultivation.
4. n. The product of such culture.
5. n. The systematic improvement and refinement of the mind, especially of one's own.
6. n. The result of mental cultivation, or the state of being cultivated; refinement or enlightenment; learning and taste; in a broad sense, civilization: as, a man of culture.
7. n. The training of the human body.
8. n. The pursuit of any art or science with a view to its improvement.
9. n. Cultivated ground.
10. To cultivate: as, “cultured vales,”
11. n. In a map, all those features represented which are artificial or of human origin, such as meridians, roads, railroads, trails, ferries, bridges, houses, etc.

Wiktionary

1. n. The arts, customs, and habits that characterize a particular society or nation.
2. n. The beliefs, values, behaviour and material objects that constitute a people's way of life.
3. n. microbiology The process of growing a bacterial or other biological entity in an artificial medium.
4. n. anthropology Any knowledge passed from one generation to the next, not necessarily with respect to human beings.
5. n. The collective noun for a group of bacteria.
6. n. botany Cultivation.
7. n. computing The language and peculiarities of a geographical location.
8. v. transitive To maintain in an environment suitable for growth (especially of bacteria).
9. v. transitive To increase the artistic or scientific interest (in something).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act or practice of cultivating, or of preparing the earth for seed and raising crops by tillage.
2. n. The act of, or any labor or means employed for, training, disciplining, or refining the moral and intellectual nature of man.
3. n. 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.
4. n. The cultivation of bacteria or other organisms (such as fungi or eukaryotic cells from mulitcellular organisms) in artificial media or under artificial conditions.
5. n. The collection of organisms resulting from such a cultivation.
6. n. (Cartography) 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.
7. v. To cultivate; to educate.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a particular society at a particular time and place
2. n. all the knowledge and values shared by a society
3. n. a highly developed state of perfection; having a flawless or impeccable quality
4. n. the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization
5. n. the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group
6. n. the raising of plants or animals
7. n. (biology) the growing of microorganisms in a nutrient medium (such as gelatin or agar)
8. v. grow in a special preparation