Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A cult, especially a religious one.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A system of religious belief and worship: same as cult, 2.
- n. The moral or esthetic state or condition of a particular time or place.
- Worthless.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Established or accepted religious rites or usages of worship; state of religious development. Cf. cult, 2.
- adj. Northwestern U. S. Bad, worthless; no good.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a system of religious beliefs and rituals
Etymologies
- Latin, cultivation, culture. See cult. (Wiktionary)
- Latin, veneration; see cult. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And of that opinion, the external signs appearing in the words and actions of men are called worship; which is one part of that which the Latins understand by the word cultus: for cultus signifieth properly, and constantly, that labour which a man bestows on anything with a purpose to make benefit by it.”
Leviathan, or, The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill
“She was never formally canonized but her cultus was approved by Pope Leo XIII.”
“Apparently through all traditional time their cultus has been the rudest and most primitive form of nature-worship, the attaching of”
“The head of the cultus is the head of the whole; the high priest takes the place of the king.”
“His cultus was the bond between Him and the nation; when therefore it was desired to draw the bond still closer, the solemn services of religion were redoubled.”
“The cultus is the heathen element in the Israelite religion -- the word heathen not being understood, of course, in an ignoble or unworthy sense.”
“To be merry, to eat and drink before Jehovah, is a usual form of speech down to the period of Deuteronomy; even Ezekiel calls the cultus on the high places an eating upon the mountains”
“But the inward thoughts of men, which appear outwardly in their words and actions, are the signs of our honouring, and these go by the name of worship; in Latin, cultus.”
Leviathan, or, The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill
“Despite the increasing favour of the the "cultus" of images among their people, the Frankish bishops continued their opposition to the Second Nicene Council; the latter, however, eventually gained recognition especially after a new and somewhat more accurate version of its acts and decrees was made by”
“He reminded the king that twelve of his bishops had taken part in a Roman Synod (previous to the Second Nicene Council) and had approved the "cultus" of images; he refuted a number of the arguments and objections brought forward, and asserted the identity of his teaching with that of the highly-respected Pope Gregory the Great concerning images.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cultus’.
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
czardas, cytometer, cytology, cytheromania, cystoscope, cystolith, cyrenaic, cypseline, cyprinoid, cyphonism, cynophobia, cytogenesis and 1298 more...
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Joycean Vocab
You ain't read no English til you read Joyce.
rasher, cygnet, usquebaugh, ephebe, entelechy, kish, caul, vicereine, atelier, daguerreotype, communard, connubial and 99 more...
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Words gathered while reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
refectory, soutane, ha-ha, jewelly, girt, centenary, collywobbles, coadjutor, catafalque, beeftea, pierhead, bedad and 235 more...
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A Warm Dry Wind? A people?
mowich, klattawa, skookum, cultus, chinook, mimaloos, kopayawa, klootchman, kloshe, tillicum, boston, lakamass and 6 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cultus.
slumry In the Chinook Jargon, cultus means bad or worthless. "Oh, he is a cultus sort of fellow. I would steer clear of him if I were you." Jun 15, 2007