CULTIVATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Cultivate

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/kˈəltəvˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Cultivate v. t. (past & past part. cultivated; pres. part. cultivating)

To bestow attention, care, and labor upon, with a view to valuable returns; to till; to fertilize; as, to cultivate soil.

To direct special attention to; to devote time and thought to; to foster; to cherish. "Leisure... to cultivate general literature."

To seek the society of; to court intimacy with. "I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his age; and I loved and cultivated him accordingly."

To improve by labor, care, or study; to impart culture to; to civilize; to refine. "To cultivate the wild, licentious savage." "The mind of man hath need to be prepared for piety and virtue; it must be cultivated to the end."

To raise or produce by tillage; to care for while growing; as, to cultivate corn or grass.

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Etymology of 'Cultivate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cultivate" Quotes from Famous Books

... your locomotive-engine drawing, and some day you may be able to put it to good use. Engines and machinery of all kinds are good things for a boy to become familiar with, and if you are really fond of them cultivate your inclination ...

— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... doors have all two leaves, which, as they are easily opened, so they shut of their own accord; and, there being no property among them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years' end they shift their houses by lots. They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them; and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this humour of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept ...

— Utopia • Thomas More

... and notwithstanding his mother soon married again, he still remained under the parental roof. From an early display of talents and inclination to learning, his friends were induced to send him to Oxford, in order to cultivate and bring them to maturity. During his residence at this place, he was distinguished for the excellence and acuteness of his intellect, which was improved by the emulation of his fellow-collegians, ...

— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... sentiment that "California is the biggest world in the country"; and compared with the hard work of the New England farmers, what is the cultivation of orchards but playing in the sand with golden oranges? Some one says that Californians "irrigate, cultivate, and exaggerate." ...

— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn

... cheerful world?—It surely is. And if you understand your biz You'll taboo the worry worm, And cultivate ...

— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs

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