Cultural

How to spell cultural

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce cultural

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cultural mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the customs, arts, beliefs, and shared way of life of a particular society or group.

Cultural in a sentence

• The museum hosts a cultural festival every autumn.

• Moving abroad forced her to adapt to new cultural norms.

Where does cultural come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows out of the Latin verb colere, which literally meant 'to till the soil, to tend or cultivate'. From that farming sense Latin formed cultura, the act of tending land, which gradually broadened to mean the tending of the mind and manners. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries English had borrowed 'culture' through French to describe both the cultivation of crops and the cultivation of human refinement. The adjective 'cultural' itself is comparatively young, appearing in the nineteenth century when scholars needed a word for things relating to the customs, arts, and beliefs of a society. The same agricultural root still shows up in relatives such as 'agriculture' and 'cultivate', which is a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelled cult, not cul, and that the ending is the plain -ural of culture plus -al.

How the word is built

• cult- (from Latin colere: to till, cultivate, tend)
• -ure (noun-forming suffix, as in culture)
• -al (adjective suffix: relating to)