Plural of culture - the beliefs, customs, arts, and social behaviors of particular groups or societies. Can also refer to the cultivation of bacteria or cells in laboratory conditions.
From Latin 'cultura' meaning 'cultivation, growing', from 'colere' (to cultivate, inhabit, worship). The social meaning evolved from the agricultural metaphor of cultivating the mind or society, first appearing in English in the 15th century.
The beautiful metaphor underlying 'culture' - that human societies grow and develop like cultivated fields - reveals how our ancestors understood social development through agricultural imagery. The biological meaning of bacterial cultures extends this metaphor to laboratory cultivation of microorganisms.
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