Agricultural ant (Zool.), a species of ant which gathers and stores seeds of grasses, for food. The remarkable species (Myrmica barbata) found in Texas clears circular areas and carefully cultivates its favorite grain, known as ant rice. [1913 Webster]

The farmer is always a practitioner, the agriculturist may be a mere theorist. Crabb. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Med.) An examination by listening either directly with the ear (immediate auscultation) applied to parts of the body, as the abdomen; or with the stethoscope (mediate auscultation), in order to distinguish sounds recognized as a sign of health or of disease. [ 1913 Webster ]

Every one is convinced of the reality of a better self, and of the cult or homage which is due to it. Shaftesbury. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A system of religious belief and worship. [ 1913 Webster ]

That which was the religion of Moses is the ceremonial or cult of the religion of Christ. Coleridge. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A system of intense religious veneration of a particular person, idea, or object, especially one considered spurious or irrational by traditional religious bodies; as, the Moonie cult. [ PJC ]

4. The group of individuals who adhere to a cult (senses 2 or 3). [ PJC ]

5. A strong devotion or interest in a particular person, idea or thing without religious associations, or the people holding such an interest; as, the cult of James Dean; the cult of personality in totalitarian societies. [ PJC ]

2. Young or seed oysters together with the shells and other objects to which they are usually attached. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

3. Rubbish; débris; refuse. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

2. To direct special attention to; to devote time and thought to; to foster; to cherish. [ 1913 Webster ]

Leisure . . . to cultivate general literature. Wordsworth. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To seek the society of; to court intimacy with. [ 1913 Webster ]

I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his age; and I loved and cultivated him accordingly. Burke. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To improve by labor, care, or study; to impart culture to; to civilize; to refine. [ 1913 Webster ]

To cultivate the wild, licentious savage. Addison. [ 1913 Webster ]

The mind of man hath need to be prepared for piety and virtue; it must be cultivated to the end. Tillotson. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. To raise or produce by tillage; to care for while growing; as, to cultivate corn or grass. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. used for raising crops; -- of land or soil. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

2. Bestowal of time or attention for self-improvement or for the benefit of others; fostering care. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. The state of being cultivated; advancement in physical, intellectual, or moral condition; refinement; culture. [ 1913 Webster ]

Italy . . . was but imperfectly reduced to cultivation before the irruption of the barbarians. Hallam. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. One who cultivates; as, a cultivator of the soil; a cultivator of literature. Whewell. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. An agricultural implement used in the tillage of growing crops, to loosen the surface of the earth and kill the weeds; esp., a triangular frame set with small shares, drawn by a horse and by handles. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ In a broader signification it includes any complex implement for pulverizing or stirring the surface of the soil, as harrows, grubbers, horse hoes, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. The act of, or any labor or means employed for, training, disciplining, or refining the moral and intellectual nature of man; as, the culture of the mind. [ 1913 Webster ]

If vain our toil
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil. Pepe. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

What the Greeks expressed by their paidei`a, the Romans by their humanitas, we less happily try to express by the more artificial word culture. J. C. Shairp. [ 1913 Webster ]

The list of all the items of the general life of a people represents that whole which we call its culture. Tylor. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. (Biol.) (a) The cultivation of bacteria or other organisms (such as fungi or eukaryotic cells from mulitcellular organisms) in artificial media or under artificial conditions. (b) The collection of organisms resulting from such a cultivation. The growth of cells obtained from multicellular animals or plants in artificial media is called tissue culture. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC ]

☞ The word is used adjectively with the above senses in many phrases, such as: culture medium, any one of the various mixtures of gelatin, meat extracts, etc., in which organisms cultivated; culture flask, culture oven, culture tube, gelatin culture, plate culture, etc. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

5. (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. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

Culture fluid,
Culture medium a fluid in which microscopic organisms are made to develop, either for purposes of study or as a means of modifying their virulence. If the fluid is gelled by, for example, the use of agar, it then is called, depending on the vessel in which the gelled medium is contained, a plate, a slant, or a stab. [ 1913 Webster +PJC ]

They came . . . into places well inhabited and cultured. Usher. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Characterized by mental and moral training; disciplined; refined; well-educated. [ 1913 Webster ]

The sense of beauty in nature, even among cultured people, is less often met with than other mental endowments. I. Taylor. [ 1913 Webster ]

The cunning hand and cultured brain. Whittier. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. One who is an advocate of culture. [ 1913 Webster ]

The culturists, by which term I mean not those who esteem culture (as what intelligent man does not&unr_;) but those its exclusive advocates who recommend it as the panacea for all the ills of humanity, for its effects in cultivating the whole man. J. C. Shairp [ 1913 Webster ]

“A bad horse, cultus [ no good ] !” he said, beating it with his whip. F. H. Balch. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

☞ Difficult implies the notion that considerable mental effort or skill is required, or that obstacles are to be overcome which call for sagacity and skill in the agent; as, a difficult task; hard work is not always difficult work; a difficult operation in surgery; a difficult passage in an author. [ 1913 Webster ]

There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, and difficult world, alone. Hawthorne. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Hard to manage or to please; not easily wrought upon; austere; stubborn; as, a difficult person.

Syn. -- Arduous; painful; crabbed; perplexed; laborious; unaccommodating; troublesome. See Arduous. [ 1913 Webster ]