'Cult' and 'culture' share Latin 'colere' (to tend, worship, inhabit) — devotion and cultivation entwined.
A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object; a relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices regarded as strange or sinister; a misplaced or excessive admiration for a person or thing.
From French 'culte' or directly from Latin 'cultus,' meaning 'worship, care, cultivation,' the past participle of 'colere,' meaning 'to till, to cultivate, to worship, to inhabit.' The PIE root is *kʷel- (to revolve, to move around, to dwell). The remarkable semantic range of 'colere' — spanning agriculture, habitation, and worship — reflects the ancient connection between tending the land, dwelling in a place, and honoring the divine. The word 'culture' is a sibling
The words 'cult,' 'culture,' 'cultivate,' and 'colony' all derive from the same Latin verb 'colere' — the ancient Romans saw no distinction between tending crops, settling land, developing the mind, and worshipping the gods, viewing all as forms of careful cultivation.