Cicero first applied 'cultura' (farming) to the mind in 45 BCE — 'culture' began as a crop metaphor.
The arts, customs, institutions, and achievements of a particular group or civilization; the cultivation of the mind or of organisms.
From Middle French 'culture,' from Latin 'cultūra' meaning 'tilling, cultivation, care,' from 'cultus,' the past participle of 'colere' (to tend, to cultivate, to inhabit, to worship). The PIE root is *kʷel- meaning 'to revolve, to move around, to dwell.' The metaphorical extension from farming soil to farming minds appeared in Cicero's 'Tusculan Disputations' (45 BCE), where he wrote 'cultūra animī philosophia est' —
The Latin verb 'colere' had an extraordinary semantic range: it meant to till soil, to inhabit a place, and to worship a deity — all at once. This triple meaning survives in English: 'agriculture' (tilling), 'colony' (inhabiting), and 'cult' (worshipping) all derive from the same Latin verb.
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