Culturation

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act or process of cultivating, growing or developing a culture, skill or quality over time
2. The process by which a people, mind or practice is nurtured and refined through education or cultivation
3. Cultivating or cultivated development of a society, a discipline or an individual through care and training

Etymology: "Culturation" is built from "culture" and the suffix "-ation," which turns a verb or base into a noun for an action or process. The base goes back to Latin "cultura," meaning tilling or cultivation of the land, from the verb "colere," which could mean to inhabit, tend, or worship. The farming sense is still visible in the older English meaning of "culture" as the growing of crops or other living things. The "-ation" ending came into English through French from Latin "-atio," and English formed many such nouns from Latin and French bases. A process noun like this therefore describes the act of cultivating or developing something, whether soil or a person's mind and manners. Its precise early attestations are less well documented than those of the base word, so the surest way to read it is as the process of "culture" in its general sense.