Inculturate

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To introduce and assimilate customs, beliefs, or practices of one culture into another; to adapt or integrate cultural elements in a new social environment; to foster cultural understanding through immersion and adoption
2. The process of embedding cultural values and traditions from one society into another; encouraging adaptation to and adoption of foreign cultural traits; promoting cultural exchange and internalization of new cultural behaviors
3. To implant and adopt the norms or customs of one culture within another group; facilitating cultural integration and mutual influence; nurturing the acceptance and practice of cultural characteristics from an external source

Etymology: Behind "inculturate" lies the Latin verb "colere," which meant to till, tend, or inhabit. Its noun "cultura" meant cultivation of the land, and Cicero extended it metaphorically to the cultivation of the mind, "cultura animi." English later took "culture" from French, with the older sense of growing crops still visible in words like "agriculture" and "horticulture." "Inculturate" is built from "in-," "culture," and the verb-forming suffix "-ate." Its core image is planting something so that it takes root in the soil of a particular society. The word is most common in religious and anthropological writing, where it describes adapting a teaching or practice so it grows out of local customs rather than arriving as a foreign import.

Synonyms: acculturate, socialize, assimilate, adapt, integrate

Antonyms: isolate, segregate, alienate, exclude, disassociate