Undercultures

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Social factions that emerge as alternatives to mainstream cultural norms
2. Collectives that create unique identities diverging from dominant societal standards
3. Groups within a larger society that develop their own customs, beliefs, and norms differing from the mainstream

Etymology: The word is a plain compound: "under-" joined to "culture," with the plural simply marking more than one such group. "Culture" reached English from Middle French "culture," which in turn came from Latin "cultura," a noun of cultivation built on the verb "colere," meaning to tend, inhabit or cultivate land. The sense of "culture" as a shared way of life grew out of that agricultural root, so a culture was once something tilled and grown before it was something learned and shared. The prefix "under-" comes from Old English "under," meaning beneath or below, a word with ancestors across Germanic languages. Put together, the compound describes a culture sitting beneath the dominant one, a group whose identity runs below or apart from the mainstream. The plural form "undercultures" refers to several such groups at once.

Synonyms: subcultures, countercultures, niches, microcultures, tribes