Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CUL'TI-VA-BLE, a. [See Cultivate.]

Capable of being tilled or cultivated. – Med. Repos. Edwards' W. Indies.

CUL-TI-VA'TA-BLE, a.

Cultivable. – Edwards.

CUL'TI-VATE, v.t. [Fr. cultiver; Sp. and Port. cultivar; It. coltivare; from L. colo, cultus, to till, to dwell.]

1. To till; to prepare for crops; to manure, plow, dress, sow and reap; to labor or manage and improve in husbandry; as, to cultivate land; to cultivate a farm. – Sinclair.
2. To improve by labor or study; to advance the growth of; to refine and improve by correction of faults, and enlargement of powers or good qualities; as, to cultivate talents; to cultivate a taste for poetry.
3. To study; to labor to improve or advance; as, to cultivate philosophy; to cultivate the mind.
4. To cherish; to foster; to labor to promote and increase; as, to cultivate the love of excellence; to cultivate gracious affections.
5. To improve; to meliorate, or to labor to make better; to correct; to civilize; as, to cultivate the wild savage.
6. To raise or produce by tillage; as, to cultivate corn or grass. – Sinclair.

CUL'TI-VA-TED, pp.

Tilled; improved in excellence or condition; corrected and enlarged; cherished; meliorated; civilized; produced by tillage.

CUL'TI-VA-TING, ppr.

Tilling; preparing for crops; improving in worth or good qualities; meliorating; enlarging; correcting; fostering; civilizing; producing by tillage.

CUL-TI-VA'TION, n.

1. The art or practice of tilling and preparing for crops; husbandry; the management of land. Land is often made better by cultivation. Ten acres under good cultivation will produce more than twenty when badly tilled.
2. Study, care and practice directed to improvement, correction, enlargement or increase; the application of the means of improvement; as, men may grow wiser by the cultivation of talents; they may grow better by the cultivation of the mind, of virtue, and of piety.
3. The producing by tillage; as, the cultivation of corn or grass.

CUL'TI-VA-TOR, n.

1. One who tills, or prepares land for crops; one who manages a farm, or carries on the operations of husbandry in general; a farmer; a husbandman; an agriculturist.
2. One who studies or labors to improve, to promote and advance in good qualities, or in growth.

CUL'TRA-TED, a. [L. cultratus, from culter, a knife.]

Sharp-edged and pointed; formed like a knife; as, the beak of a bird is convex and cultrated. – Encyc. art. Corvus.

CUL'TURE, n. [L. cultura, from colo. See Cultivate.]

1. The act of tilling and preparing the earth for crops; cultivation; the application of labor or other means of improvement. We ought to blame the culture, not the soil. – Pope.
2. The application of labor or other means to improve good qualities in, or growth; as, the culture of the mind; the culture of virtue.
3. The application of labor or other means in producing; as, the culture of corn, or grass.
4. Any labor or means employed for improvement, correction or growth.

CU'L'TURE, v.t.

To cultivate. – Thomson.

CUL'TUR-ED, pp.

Cultivated.

CUL'TURE-LESS, a.

Having no culture.

CUL'TUR-ING, ppr.

Cultivating.

CUL'TUR-IST, n.

A cultivator.

CUL'VER, n. [Sax. culfer, culfra; Arm. colm; L. columba.]

A pigeon, or wood pigeon. – Thomson.

CUL'VER-HOUSE, n.

A dove-cote. – Harmar.

CUL'VER-IN, n. [Fr. couleuvrine; It. colubrina; Sp. culebrina; from L. colubrinus, from coluber, a serpent.]

A long, slender piece of ordnance or artillery, serving to carry a ball to a great distance. – Encyc.

CUL'VER-KEY, n.

A plant or flower. – Walton.

CUL'VERT, n.

A passage under a road or canal, covered with a bridge; an arched drain for the passage of water. – Cyc.

CUL'VER-TAIL, n. [culver and tail.]

Dove-tail, in joinery and carpentry.

CUL'VER-TAIL-ED, a.

United or fastened, as pieces of timber by a dove-tailed joint; a term used by shipwrights. Encyc.

CUM'BENT, a. [L. cumbo.]

Lying down.

CUM'BER, n.

Hinderance; obstruction; burdensomeness; embarrassment; disturbance; distress. Thus fade thy helps, and thus thy cumbers spring. – Spenser. [This word is now scarcely used.]

CUM'BER, v.t. [Dan. kummer, distress, incumbranee, grief; D. kommeren; G. kümmern, to arrest, to concern, to trouble, to grieve; Fr. encombrer, to encumber.]

1. To load, or crowd. A variety of frivolous arguments cumbers the memory to no purpose. – Locke.
2. To check, stop or retard, as by a load or weight; to make motion difficult; to obstruct. Why asks he what avails him not in fight, / And would but cumber and retard his flight. – Dryden.
3. To perplex or embarrass; to distract or trouble. Martha was cumbered about much serving. – Luke x.
4. To trouble; to be troublesome to; to cause trouble or obstruction in, as any thing useless. Thus, brambles cumber a garden or field. [See Encumber, which is more generally used.]

CUM'BER-ED, pp.

Loaded; crowded.