agriculture
Americannoun
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the science, art, or occupation concerned with cultivating land, raising crops, and feeding, breeding, and raising livestock; farming.
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the production of crops, livestock, or poultry.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of agriculture
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin agrīcultūra, from agrī (genitive singular of ager “field”) + cultūra culture
Explanation
Agriculture describes the practice of growing crops or raising animals. Someone who works as a farmer is in the agriculture industry. The Latin root of agriculture is agri, or "field," plus cultura, "cultivation." Cultivating a piece of land, or planting and growing food plants on it, is largely what agriculture means. Raising animals for meat or milk also falls under the category of agriculture. If we didn't have agriculture, we'd all be running around the woods, picking berries and trying to shoot things.
Vocabulary lists containing agriculture
The Industrial Revolution - Introductory
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Down on the Farm
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The United States
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This is because workers in a fast industrialising economy typically move out of agriculture into services or manufacturing as seen across the world.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
Clayton Tucker, a Democrat running for Texas agriculture commissioner, is a leader in the anti-data center movement.
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026
For the agriculture market, sulfur has been the one commodity that might have been hurt the most by the war.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 1, 2026
“Everything in agriculture, everything in construction, everything in mining. Also everything on the supply and distribution side runs on diesel.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
His father had hoped to teach at the local community college, but there just wasn’t an opening in the agriculture department.
From "Shooting Kabul" by N. H. Senzai
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
