horticulture
Americannoun
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the cultivation of a garden, orchard, or nursery; the cultivation of flowers, fruits, vegetables, or ornamental plants.
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the science and art of cultivating such plants.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of horticulture
First recorded in 1670–80; from Latin hort(us) “garden” + (agr)iculture
Explanation
Horticulture is a nice long word for "gardening." If you study horticulture, you learn about plant propagation, soil, fertilizer — everything that makes a good garden. The word horticulture was coined in the late 17th century — when some serious gardens were being planned and executed in England — and is based on the Latin word for "garden," hortus, combined with the suffix -culture, mostly likely in the same way as the word agriculture.
Vocabulary lists containing horticulture
Tangerine
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Dirty Words: The Language of Gardening
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Human Geography - Middle School
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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.
Researchers from Nanjing Agricultural University and the University of Connecticut, publishing in Horticulture Research, explored this possibility using woodland strawberries.
From Science Daily • May 5, 2026
Horticulture student Roger Aylett founded Aylett Nurseries in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in April 1955, when "there was nothing here except a green field".
From BBC • Apr. 27, 2025
"They use volatiles because they can't talk," said Natalia Dudareva, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Purdue.
From Science Daily • Mar. 21, 2024
It was formed in 2017, after a Mount Vernon-area company called Northwest Horticulture acquired Skagit Gardens, a decades-old nursery, at a bankruptcy auction, according to The Wall Street Journal.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 8, 2024
Millet arranged to borrow tropical plants and trees from the Horticulture Building and have them moved to the lakeshore.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
