cultivated
Americanadjective
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prepared and used for raising crops; tilled.
cultivated land.
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produced or improved by cultivation, as a plant.
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educated; refined; cultured.
cultivated tastes.
adjective
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cultured, refined, or educated
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subjected to tillage or cultivation
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tilled and broken up
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(of plants) specially bred or improved by cultivation
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cultivated
Explanation
The adjective cultivated is used to describe someone who is polite and civilized. The cultivated people at the party would be very offended by crude behavior. Someone who's cultivated is knowledgeable or at least familiar with the arts, current events, history. He or she probably has traveled widely, or at least has read about other people and places. In other words, a cultivated person is a citizen of the world. As it applies to farming, cultivated soil is tilled, or churned, to prepare it for planting.
Vocabulary lists containing cultivated
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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Persepolis
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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.
The protected area Kunagado and his friends have cultivated is bursting with corals and is now home to hundreds of heat-resistant "super corals" that may protect the village from the impacts of rising sea temperatures.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026
Jordan’s carefully cultivated space looks like the result of very intentional planning and list making.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
That transformation will likely go beyond the energy and water footprints of data centers or electricity generation, promising everything from affordable and palatable cultivated meats to lower-impact precision agriculture to hyperefficient jet engines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
The cultivated Spirulina also contained other bioactive compounds associated with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting properties.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
That independence won Walter some measure of respect and admiration, but it also cultivated contempt and suspicion, especially outside of Monroeville's black community.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.