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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100 SAT words Beginning with "C"
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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.
It takes a long time to nurture, it has to be cultivated from the ground up.
From Salon • Jun. 22, 2026
While Epstein was best known for his connections to businessmen and politicians, he cultivated a circle of top academics that helped launder his reputation until his arrest in 2019.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 17, 2026
But water scarcity means that only about a third of that area can actually be cultivated.
From Barron's • Jun. 15, 2026
"This study challenges the prevailing narrative of inevitable cognitive decline, suggesting instead that brain health can be proactively cultivated at any age."
From Science Daily • Jun. 13, 2026
Cane was probably first cultivated by humans on the island some five thousand years or more before the Greeks.
From "Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science" by Marc Aronson
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.
