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
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.
“There’s something out there that thinks a corpse flower smells like heaven,” said Marc Hachadourian, director of glasshouse horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, which hosted a corpse flower bloom last year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Simon Milne, regius keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, also receives a knighthood for services to botany, conservation and horticulture.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
"The idea is, can we use food-based interventions to modulate inflammation?" said lead author Jessica Cooperstone, associate professor of horticulture and crop science at The Ohio State University.
From Science Daily ● May 30, 2026
"Ultimately, we need a more diversified agricultural model, with fewer cattle, and more horticulture, organics and tillage," he told AFP.
From Barron's ● Nov. 11, 2025
I began to order books on gardening and horticulture.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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.
