All 4 Uses of
cultivate
in
Utopia, by Thomas More
- They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them; and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs.†
*cultivate = develop, grow, or prepare for growing crops
- and if there is any increase over the whole island, then they draw out a number of their citizens out of the several towns and send them over to the neighbouring continent, where, if they find that the inhabitants have more soil than they can well cultivate, they fix a colony, taking the inhabitants into their society if they are willing to live with them;†
- But if the natives refuse to conform themselves to their laws they drive them out of those bounds which they mark out for themselves, and use force if they resist, for they account it a very just cause of war for a nation to hinder others from possessing a part of that soil of which they make no use, but which is suffered to lie idle and uncultivated, since every man has, by the law of nature, a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.†
uncultivated = not developedstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncultivated means not and reverses the meaning of cultivated. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- Their bodies are vigorous and lively; and though they are but of a middle stature, and have neither the fruitfullest soil nor the purest air in the world; yet they fortify themselves so well, by their temperate course of life, against the unhealthiness of their air, and by their industry they so cultivate their soil, that there is nowhere to be seen a greater increase, both of corn and cattle, nor are there anywhere healthier men and freer from diseases; for one may there see reduced to practice not only all the art that the husbandman employs in manuring and improving an ill soil, but whole woods plucked up by the roots, and in other places new ones planted, where there were none before.†
cultivate = develop, grow, or prepare for growing crops
Definitions:
-
(1)
(cultivate) enhance growth or developmentin various senses, including:
- to grow crops or prepare land for them
- enhance a relationship -- especially for a purpose
- develop discernment (better recognition of differences) in taste or judgment
- to grow a culture in a petri dish
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
The word form cultivator is commonly used to describe a machine used to prepare soil for growing crops.