Entry Word: culture

Function: noun

Meaning: 1 a high level of taste and enlightenment as a result of extensive intellectual training and exposure to the arts <because of its wide reputation as a place of culture, Boston became known as “the Athens of America”>

Synonyms civilization, cultivation, polish, refinement

Related Words education, erudition, learning, literacy, scholarship; sophistication, urbanity; breeding, gentility, manners; class, elegance, grace, taste; civility, courtesy, politeness

Near Antonyms ignorance, illiteracy; parochialism, provincialism, unsophistication; boorishness, churlishness, clownishness, coarseness, crudeness, vulgarity

Antonyms philistinism

2 the way people live at a particular time and place <a study of ancient Anasazi culture as it existed in the canyons of the American Southwest> — see civilization 1