Other forms: cults
A cult is a small religious group with intense devotion. Join a cult, a cult leader, escape the cult.
The word is a judgement rather than a category — scholars of religion mostly avoid it and say new religious movement, because cult means a group whose beliefs the speaker rejects. A cult film is one with a small devoted following. The Latin means care or worship.
1nouncultA small religious group with intense devotion.
“The cult's members gave all their money to their leader and lived on a remote farm.”
2noundevotedA small devoted following.
“The film flopped in cinemas but later gained a cult following among students.”
cult is a group.
The same Latin root gives culture: both are about tending something with great care. A cult tends one belief and lets everything else go.
hooks ontoculture
French culte comes from Latin cultus, care, cultivation or worship, from colere, to cultivate. Culture is the same root.
Proto-Indo-European
*kʷel-
Latin
cultus — care, adoration; cult
French
culte
English, today
cult
Built from
French culte, from Latin cultus (“care, adoration; cult”), from colō (“cultivate; protect”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA