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cult Definition

cult (kult)

noun

    1. a system of religious worship or ritual
    2. a quasi-religious group, often living in a colony, with a charismatic leader who indoctrinates members with unorthodox or extremist views, practices, or beliefs
    1. devoted attachment to, or extravagant admiration for, a person, principle, or lifestyle, esp. when regarded as a fad the cult of nudism
    2. the object of such attachment
  3. a group of followers; sect

Etymology: < L cultus, care, cultivation, orig. pp. of colere, to till: see wheel

cult Related Forms
cult′ic adjective cult′·ism′ noun cult′·ist noun
cult Synonyms

cult

n.

  1. Sect

    clique, band, school, followers; see church 3, faction 1, following, religion 1, 2.

  2. Devotion

    veneration, worship, cultism, hero worship; see admiration, devotion, worshipadmiration, devotion, worship

    1.
cult Usage Examples

Preposition: of

  • celebrity: Our sick society is now swamped by the cult of celebrities.
  • personality: By creating a cult of personality around herself she strengthened her personal rule.
  • saint: This paper seeks to address the extent to which Venice sought connections with other Italian centers through the adoption of cults of foreign saints.

Converse of object

  • explode: To begin, Alan Alford explains that the religions of the Near East were exploded planet cults.

Adjective modifier

  • satanic: An industry of books, conferences and experts appeared to uncover an epidemic of sexual abuse, incest and satanic cults.
  • dif: Even for human beings some documents are inherently dif cult to summarize.
  • imperial: There is far more evidence from the province of Britain for homage to the Emperor than for the imperial cult.
  • Mithraic: Rising out of the left hand figure's shoulder is a Tau Cross, which is associated with the Mithraic cult and alchemy.
  • millennial: On top of this doom and gloom are the millennial cults about which Bowker stated, " There is nothing too weird " .

Modifies a noun

  • following: With its growing cult following, Dance Monkey Boy, Dance!
  • hero: But somehow Richard Whiteley survived to become a cult hero.
  • classic: I always have a bit of a problem with cult classics.
  • status: Welsh has taken on a sort of cult status, a bit like Star Trek.
  • sci-fi: A treat not only for robot fanatics, but also for all cult sci-fi film fans.

Noun used with modifier

  • diffi: However, it has proved diffi cult to measure any reduction in offending, partly due to constraints on data.
  • doomsday: Will you be transformed into a genetic changeling, or fall into the clutches of a doomsday cult?
  • ancestor: However, the importance of Bugis sacred places still exists and an ancestor cult conduct pilgrimages to sacred non-Islamic graves.
  • personality: Their own musical personality cults preclude any free exchange.
  • cargo: When the OED adds the verb form of ' cargo cult ' to its corpus, remember where you read that first.
  • fertility: This is the heart of the fertility cult concept.
cult Quotes

A cult is a religion with no political power.

—Wolfe,Tom (Thomas Kennerley)

   It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalized, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not yet understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher.

—Pierce, C(harles) S(aunders)

What's a cult? It just meansnot enough peopletomake a minority.

—Altman, Robert