cultivate

present singular third person cultivates · participle present cultivating · participle past cultivated · past cultivated

1. To grow plants, notably crops.

   Most farmers in this region cultivate maize.

   3 more examples

   So unhealthy is this valley, which is the home of large game, that whole kraals full of people who have tried to cultivate the rich land, have died in it of fever, or fled away leaving their crops unreaped.

   1917, H. Rider Haggard, Finished

   My hobby is gathering the spores of some of the most delicious of the wild varieties of mushrooms, such as morels, giant puffballs and woods oysters, then cultivating them.

   1958, Journal of Lifetime Living, volume 24, page 15

   In Ch'iung-hai Hsien of the same island, this year "Chen-chu-ai" has been cultivated over vast areas, yielding large increases and as 2,730 tons of the breed already harvested in June have been sent to Chekiang province, it is expected that it will be cultivated widely in Chekiang in 1966.

   1965 [1965 July 15], “The "Kwang-ch'ang-ai" and "Chen-chu-ai" Breeds”, in AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT SUSTAINED BY CROP IMPROVEMENT IN CHINA, CIA, published 2003, Document Number: CIA-RDP78-04546A003200010004-4, page 6

2. figurativelyTo nurture; to foster; to tend.

   They tried to cultivate an interest in learning among their students.

   3 more examples

   Left also to himself by guardians[…] he cultivated more his imagination than his judgment

   1819, John William Polidori, The Vampyre

   The mix of ballet vocabulary, modern techniques and African steps is familiar, but the extent to which Mr. Rhoden packs — and overpacks — phrases, cultivates warp-speed delivery and hyperextends every possible hip jut and arabesque is, thank goodness, something special to Complexions.

   2007 November 23, Claudia La Rocco, “Ballet and African Steps, Delivered at Warp Speed”, in The New York Times

   […] after four years in which President Donald J. Trump had cultivated Mr. Johnson and expressed sympathy for Britain in its bitter divorce with the European Union.

   2021 June 7, Mark Landler, “As a Tense Summer Looms, Northern Ireland Braces”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

3. To turn or stir soil in preparation for planting or as a method of weed control between growing crop plants.