culture

culture n

1 Culture, cultivation, breeding, refinement are comparable when they denote a quality of a person or group of persons which reflects his or their possession of excellent taste, manners, and social adjustment.

Culture implies a high degree of enlightenment that has been acquired by familiarity with what is best in the civilized life of many ages and lands; in addition, it usually suggests fineness of taste, delicacy of perception, and gracious urbanity of manners

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a man of culture

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culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world— Arnold

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Cultivation is often preferred to culture because it suggests the continuous pursuit of culture and the self-discipline which accompanies such pursuit, rather than its achievement, and is therefore more modest and often more appropriate

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he has found many persons of cultivation in the city to which he has recently moved

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gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people— Johnson

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a work of prose fiction written by one who not only possesses obvious cultivation but is also a distinguished practicing poet— Steegmuller

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Breeding implies such training or lifelong experience in courtesy and the amenities of gracious living that one is never at a loss how to act or what to say; moreover the word often suggests poise, tact, an ability to come forward or to retire at will or at need, and other social qualities which mark one out even among one's social equals

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I am a gentleman of blood and breeding— Shak.

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as men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, t'avoid great errors, must the less commit— Pope

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politely learned, and of a gentle race, good breeding and good sense gave all a grace— Cowper

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Refinement implies not only the absence (often the eradication) of all that is gross, vulgar, or merely common but also the presence of fineness of feeling, delicacy of perception or understanding, and fastidiousness

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he had true refinement; he couldn't help thinking of others, whatever he did— Galsworthy

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2 *civilization