| 释义 |
▪ I. cult, n.|kʌlt|
[ad. L. cultus worship (f. colĕre to attend to, cultivate, respect, etc.), and its F. adaptation culte (1611 Cotgr.). Used in 17th c. (? from Latin), and then rarely till the middle of the 19th, when often spelt culte as in French.]
†1. Worship; reverential homage rendered to a divine being or beings. Obs. (exc. as in sense 2).
1617Collins Def. Bp. Ely ii. ix. 371 You tell vs most absurdly of a diuine cult..for so cult you are, or so quilted in your tearmes. Ibid. 380 You..referre it to the cult that you so foolishly talked of. 1657–83Evelyn Hist. Relig. (1850) II. 39 God, abolishing the cult of Gentile idols. 1683D.A. Art Converse 92 That Sovereign Cult due to God only.
2. a. A particular form or system of religious worship; esp. in reference to its external rites and ceremonies.
1679Penn Addr. Prot. ii. App. 245 Let not every circumstantial difference or Variety of Cult be Nick-named a new Religion. 1699Shaftesbury Charac., Inq. conc. Virtue i. iii. §2 In the Cult or Worship of such a Deity. 1850Gladstone Homer II. 211 While she [Proserpine] has a cult or worship on earth, he [Aidoneus] apparently has none. 1859L. Oliphant China & Japan I. xii. 242 They are devoted in their attentions to the objects of their culte. 1874Mahaffy Soc. Life Gr. xi. 350 The cult of Aphrodite.
b. Now freq. used attrib. by writers on cultic ritual and the archæology of primitive cults.
1901A. J. Evans Mycen. Tree & Pillar Cult 25 Aniconic Cult Images. Ibid. 77 Cult Scenes relating to a Warrior God and his Consort. 1903Folk-lore Sept. 264 The image of the patron deity, usually a simple copy of the cult statue. Ibid. 269 Inscriptions found at various cult-centres. 1904Hastings's Dict. Bible V. 118/1 The female Divinity must be represented by the female animal, in order to carry out the mythological tale or the cult-act. 1906D. G. Hogarth in Proc. Brit. Acad. 1905–6 375 Small objects dedicated in that temple, among which are several cult-figurines of the Goddess. 1928Peake & Fleure Steppe & Sown 104 Already in Early Minoan times the double axe had become, not only a symbol of authority, but a cult object. a1930D. H. Lawrence Apocalypse (1931) vii. 117 Cult-lore was the wisdom of the old races. 1950H. L. Lorimer Homer & Monum. vi. 349 The earliest cult-image of the goddess. 1950Scott. Jrnl. Theol. III. 368 The rôle of the king in the great cult-drama at the beginning of every new year. 1957Antiquity & Survival II. 167/1 Near it a cult mask, made of clay, was still lying on the floor... In a further room, we discovered a unique cult-standard..made of bronze, with a tang to fasten it to a pole.
3. transf. Devotion or homage to a particular person or thing, now esp. as paid by a body of professed adherents or admirers.
1711Shaftesbury Charac. iii. i. (1737) I. 281 Convinc'd of the Reality of a better Self, and of the Cult or Homage which is due to It. 1829A. W. Fonblanque England Under 7 Admin. (1837) I. 238 These cults are generally to be found in the same house. 1879Q. Rev. Apr. 368 The cult of beauty as the most vivid image of Truth. 1889John Bull 2 Mar. 141/2 An evidence of the decay of the Wordsworth cult.
▸ A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
1927Appleton (Wisconsin) Post-Crescent 10 Oct. 18/1 Evidence that the strange burial of a youthful ‘priestess’ of the religious cult..may have been preceded by ritualistic and unreported burials of other cult members..sent investigators today to widely separated spots in the mountains of southern California. 1957Amer. Sociol. Rev. 22 561/2 An opportunity to study public reaction to a man whose small band of followers regarded him as Christ (and who himself acknowledged that status) arose... We were able to..facilitate fairly systematic study of this embryonic cult. 1976Newsweek (Nexis) 14 June 60 Unlike the Eastern cults that form around gurus, the Moonies make it psychologically difficult for their followers to leave. 1980Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 85 1377 Cults.., like other deviant social movements, tend to recruit people with a grievance, people who suffer from some variety of deprivation. 1994W. Shaw Spying in Guru Land (1995) p. xi, He introduced many of them to ‘astral travelling’; in mild trance states they would ‘leave their bodies’ and return with more dreams and myths to add to the growing lore of the cult.
▸ Designating cultural phenomena with a strong, often enduring appeal to a relatively small audience; (also) designating this appeal or audience, or any resultant success; fringe, non-mainstream. Hence: possessing a fashionable or exclusive cachet; spec. (of artistic figures or works) having a reputation or influence disproportionate to their limited public exposure or commercial success. Freq. in cult figure, cult status.
1961R. Heppenstall Fourfold Trad. ii. ii. 145 This is asking a lot of the general reader and helps to keep Ulysses in its curious position as a cult book. 1968Punch 3 July 32/2 There has been a small cult-following for [Nathanael] West. 1970Times 5 Nov. 14/6 There is some part of her in all of us, so that whatever our reaction to her, it cannot be one of indifference. It is easy to see how she could diminish into a fashionable cult-figure. 1976Scotsman 20 Nov. (Weekend Suppl.) 3/1 The fact that it became something of a cult book should not be held against its author now. 1985Music Week 2 Feb. (Advt. Suppl.), Bauhaus..achieved the highest level of cult success in the UK from '81–'83, with four silver albums. 1991Twenty Twenty Spring 92/3 Tolkien's Lord of the Rings..became a major publishing phenomenon when its late Sixties Ballantine paperback edition attained campus cult status. 1993Boulevard Spring 25 Eraserhead was a midnight cult movie, but Blue Velvet was the movie that made Lynch famous. 2000F. Walker in J. Adams et al. Girls' Night In 39 Last year's pop sensation Ruby ‘Red’ Richmond had been supposedly in lurve with cult actor Slim Tim Gorman for several weeks.
▪ II. † cult, a. Obs. nonce-wd.
[ad. L. cult-us, pa. pple. of colĕre to cultivate.]
Cultivated, cultured.
1617[see cult n. 1]. |