[a. Sp. cultismo, F. cultisme, f. Sp. culto polished, elegant (:—L. cultus cultivated): see -ISM. Góngora gave the appellation estilo culto to his style of writing.] A kind of affected elegance of style that prevailed in Spanish literature in the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th c.; also called Góngorism after the poet Góngora. So Cultist, a writer affecting cultism.
1887. Morel-Fatio, in Encycl. Brit., XXII. 360. The cultism of Góngora, the artifice of which lies solely in the choice and arrangement of words.
1839. Blackw. Mag., XLVI. 718. Francesco de Roxas, a celebrated cultist in style.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 391. The school of the cultists.
