Also 8 -er. [n. of action in L. form f. med.L. cultīvāre to CULTIVATE, prob. after F. cultivateur (15th c. in Hatzfeld).]
1. One who tills the ground, or cultivates a particular plant or crop; a tiller, husbandman, farmer, agriculturist.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., Occas. Medit., IV. ii. 62. The Divine Son of the great γεωργὸς [margin That is, Cultivator of the Ground]. Ibid. (1669), Cert. Physiol. Ess., etc. (ed. 2), 45 (J.). Some of the Cultivators of Clover-grass.
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 490. An English cultivator, at the head of a sheep farm of three or four thousand acres.
1815. Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul (1842), I. 389. There are five classes of cultivators in Afghaunistaun.
2. fig. a. One who cultivates an art, science, etc.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), III. 239, note. A Cultivater or Supporter of Arts or Letters.
1774. Pennant, Tour Scot. in 1772, 181. A restorer and cultivator of religion after the Egyptian manner.
1846. Wright, Ess. Mid. Ages, I. v. 176. The great cultivators of science and letters.
b. One who, or that which, develops or improves (the mind, etc.) by education and training.
1868. Mill, in Even. Star, 10 July. To give people an interest … in the management of their own affairs was the grand cultivator of mankind.
1886. Morley, Pop. Culture, Crit. Misc., III. 32. The observant cultivator of his own understanding.
3. An agricultural implement for breaking up or loosening the ground, and uprooting weeds between the drills of crops.
1759. trans. Duhamel’s Husb., II. i. (1762), 126. My alleys were plowed again with the cultivator.
1849. Mech. Mag., L. 176. Dr. Newington’s hand row hoe and cultivator.
1857. R. Tomes, Amer. in Japan, i. 23. An American ‘cultivator’ … which simple plough … drawn by a single horse, accomplished as much as the labour of fifty men, according to the usual method of cultivating the vine with a hoe.
