Meaning & use

cultivating

verb·Academic

Deliberately developing or improving a skill, relationship, or quality over time through effort and attention.

See it in a sentence

The teacher focused on cultivating curiosity rather than simply testing memorized facts.

Farmers spend the spring cultivating the soil before planting their crops.

A note on using this word

Cultivating is used literally for growing plants and figuratively for developing skills, habits, or relationships.

Words with a similar meaning

nurturingdeveloping

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

neglecting

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