- Culture is a word for people's 'way of life', meaning the way groups do things. Different groups of people may have different cultures. A culture is passed on to the next generation by learning. Culture is seen in people's writing, religion, music, clothes, cooking, and in what they do.
- The concept of culture is complicated and the word has several meanings.
- One definition says that culture is the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
- Another definition states that culture is the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time.
- In anthropology,[1] culture encompasses the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies. The word is used in a general sense as the evolved ability to categorize and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively. This capacity is often thought to be unique to humans.
- In the humanities,[2] culture is also seen as an attribute of the individual. The individual's culture is the degree to which someone has cultivated a particular level of sophistication, in the arts, sciences, education, or manners.
- The level of cultural sophistication has also sometimes been seen to distinguish civilizations from less complex societies.
- In common language, culture is often used to refer specifically to the symbolic markers used by ethnic groups to distinguish themselves from each other such as body modification, clothing or jewelry.
- Mass culture refers to the mass-produced and mass mediated forms of consumer culture that emerged in the 20th century.