intercultural

Etymology

It is formed from English inter- + cultural.^[2][3][4] Etymonline relates its first, agricultural use to culture in the older sense of tillage or cultivation, and the later use, involving different human cultures, to the modern sense;^[5] the OED treats the two uses in separate entries.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In agriculture, done between the stages of cultivation or between the rows of a crop: 1878, in the title of a work by E. L. Sturtevant.^[1][5]

Semantic evolution

The word first belonged to farming, where Merriam-Webster Unabridged still records it for a crop grown between the rows of another and for tillage or hoeing done while a crop is growing.^[3][5] The sense "relating to or involving different cultures" is found by 1929 in Etymonline;^[5] the OED's first quotation for it is from 1937, in the journal Theology,^[1] and Dictionary.com dates it to 1935–40.^[2] This is now the main sense.^[6][3]

Timeline

• 1878 – agriculture, done between the rows of a crop or between stages of cultivation.^[1][5]
• 1929 – relating to or involving different cultures.^[5] The OED's first quotation for this sense is from 1937.^[1]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Existing between, involving or relating to two or more cultures: intercultural exchange between students.^[6][3][7]
2. (agriculture) Grown between the rows of another crop, or done while a crop is growing: intercultural tillage.^[3][1]

Word family

• interculturally

Related words

• cross-cultural
• culture
• cultural
• multicultural

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org