AGRICULTURE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Agriculture mean? 

• AGRICULTURE (noun)
  The noun AGRICULTURE has 4 senses:

1. a large-scale farming enterprise

2. the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock

3. the federal department that administers programs that provide services to farmers (including research and soil conservation and efforts to stabilize the farming economy); created in 1862

4. the class of people engaged in growing food

  Familiarity information: AGRICULTURE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AGRICULTURE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A large-scale farming enterprise

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

agribusiness; agriculture; factory farm

Hypernyms ("agriculture" is a kind of...):

business; business enterprise; commercial enterprise (the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects)

Derivation:

agriculturist (someone concerned with the science or art or business of cultivating the soil)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The practice of cultivating the land or raising stock

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

agriculture; farming; husbandry

Hypernyms ("agriculture" is a kind of...):

cultivation ((agriculture) production of food by preparing the land to grow crops (especially on a large scale))

Meronyms (parts of "agriculture"):

tilling (cultivation of the land in order to raise crops)

harvest; harvest time (the season for gathering crops)

Domain member category:

cultivation ((agriculture) production of food by preparing the land to grow crops (especially on a large scale))

cultivate (foster the growth of)

hoe (dig with a hoe)

disk; harrow (draw a harrow over (land))

ridge (plough alternate strips by throwing the furrow onto an unploughed strip)

plough; plow; turn (to break and turn over earth especially with a plow)

overcrop; overcultivate (to exhaust by excessive cultivation)

crop; cultivate; work (prepare for crops)

till (work land as by ploughing, harrowing, and manuring, in order to make it ready for cultivation)

carry (bear (a crop))

farm; grow; produce; raise (cultivate by growing, often involving improvements by means of agricultural techniques)

reseed (seed again or anew)

inseminate; sow; sow in (place seeds in or on (the ground))

broadcast (sow over a wide area, especially by hand)

seed; sow (place (seeds) in or on the ground for future growth)

thrash; thresh (beat the seeds out of a grain)

feed; fertilise; fertilize (provide with fertilizers or add nutrients to)

smut (affect with smut or mildew, as of a crop such as corn)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "agriculture"):

animal husbandry (breeding and caring for farm animals)

arboriculture; tree farming (the tending of and caring for trees)

dairy farming; dairying (the business of a dairy)

gardening; horticulture (the cultivation of plants)

aquiculture; hydroponics; tank farming (a technique of growing plants (without soil) in water containing dissolved nutrients)

mixed farming (growing crops and feed and livestock all on the same farm)

planting (putting seeds or young plants in the ground to grow)

ranching (farming for the raising of livestock (particularly cattle))

strip cropping (cultivation of crops in strips following the contours of the land to minimize erosion)

subsistence farming (farming that provides for the basic needs of the farmer without surpluses for marketing)

truck farming (growing vegetables for the market)

Derivation:

agriculturist (someone concerned with the science or art or business of cultivating the soil)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The federal department that administers programs that provide services to farmers (including research and soil conservation and efforts to stabilize the farming economy); created in 1862

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

Agriculture; Agriculture Department; Department of Agriculture; USDA

Hypernyms ("Agriculture" is a kind of...):

executive department (a federal department in the executive branch of the government of the United States)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The class of people engaged in growing food

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("agriculture" is a kind of...):

class; social class; socio-economic class; stratum (people having the same social, economic, or educational status)

 Context examples 

“Adding clay improves the exchange properties of the concentrate, which is useful in agriculture,” Monte explained.

(New Brazilian fertilizer can boost productivity, Agência BRASIL)

But ozone, a noxious chemical byproduct of fossil fuel combustion, has received relatively little attention as a potential threat to corn agriculture.

(Study finds rising ozone a hidden threat to corn, National Science Foundation)

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Peoria, Illinois, helped mass produce the antibiotic during World War II to treat Allied soldiers and later civilians.

(Soil Bacterium Tapped for Penicillin Guard Duty, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

"The Congo is now facing conversion of pristine lands for agriculture. We want to know what that could mean for the carbon cycle."

(Tropical soil disturbance could be hidden source of carbon dioxide, National Science Foundation)

Cantarella created a method where urease inhibitors are used during the cultivation of cane to prevent the transformation of urea — the most used fertilizer in Brazilian agriculture — into carbon dioxide.

(Method that cuts sugarcane emissions gets global prize, SciDev.Net)

Researchers say the magnesium consumption from natural foods has decreased in the past few decades, owing to industrialized agriculture and changes in dietary habits.

(Low Magnesium Levels Make Vitamin D Ineffective, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Currently, humans use groundwater for agriculture, but we don't know how much of it is fossil groundwater.

(Modern pollutants can reach deep fossil aquifers, SciDev.Net)

"Antibiotic resistance is a huge problem in both medicine and agriculture, and continuing searches for new antibiotics are very important as they may provide leads for future anti-bacterial agents."

(Scientists discover new antibiotic in tropical forest, National Science Foundation)

"Hail - particularly large hail - can have significant economic impacts on agriculture and property," said Nick Anderson, a program officer in NSF's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences.

(Facial recognition technique could improve hail forecasts, National Science Foundation)

For chemicals with which you are unfamiliar, consult the Merck Index to determine whether the chemical is used in manufacturing, agriculture, or other occupational setting.

(Occupational Carcinogenesis, NCI Thesaurus)