/kʌlt/
[noun] A group of people who share a strong devotion to a particular person, idea, or thing — often in a way that others find extreme or unusual. The word can also describe something, like a film or band, that has a very loyal and passionate group of fans.
The word 'cult' originally meant nothing more sinister than the careful tending of a field — farming gave us fanaticism.
The story of 'cult' begins with the Latin verb 'colere', which meant to till, to cultivate, or to take care of something. This was a completely ordinary agricultural word, the kind a Roman farmer would use when talking about working the soil or tending his crops. From 'colere' came the noun 'cultus', which referred to the act of caring for something — whether that was land, animals, or, increasingly, the gods. When Romans spoke of worshipping their deities, they used 'cultus deorum', meaning the care or honour given to the gods, in the same practical, hands-on way a farmer might speak of caring for his fields.
This connection between tending crops and honouring gods was not accidental. Ancient religions were deeply tied to agriculture. A farmer who prayed for a good harvest and one who carefully ploughed his field were doing related things — both were acts of devotion and effort aimed at securing abundance. 'Cultus' therefore slid naturally from physical care to spiritual reverence. It is worth noting that this same root, 'colere', also gave English the word 'culture' (via Latin 'cultura', the tending of land or the mind), 'agriculture' (from 'ager', meaning field, combined with 'cultura'), and 'colony' (from 'colonus', a settler who farms the land).
The word entered English in the early 17th century, borrowed directly from French 'culte', which had itself come from Latin 'cultus'. At first, English writers used 'cult' in a fairly neutral, academic sense to describe systems of religious worship and ritual — particularly those of ancient or foreign peoples. A scholar writing about ancient Egypt or Greece might refer to the 'cult of Isis' or the 'cult of Apollo' without any suggestion of danger or strangeness. It was simply the technical word for organised religious devotion.
The shift toward the darker, more loaded meaning we know today happened gradually and accelerated in the 20th century. As organised religions became more established and respectable in Western societies, the word 'cult' began to be used specifically for groups that stood outside mainstream religion — groups seen as secretive, manipulative, or dangerously devoted to a single charismatic leader. High-profile events such as the Jonestown massacre of 1978, in which over 900 members of a religious group died in a mass suicide, burned the word into the public imagination as something frightening and predatory.
At the same time, a softer, more affectionate meaning developed alongside the sinister one. In the world of art, film, and music, 'cult' came to describe anything with a small but intensely passionate following — a film that failed at the box office but was loved by devoted fans, or a band too unusual for mainstream radio but worshipped by those who found them. A 'cult classic' is something that did not achieve mass popularity but inspired a depth of feeling in its audience that mainstream hits rarely do. In this sense, the word circled back to its root: a devoted, almost religious, act of care and appreciation for something others might overlook.