Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") usually refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. Cultures can be "understood as systems of signs and meanings that even their creators contest, that lack fixed boundaries, that are constantly in flux, and that work together and compete with one another".
Culture can be defined as all the habits of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society”. Though, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, norms of behavior such as law and morality, and systems of belief as well as the art.
Cultural anthropologists most frequently use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity and activities to classify, codify and communicate their experiences materially and symbolically. Scholars have long viewed this capacity as a defining characteristic of humans (although some primatologists have identified aspects of culture such as learned tool making and use among humankind's closest relatives in the animal kingdom).
