sericulture
se·ri·cul·ture/ˈsɛɹɪˌkʌlt͡ʃ ɚ/noun
sericulture is a noun meaning “The rearing of silkworms for the production of silk” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-E-R-I-C-U-L-T-U-R-E and has 4 syllables (se·ri·cul·ture), and it appears about once in every 16 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of sericulture is sericultures.
What does sericulture mean?
noun
- 1
The rearing of silkworms for the production of silk.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce sericulture?
- UK /ˈsɛɹɪˌkʌltʃə/
- UK /ˈsɪəɹɪ-/
- US /ˈsɛɹɪˌkʌlt͡ʃ ɚ/
Sericulture has 4 syllables, split se·ri·cul·ture in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-sericulture.oga, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of sericulture
- sericultures plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is sericulture?
Sericulture appears about once in every 16 million words in written English, the 121,279th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Sericulture in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense rearing of silkworms for the production of silk:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sériculture, sériciculture, bacologie |
| German | Seidenbau |
| Portuguese | sericicultura |
| Spanish | sericicultura |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does sericulture come from?
Possibly borrowed from French sériculture, a modification of French sériciculture (“sericulture”) (or directly from sériciculture), from Late Latin sēricum (“Chinese goods, especially silk”) + French culture (“crop; culture”). Sēricum is derived from Latin sēricus (“of or pertaining to the Seres or Chinese; (by extension) made of silk, silken”), from Sēres (“northern Chinese people”), from Ancient Greek Σῆρες (Sêres, “the Chinese people; the land of the Chinese, China”), plural of Σήρ (Sḗr, “(rare, usually in plural) Chinese person; silkworm”), possibly from Old Chinese 絲 (*slɯ, “silk”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).