What does "acculturation" mean?

A process by which the culture of a society changes on contact with a different one.

How do you pronounce "acculturation"?

Pronounced //əˌkʌl.t͡ʃəˈɹeɪ.ʃən//.

Common synonyms include: socialization, admission, adoption, affiliation, americanization, assimilation.

//əˌkʌl.t͡ʃəˈɹeɪ.ʃən// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A process by which the culture of a society changes on contact with a different one. countable, uncountable
"It would be difficult to designate the Ghost Dance of the Indians of North America, for instance, as anything but a phenomenon of acculturation; […]."
2
the adoption of the behavior patterns of the surrounding culture wordnet
3
A process by which a person acquires the culture of the society that they inhabit, starting at birth. countable, uncountable
4
the process of assimilating new ideas into an existing cognitive structure wordnet
5
all the knowledge and values shared by a society wordnet

"Since then, Kabylia has been obstinately confronting the process of Arabization and acculturation that is undermining its language and identity."

First attested in 1880; ad- (“toward”) + culture + -ation (“a process”); equivalent to acculturate + -ion

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.