What does "cultigen" mean?

A plant that has been deliberately altered or selected by humans, that is it has resulted from artificial rather than natural selection.

What is a synonym for "cultigen"?

Common synonyms include: anthropogenic plant.

Pronounced //ˈkʌltɪdʒɛn//.

//ˈkʌltɪdʒɛn// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A plant that has been deliberately altered or selected by humans, that is it has resulted from artificial rather than natural selection.

From culti(vated) + -gen or from Latin cultus (“cultivated”) + gēns (“kind”). Coined by American botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey in 1918.

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