The purpose of the paper is to identify and define the nature and characteristics of culture. The paper begins with a brief historical perspective on the introduction of the word culture into the English language and the development of its meaning for anthropology. A brief introduction to the definitions of culture is also presented. A review of the major categories of definitions of culture, which comprises the bulk of the paper, is then presented. The categories are: enumeratively descriptive, historical, normative, psychological, structural, and genetic. For each category, definitions of culture by various individuals are quoted and comments on these definitions by the author are presented. A synthesis presents an account of the state of knowledge. The paper concludes with an analysis and conclusions which lead the reader on to further consideration of the idea of culture and its development into a concept and the formulation of a "theory of culture." A selected bibliography is included. (RM)