cult (n.)

late 14c., "ancient Roman settlement outside Italy," from Latin colonia "settled land, farm, landed estate," from colonus "husbandman, tenant farmer, settler in new land," from colere "to cultivate, to till; to inhabit; to frequent, practice, respect; tend, guard," from PIE root *kwel- (1) "revolve, move round; sojourn, dwell" (source also of Latin -cola "inhabitant"). Also used by the Romans to translate Greek apoikia "people from home."

In reference to modern situations, "company or body of people who migrate from their native country to cultivate and inhabit a new place while remaining subject to the mother country," attested from 1540s. Meaning "a country or district colonized" is by 1610s.

also *kwelə-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "revolve, move round; sojourn, dwell."

It forms all or part of: accolade; ancillary; atelo-; bazaar; bicycle; bucolic; chakra; chukker; collar; collet; colonial; colony; cult; cultivate; culture; cyclamen; cycle; cyclo-; cyclone; cyclops; decollete; encyclical; encyclopedia; entelechy; epicycle; hauberk; hawse; inquiline; Kultur; lapidocolous; nidicolous; palimpsest; palindrome; palinode; pole (n.2) "ends of Earth's axis;" pulley; rickshaw; talisman; teleology; telic; telophase; telos; torticollis; wheel.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit cakram "circle, wheel," carati "he moves, wanders;" Avestan caraiti "applies himself," c'axra "chariot, wagon;" Greek kyklos "circle, wheel, any circular body, circular motion, cycle of events,"polos "a round axis" (PIE *kw- becomes Greek p- before some vowels), polein "move around;" Latin colere "to frequent, dwell in, to cultivate, move around," cultus "tended, cultivated," hence also "polished," colonus "husbandman, tenant farmer, settler, colonist;" Lithuanian kelias "a road, a way;" Old Norse hvel, Old English hweol "wheel;" Old Church Slavonic kolo, Old Russian kolo, Polish koło, Russian koleso "a wheel."