"WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)"
cult
I love WordNet for many things, but as it is unfamiliar to many and certainly doesn't have the reputation of the OED, I thought I'd reinforce (or supplement) the above definitions with the OED entry for cult:
"†1.
Worship; reverential homage rendered to a divine being or beings. Obs. (exc. as in sense 2).
1617 S. Collins Epphata to F. T.ii. ix. 371 You tell vs most absurdly of a diuine cult..for so cult you are, or so quilted in your tearmes.
1617 S. Collins Epphata to F. T.ii. ix. 380 You..referre it to the cult that you so foolishly talked of.
1683 D. A. Whole Art Converse 92 That Sovereign Cult due to God only.
a1706 J. Evelyn Hist. Relig. (1850) II. ix. 39 God, abolishing the cult of Gentile idols.
2.
a. A particular form or system of religious worship; esp. in reference to its external rites and ceremonies.
1679 W. Penn Addr. Protestantsii. App. 245 Let not every circumstantial difference or Variety of Cult be Nick-named a new Religion.
1699 Ld. Shaftesbury Inq. Virtue in Characteristicksi. iii. §2 In the Cult or Worship of such a Deity.
1850 W. E. Gladstone Homer II. 211 While she [Proserpine] has a cult or worship on earth, he [Aidoneus] apparently has none.
1859 L. Oliphant China & Japan I. xii. 242 They are devoted in their attentions to the objects of their culte.
1874 J. P. Mahaffy Social Life Greece xi. 350 The cult of Aphrodite.
b. Now freq. used attrib. by writers on cultic ritual and the archæology of primitive cults.
1901 A. J. Evans Mycenaean Tree & Pillar Cult 25 Aniconic Cult Images.
1901 A. J. Evans Mycenaean Tree & Pillar Cult 77 Cult Scenes relating to a Warrior God and his Consort.
1903 Folk-lore Sept. 264 The image of the patron deity, usually a simple copy of the cult statue.
1903 Folk-lore Sept. 269 Inscriptions found at various cult-centres.
1904 Hastings's Dict. Bible V. 118/1 The female Divinity must be represented by the female animal, in order to carry out the mythological tale or the cult-act.
1906 D. G. Hogarth in Proc. Brit. Acad. 1905–6 375 Small objects dedicated in that temple, among which are several cult-figurines of the Goddess.
1928 H. Peake & H. J. Fleure Steppe & Sown 104 Already in Early Minoan times the double axe had become, not only a symbol of authority, but a cult object.
a1930 D. H. Lawrence Apocalypse (1931) vii. 117 Cult-lore was the wisdom of the old races.
1950 H. L. Lorimer Homer & Monuments vi. 349 The earliest cult-image of the goddess.
1950 Scott. Jrnl. Theol. 3 368 The rôle of the king in the great cult-drama at the beginning of every new year.
1957 Antiquity & Survival II. 167/1 Near it a cult mask, made of clay, was still lying on the floor... In a further room, we discovered a unique cult-standard..made of bronze, with a tang to fasten it to a pole.
3.
transf. Devotion or homage to a particular person or thing, now esp. as paid by a body of professed adherents or admirers.
1711 Ld. Shaftesbury Characteristicks (1737) iii. i. I. 281 Convinc'd of the Reality of a better Self, and of the Cult or Homage which is due to It.
1829 A. W. Fonblanque Eng. under Seven Admin. (1837) I. 238 These cults are generally to be found in the same house.
1879 Q. Rev. Apr. 368 The cult of beauty as the most vivid image of Truth.
1889 John Bull 2 Mar. 141/2 An evidence of the decay of the Wordsworth cult."
Only in the draft section from 2004 to we find: "A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister" (with usage going back to 1927). We also find in the draft section:
"Designating cultural phenomena with a strong, often enduring appeal to a relatively small audience; (also) designating this appeal or audience, or any resultant success; fringe, non-mainstream. Hence: possessing a fashionable or exclusive cachet;
spec. (of artistic figures or works) having a reputation or influence disproportionate to their limited public exposure or commercial success. Freq. in cult figure, cult status
1961 R. Heppenstall Fourfold Trad.ii. ii. 145 This is asking a lot of the general reader and helps to keep Ulysses in its curious position as a cult book.
1968 Punch 3 July 32/2 There has been a small cult-following for [Nathanael] West.
1970 Times 5 Nov. 14/6 There is some part of her in all of us, so that whatever our reaction to her, it cannot be one of indifference. It is easy to see how she could diminish into a fashionable cult-figure.
1976 Scotsman 20 Nov. (Weekend Suppl.) 3/1 The fact that it became something of a cult book should not be held against its author now.
1985 Music Week 2 Feb. (Advt. Suppl.), Bauhaus..achieved the highest level of cult success in the UK from '81–'83, with four silver albums.
1991 Twenty Twenty Spring 92/3 Tolkien's Lord of the Rings..became a major publishing phenomenon when its late Sixties Ballantine paperback edition attained campus cult status.
1993 Boulevard Spring 25 Eraserhead was a midnight cult movie, but Blue Velvet was the movie that made Lynch famous.
2000 F. Walker in J. Adams et al. Girls' Night In 39 Last year's pop sensation Ruby ‘Red’ Richmond had been supposedly in lurve with cult actor Slim Tim Gorman for several weeks"
This:
I
Cult - A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
I think that definition put forth by Dictionary.com fits well.
doesn't seem to fit very well except in a very narrow sense. However, if WordNet and the OED don't convince, feel free to check out Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), British National Corpus (BYU-BNC), and other corpora to see how the word is used in thousands of examples from modern sources (spoken and written)
here.