cult

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
cult/kʌlt/

▶noun

• 1 a system of religious devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.

  ■ a relatively small religious group regarded by others as strange or as imposing excessive control over members.

• 2 [often as modifier] a thing that is popular or fashionable among a particular group: a cult film.

– derivatives
cultic adjective,
cultish adjective,
cultishness noun,
cultism noun,
cultist noun.

– origin C17: from Fr. culte or L. cultus ‘worship’.