Meaning

An organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political, or technical development..

Definitions by Sense

1. An organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political, or technical development.
2. (uncountable) Human society, particularly civil society.
3. The act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.
4. The state or quality of being civilized.
5. (obsolete) The act of rendering a criminal process civil.
6. (inherently emic, sometimes capitalized) Collectively, those people and places of the world considered to have a high standard of behavior and / or a high level of development. Commonly subjectively used by people of one society to exclusively refer to their society, or their elite sub-group, or a few associated societies, implying all others, in time or geography or status, as something less than civilised, as savages or barbarians. (Compare refinement, elitism, civilised society, the Civilised World.

Example Sentences

the Aztec civilization

Western civilization

Modern civilization is a product of industrialization and globalization.

But civilizations, like the penis, rise and fall, and when the towers and battlements crumble into the earth, they return to the embrace of the Great Mother.

A hermit doesn't much care for civilization.

I'm glad to be back in civilization after a day with that rowdy family.

Civilisation has imbued man's minds with false ideas of the evil of sex and its fulfilment.

The teacher's civilization of the child was no easy task.

Word Forms

• civilizations
• civilisation

Synonyms for civilization

Antonyms for civilization

Related Words

When Should You Use Civilization?

Use civilization when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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