civilization
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English
Alternative forms
- civilisation (UK)
Etymology
Borrowed from French civilisation.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
- (General Australian) IPA(key):
- (US) IPA(key): /ˌsɪv.ə.ləˈzeɪ.ʃən/
Audio (US) (file)
Noun
civilization (countable and uncountable, plural civilizations)
- 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.
- the Aztec civilization
- Western civilization
- Modern civilization is a product of industrialization and globalization.
- 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., pages rise and fall:
- 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.
- (uncountable) Human society, particularly civil society.
- A hermit doesn't much care for civilization.
- I'm glad to be back in civilization after a day with that rowdy family.
- 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 159:
- Civilisation has imbued man's minds with false ideas of the evil of sex and its fulfilment.
- The act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.
- The teacher's civilization of the child was no easy task.
- The state or quality of being civilized.
- He was a man of great civilization.
- (obsolete) The act of rendering a criminal process civil.
Synonyms
- (large-scale stage of societal development): culture, order
- (group of countries): sphere
- (act of civilizing): education, acculturation
- (preferred human society): home, the land of the living
Derived terms
- anticivilization
- civilizational
- civilizationally
- civilization-state
- cybercivilization
- Harappan Civilization
- incivilization
- Indus Civilization
- Indus Valley Civilization
- Kanglei civilization
- Kangleipak civilization
- Manipuri civilization
- Meetei civilization
- microcivilization
- multicivilization
- precivilization
- supercivilization
- uncivilization
Related terms
Translations
organized culture
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human society
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act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized
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state or quality of being civilized
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Proper noun
civilization
- Collectively, those people 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. cf refinement, elitism, civilised society, the Civilised World
Translations
people of the world considered to have a high standard of behavior
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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References
- “civilization”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “civilization”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “civilization”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- "civilization" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 57.
- civilization in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.