English Online Dictionary. What means civilization? What does civilization mean?
English
Wikiquote
Alternative forms
- civilisation (UK)
Etymology
Borrowed from French civilisation.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): [ˌsɪv.ə.lɑeˈzæɪ.ʃən]
- (US) IPA(key): /ˌsɪv.ə.ləˈzeɪ.ʃən/
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.
- (uncountable) Human society, particularly civil society.
- The act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.
- The state or quality of being civilized.
- (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
Related terms
- civilize
Translations
Proper noun
civilization
- (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.
- Antonyms: wilderness, wilds; anecumene (archaic)
- Coordinate terms: frontier, outlands, wastelands
- Near-synonym: ecumene (archaic)
Translations
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.