civilization

• civilisation (UK)

Borrowed from French civilisation.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): [ˌsɪv.ə.lɑeˈzæɪ.ʃən]
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌsɪv.ə.ləˈzeɪ.ʃən/

Audio (US)

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civilization (countable and uncountable, plural civilizations)

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.

   the Aztec civilization

   Western civilization

   Modern civilization is a product of industrialization and globalization.

2. (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.

3. The act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.

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

4. The state or quality of being civilized.

   He was a man of great civilization.

5. (obsolete) The act of rendering a criminal process civil.

• (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

• civilizational
• civilizationally

• civilize

civilization

1. 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

• civilization in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• civilization in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• civilization at OneLook Dictionary Search
• "civilization" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 57.