# civilian

Pronunciation: say "si-VIL-yuhn" /sɪˈvɪljən/

## Noun

1. A person who lives an ordinary civil life, especially someone who is not a member of the armed forces.
   - Simple: Someone who is not part of the army, navy, or other armed forces.
   - _The general ordered his troops to avoid harming any civilian._
   - _After leaving the army, he struggled to adjust to life as a civilian._
3. A person outside a particular group or activity, regarded as not belonging to it. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Someone who is not part of a certain group or activity, an outsider.
   - _To the surfers, anyone who stayed on the beach was just a civilian._
   - _The band treated their manager like a civilian who didn't understand the music._
4. A person employed within the civil service, the body of government administrative staff.
   - Simple: Someone who works for the government as part of the civil service.
   - _The empire's vast bureaucracy employed thousands of civilians across its provinces._
   - _A senior civilian in the ministry signed off on the annual budget._
5. A person skilled in the practice of civil law.
   - Simple: A person who is an expert in civil law.
   - _The merchants hired a noted civilian to interpret the maritime statutes._
   - _A learned civilian was summoned to advise the court on the ecclesiastical case._
6. A university or college student studying civil law.
   - Simple: A student who is learning civil law at a college or university.
   - _As a civilian at Oxford, she immersed herself in Roman legal texts._
   - _The college's civilians gathered to debate a tricky point of contract law._

## Adjective

2. Belonging to ordinary life rather than the military, police, or other government professions.
   - Simple: Not connected to the army, police, or government jobs.
   - _The pilot returned to civilian aviation after his service ended._
   - _Several officers took civilian jobs once their contracts expired._

## Origin

From Middle English cyvylien, from Old French civilien, equivalent to civil plus the suffix -ian.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/civilian (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).