civilisation
Pluralcivilisations
US spellingcivilization · also used in the UK
- 1A large organised culture made up of many communities, often a whole nation or people; also, a particular stage or system of social, political or technical development.
Historians still argue about why the Indus Valley civilisation went into decline.
Modern civilisation depends on electricity to a degree few people stop to think about.
UsageUse a civilisation for one culture among others. Named cultures take the or no article (the Aztec civilisation, Roman civilisation), and modern civilisation usually has none.
Similarculture
Note
Both civilisation and civilization are correct British spellings; the s matches French civilisation, the word English borrowed.
- 2Human society, especially civil society: the settled, organised life people share with one another.
After a fortnight of camping on the moors, we were glad to get back to civilisation.
The old man had turned his back on civilisation and lived alone in a cottage in the hills.
UsageOften half joking, as in back to civilisation or far from civilisation. No a here: a civilisation is one particular culture.
Similarsociety
- 3The condition a person or people is in when they are civilised, in culture, manners and conduct.
She was a woman of wide reading and great civilisation.
To the visiting journalist, the town's free libraries, clean streets and courteous bus drivers spoke of a high degree of civilisation.
Similarrefinement, sophistication
Oppositebarbarism
- 4The act of making a person or people civilised, or the process by which they become civilised.
The colonial rulers claimed that their purpose was the civilisation of the peoples they governed.
The gradual civilisation of the frontier towns brought schools, courts and churches.
Less common meaning
- 5The legal act of turning a criminal proceeding into a civil one.
Note
A legal meaning, long obsolete. Civil here carries its courtroom sense of "not criminal", so the word named turning a criminal process into a civil one. It was built from civil just as the civilising meaning was; the two simply took different senses of the same adjective.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The legal meaning is obsolete and denotes converting a criminal proceeding into a civil one. en.wiktionary.org
- Civil has a legal sense opposed to criminal. en.wiktionary.org
- The legal and civilising meanings share the root civil, through different senses of that adjective. en.wiktionary.org
Practice
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Origin
English took the word from French civilisation. Seen as an English formation, it breaks down as civilise with -ation added, or as civil with -isation.