civilization

Plural: civilizations

Noun

• a society in an advanced state of social development (e.g., with complex legal and political and religious organizations)
  • "the people slowly progressed from barbarism to civilization"
• the social process whereby societies achieve an advanced stage of development and organization
• a particular society at a particular time and place
  • "early Mayan civilization"
• the quality of excellence in thought and manners and taste
  • "he is remembered for his generosity and civilization"
• 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.
• Human society, particularly civil society.
• The act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.
• The state or quality of being civilized.
• The act of rendering a criminal process civil.

Name

• 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.

Examples

• A hermit doesn't much care for civilization.
• He was a man of great civilization.
• I'm glad to be back in civilization after a day with that rowdy family.
• Modern civilization is a product of industrialization and globalization.
• Some of the tourists in the upcountry might have embarrassed themselves if they'd been capable of having any shame, whining that they couldn't wait to get back to civilization.
• the Aztec civilization
• The teacher's civilization of the child was no easy task.
• Western civilization

Synonyms

civilisation, culture, refinement, acculturation, education, home, order, sphere, the land of the living

Antonyms

;, anecumene, wilderness, wilds

Related Words

civilize