civilization

Meanings

Noun

• 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.

Proper Noun

• 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

Related

Similar words

• culture, order
• sphere
• education, acculturation
• home, the land of the living

Origin

• Borrowed from French civilisation.