civilization
noun
Simple meaning
A society in an advanced state of social development.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sihvuhlihzayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
sɪvəlɪˈzeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A particular society at a particular time and place
uncountable
Human society, particularly civil society.
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 act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.
The state or quality of being civilized.
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.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A society in an advanced state of social development (e.g., with complex legal and political and religious organizations)
Used this way, civilization is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
“The people slowly progressed from barbarism to civilization.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
- Religion/spirituality
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use civilization
- “The people slowly progressed from barbarism to civilization.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.