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CIVIL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Of or in a condition of social order
Example:
civil peoples
Classified under:
Similar:
civilised; civilized (having a high state of culture and development both social and technological)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not rude; marked by satisfactory (or especially minimal) adherence to social usages and sufficient but not noteworthy consideration for others
Example:
even if he didn't like them he should have been civil
Synonyms:
civil; polite
Classified under:
Attribute:
civility (formal or perfunctory politeness)
Antonym:
uncivil (lacking civility or good manners)
Derivation:
civility (the act of showing regard for others)
civility (formal or perfunctory politeness)
Sense 3
Meaning:
(of divisions of time) legally recognized in ordinary affairs of life
Example:
a civil day begins at mean midnight
Classified under:
Adjectives
Antonym:
sidereal ((of divisions of time) determined by daily motion of the stars)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Applying to ordinary citizens as contrasted with the military
Example:
civil authorities
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
civilian (associated with civil life or performed by persons who are not active members of the military)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Of or relating to or befitting citizens as individuals
Example:
civic pride
Synonyms:
civic; civil
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Pertainym:
citizen (a native or naturalized member of a state or other political community)
Sense 6
Meaning:
Of or occurring within the state or between or among citizens of the state
Example:
civil branches of government
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Pertainym:
state (a politically organized body of people under a single government)
Context examples:
In your report, you mention the fact that insurance companies are ahead of everybody since they've excluded from civil responsibility insurance policies illnesses which could be linked to the use of mobile phones.
(Health threats caused by mobile phone radiation, EUROPARL TV)
Perhaps he had been civil only because he felt himself at ease; yet there had been that in his voice which was not like ease.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
He is a research professor in the UW’s civil and environmental engineering department
(Common Houseplant with Genetic Modification Can Remove Polluted Air, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
But civil you can speak, and shall, George Merry, you may lay to that.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
When the dwarf saw that he screamed out: Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure a man’s face?
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
The only civil servants not assigned to assist in the vaccination effort were those working on water and electricity.
(Samoan government temporarily shuts down for nationwide measles vaccination drive, Wikinews)
The art or science of building; especially, the art of building houses, churches, bridges, and other structures, for the purposes of civil life
(Architecture, NCI Thesaurus)
How, then, can England come in, especially when we have stirred her up such a devil’s brew of Irish civil war, window-breaking Furies, and God knows what to keep her thoughts at home.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
One night—it was on the twentieth of March, 1888—I was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
