Civic

How to spell civic

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce civic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does civic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to a city, its citizens, or the duties and affairs of public life.

Civic in a sentence

• The new library is part of an ambitious civic improvement plan.

• Voting is widely regarded as a basic civic duty.

Where does civic come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin civicus, meaning 'relating to a citizen', which was built on civis, the ordinary Latin word for a 'citizen', a member of a city or community. The most famous early use was the corona civica, the 'civic crown' of oak leaves awarded to a Roman who had saved a fellow citizen's life in battle, so the idea of public duty was attached to the word from very early on. English adopted it through French in the sixteenth century, settling on the sense of anything connected with a city, its citizens, or their shared responsibilities. The same civis root sits inside the familiar relatives 'city', 'civil', and 'citizen', which is a useful reminder that civic is spelled with two letter c sounds bridged by a single i. Because the word is short and the second c is followed by an i, writers occasionally hesitate over whether it ends in -ic or -ick, but the plain Latin -ic suffix is correct.

How the word is built

• civ- (from Latin civis: citizen)
• -ic (adjective suffix: relating to)