Civilization

How to spell civilization

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce civilization

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does civilization mean?

1. nounAn advanced, organised stage of human society with developed culture, government, and technology.

Civilization in a sentence

• The ancient civilization left behind vast stone temples and detailed records.

• Historians debate what caused the collapse of that early river civilization.

Where does civilization come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin civis, meaning 'citizen', and the related civilis, meaning 'relating to citizens' or 'befitting a townsperson'. From these came the verb 'civilize', meaning to bring people out of a rough or tribal condition into organised, lawful society, which English adopted through French in the 1600s. The noun 'civilization' was then formed from the verb with the ending -ation, and it appears in English in the middle of the 1700s, at first as a legal term for turning a criminal case into a civil one before quickly settling into its modern meaning of an advanced, ordered human society. The same civis root still lives inside everyday words such as 'civic', 'civilian', and 'city', which is a handy reminder that the heart of the word is the citizen. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: the -liza- syllable hides a soft schwa, and the -ization ending can tempt writers toward an -isation form, so it pays to picture the z.

How the word is built

• civil- (from Latin civis: citizen)
• -iz(e) (verb-forming suffix: to make)
• -ation (noun of process or state)