civilization

Etymology

Borrowed from French civilisation.

noun

1. 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.
   the Aztec civilization
   Western civilization
   Modern civilization is a product of industrialization and globalization.
   But civilizations, like the penis, rise and fall, and when the towers and battlements crumble into the earth, they return to the embrace of the Great Mother. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., pages rise and fall
2. (uncountable) Human society, particularly civil society.
   A hermit doesn't much care for civilization.
   I'm glad to be back in civilization after a day with that rowdy family.
   Civilisation has imbued man's minds with false ideas of the evil of sex and its fulfilment. 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 159
3. The act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.
   The teacher's civilization of the child was no easy task.
4. The state or quality of being civilized.
   He was a man of great civilization.
5. (obsolete) The act of rendering a criminal process civil.