verb ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   American and Oxford British standard spelling of civilise.
2. 2
   raise from a barbaric to a civilized state wordnet
3. 3
   teach or refine to be discriminative in taste or judgment wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

educateacculturateadvanceameliorateamendanthropomorphize

Example

More examples

"The Romans tried to civilize the ancient Britons."

Etymology

Borrowed from French civiliser, corresponding to civil + -ize.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.