Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person following the pursuits of civil life, especially one who is not an active member of the military, the police, or a belligerent group.
- n. A person who does not belong to a particular group or engage in a particular activity.
- n. A specialist in Roman or civil law.
- adj. Of or relating to civilians or civil life; nonmilitary: civilian clothes; a civilian career.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who is skilled in the Roman or civil law; a professor or doctor of civil law.
- n. A student of the civil law at a university.
- n. One whose pursuits are those of civil life, not military or clerical; especially, a non-military inhabitant of a garrisoned town.
- n. One who, despising the righteousness of Christ, did yet follow after a certain civil righteousness, a justitia civilis of his own.
- n. A covenanted civil servant in British India.
- Pertaining to or characteristic of a civilian.
Wiktionary
- n. A person following the pursuits of civil life, especially one who is not an active member of the military, the police, or a belligerent group.
- n. informal A person who does not belong to a particular group or engage in a particular activity.
- n. One skilled in civil law.
- n. A student of civil law at a university or college.
- adj. That which is not related to the military, police or other uniformed profession
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One skilled in the civil law.
- n. A student of the civil law at a university or college.
- n. One whose pursuits are those of civil life, not military or clerical.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. associated with civil life or performed by persons who are not active members of the military
- n. a nonmilitary citizen
Etymologies
- From Old French civilien. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, civil law judge, from Old French civilien, from civil, civil, from Latin cīvīlis; see civil. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Vowing to "let the enlightening begin", Mr Balkhi countered by quoting an explanation of the term 'civilian' as defined by the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, to which the ISAF representative replied: "Considering the Taliban's civilian casualty count during Eid, lecturing us on the definition of civilian is a bit of a joke.”
“I like to think of myself as a "civilian in uniform", an ordinary person who does, full-time, what most people would do anyway; consequently, I don't really like the term civilian, the opposite of which is jack-booted paramilitary thug (a term which I prefer, but isn't very user friendly).”
“Thus, PMC contractors are civilians (in governmental, international, and civil organizations) authorized to accompany an army to the field; hence, the term civilian contractor.”
WN.com - Articles related to South Korea offers face-saving aid plan
“PMC contractors are civilians (in governmental, international, and civil organizations) authorized to accompany an army to the field; hence, the term civilian contractor.”
WN.com - Articles related to South Korea offers face-saving aid plan
“The one I mentioned above: the civilian is a deportable alien whom no other coutry will take.”
Discourse.net: Nation Mag Claims ICE has Network of Secret Detention Faciilities -- in the USA
“U.S. officials note that Iran continues to enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel under what it calls a civilian program.”
“Hezbollah escorted journalists to what they described as civilian areas destroyed by recent strikes.”
“It was an AR-15, which is -- for those of you who don't know, an AR-15 is what we call the civilian version of an M-16 out of the military.”
“And the series of things that Iran wants in return for it giving up its nuclear weapons ambitions -- the nuclear weapons option that it's current -- what it calls a civilian program, is going to give it, if it moves forward with it, are things that the Europeans alone can't give them.”
“They say that if the United States continues to destroy what they call civilian homes of Afghans, there will be serious consequences.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘civilian’.
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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Dramatic Nouns
Nouns to be used as descriptions while writing stories
night owl, early bird, hedonist, ascetic, derelict, explorer, radical, pity friend, cupid, truant, caretaker, guardian and 120 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...health, follow, condition, meeting, minister, beginning, chapter, information, language, remain, covered, respect and 2614 more...
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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
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2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Alphabet Soup (?): Round 1
Congratulations to uselessness who, in no uncertain terms, sent this moderator back to school.
vile, lively, livery, live, liver, virile, virgil, villain, vilify, evil, vigilante, ventilation and 45 more...
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NSLS Library 2.0 conference
search, google, advertising, perception, boring, civilian, bun, hysterical, ignored, indifference, love, evil and 69 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for civilian.
johnking How, when and why did this word change its meaning from, (a) "a practitioner of civil law" - which makes sense - to (b) "nonmilitary" - which doesn't? 19th century usage (Dickens, Kipling, Twain) sounds faintly comic. Feb 13, 2010