Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
educate or enlighten a person or people to a perceived higher standard ofbehaviour . - verb To introduce or impose the
standards of onecivilisation upon anothercivilization , group or person, arguably with the intent of achieving a perceived higher standard ofbehavior . - verb To bring from a state of
savagery to an educated or refined state.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb raise from a barbaric to a civilized state
- verb teach or refine to be discriminative in taste or judgment
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Or maybe they did, but didn't realise it, and somehow switched them to unicameral in the process of trying to "civilise" them.
amuchmoreexotic: I've just finished reading Consciousness amuchmoreexotic 2008
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In principle this was no different from the arrogance which convinced Joao III of Portugal that so long as there was an African not in bondage, there was an African who remained to be subjected to slavery, or the British, who knew it as a matter of fact that they had a manifest destiny to "civilise" the "primitive" African natives.
ANC Today 2004
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On assiste a une interruption brutale de l'volution de cette mdecine avec l'arrive du pouvoir colonial qui interdisait la pratique soit disant que la mdecine "civilise" de la mtropole tait bien suprieure.
Chapter 7 1991
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As the African accepted none of these measures to 'civilise' him without a struggle, the Trustees had always been worried by his prospects as long as the
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This is taken advantage of to 'civilise' the African with a view to making him a perpetual minor.
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According to Survival, when British colonial forces failed to pacify the tribes through violence in the 19th century, they sought to "civilise" them by capturing many and keeping them in an institution.
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In one episode he tries to "civilise" his tenants.
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The report, widely current in the Sanjak and Slavonic borderlands, that so soon as Austria was ready to move she would cause to be got up a massacre of Christians of sufficient magnitude to compel her to go to the rescue, and make Europe give her another mandate to "civilise" Balkan lands, occurred to my mind; more especially as in 1906 many Austrians in Bosnia had boasted to me that they meant to be in Saloniki, under the Austrian flag, by November 1909.
High Albania Mary Edith 1909
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a matter of fact that they had a manifest destiny to "civilise" the "primitive"
ANC Today 2004
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We learn to sublimate these urges and to civilise the experience.
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