Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Not civilized; barbarous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not civilized or reclaimed from savage life; rude; barbarous; savage: as, uncivilized hordes.
  • Coarse; indecent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Not civilized; not reclaimed from savage life; rude; barbarous; savage.
  • adjective rare Not civil; coarse; clownish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Crude, barbarous, wild, uncultured.
  • adjective Used to describe people who display a marked lack of manners as defined by a given culture.
  • adjective Used to describe behaviours deemed savage or inappropriate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective without civilizing influences

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the British spelling uncivilised, with the general spelling reform of "-ise" to "-ize".

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Examples

Comments

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  • A fellow with a portable microphone was on a central city corner saying to the passing crowds, "Uncivilized men do uncivilized things, as also do the civilized, but they just hide it better. That, Dear Passers-By, is what distinguishes the two."

    (And many fine citizens went home with the blues.)

    --Jan Cox

    August 19, 2007