civilisation
/ˌsɪv.ɪ.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/noun
civilisation is a noun meaning “UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Commonwealth spelling of civilization” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-I-V-I-L-I-S-A-T-I-O-N and has 5 syllables, and it appears 2.3 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of civilisation is civilisations.
What does civilisation mean?
noun
- 1
UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Commonwealth spelling of civilization.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce civilisation?
- UK /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
- US /ˌsɪv.ɪ.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
Civilisation has 5 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-civilization.ogg, EN-AU_ck1_civilisation.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of civilisation
- civilisations plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is civilisation?
Civilisation appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 17,813th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you abbreviate civilisation?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of civilisation: civ.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does civilisation come from?
Borrowed from French civilisation, equivalent to civilise + -ation or civil + -isation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).