civilize

By the fifth century BCE, some of the larger villages of Macedon grew big enough to be considered cities, and elite Macedonians made efforts to civilize their country in the style of the southern Greeks.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020

Without dogs, human beings would not have been able to civilize, as they did.

From Salon ● Nov. 10, 2019

Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s very dark comedy, about an empathy coach trying to civilize an unwoke collection agency, gives its final notice.

From New York Times ● Apr. 18, 2019

But their aim is the same: to drag resplendent nature indoors to hyperbolize and civilize its beauty.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2018

Somewhere above, the rockets burned down to civilize a beautifully dead planet.

From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury

We sense early on, from Mortensen’s delicate handling of their courtship, that this isn’t some musty rehash of the trope where she civilizes him and he domesticates her.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2024

But there she is, one of the immortal characters of literature, and how can you not fall in love with somebody who civilizes savage people by telling them stories?

From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2015

Far from revealing our barbarism, fighting civilizes us, Gottschall writes.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 15, 2015

It opened up a discussion about anonymity, pseudonymity and whether using real names civilizes the Internet.

From Forbes ● Oct. 15, 2012

It is she who pre-eminently stimulates the voyage, and plants the colony, and establishes the commerce, and civilizes the people.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 341, March, 1844 by Various

"Such behavior should not be tolerated in the civilized world," Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo said in a statement, thanking US judicial authorities for "their assistance and protection of our citizens."

From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026

“There used to be a pillory in every civilized town,” Pattinson’s Hansen remarks about the state of justice.

From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026

The author describes how in June 1940 the Nazis requisitioned the hotel to be the home of the Abwehr, the more civilized part of the intelligence services, at least compared with the Gestapo.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2026

Even today the artist remains a magician whose work can mystify and move us—an embarrassing fact to civilized people, who do not readily relinquish their veneer of rational control.

From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson

Heaney was born with a subject he often resisted, and “Digging” turns away from violence to the civilizing necessity of work.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025

Smith seems to want to say something about the civilizing influence of women and their survival in a world of unruly and domineering men.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 9, 2025

“Never darken my door again!” he thunders old-fashionedly, as though he’s subconsciously aware that the writers Kirsi Vikman and Jimmy Karlsson are drawing on centuries of love stories about savage men and civilizing women.

From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2023

The French called this aspect of imperialism “the civilizing mission.”

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

Mrs. Randall had passed many years before, and it was Alice’s thought that a woman would be a civilizing presence on the plantation.

From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead