civilize

The idea that the Spanish arrived “to civilize is not one we should share.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2026

In a campaign season already marked by conspiracy theories and aggressive rhetoric, TikTok has announced several steps to try to civilize and secure its platform.

From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2022

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

You can civilize pungent shoes, too, with products that employ apple cider vinegar, cedar or charcoal to absorb rather than mask the acrid smell.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2018

Then Miss Philips went to school and told Mr. Crabtree that she had a plan to civilize the Herdmans or, at least, one of them.

From "The Best School Year Ever" by Barbara Robinson

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

Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys, Unfriendly to society's chief joys: Thy worst effect is banishing for hours The sex whose presence civilizes ours.

From Familiar Quotations A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature by Bartlett, John

Those are traits that help define a psychopath, someone who lives among us but doesn’t have the empathy and ethics necessary to behave in a civilized, or even safe, fashion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

Its credo was “a rejection of powerlessness and the creation of conditions for civilized behavior. We are not overmatched by the problems we face.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026

“Ottoman elites internalized and even embraced European ideas about their own Empire. These elites aspired to become Westernized, which they saw as civilized and modern.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026

Instead, he embraced the manly duty of the “great civilized nations of the present day” to ensure that the countries of the Western Hemisphere remain “stable, orderly, and prosperous.”

From Salon ● Dec. 27, 2025

It seemed a civilized way of conducting one’s life.

From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers

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

“They believed that their society was making progress, that it was gaining greater control over nature, that they were becoming more civilized and were civilizing the environment around them,” Golinski said.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 26, 2023

What did “the civilizing mission” of industrialized nations entail?

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

Cinna and Portia seem to have a civilizing effect on Haymitch and Effie.

From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins