noun

• An organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political, or technical development.
• (uncountable) Human society, particularly civil society.
• The act or process of civilizing or becoming civilized.
• The state or quality of being civilized.
• (obsolete) The act of rendering a criminal process civil.
• Collectively, those people of the world considered to have a high standard of behavior and / or a high level of development. Commonly subjectively used by people of one society to exclusively refer to their society, or their elite sub-group, or a few associated societies, implying all others, in time or geography or status, as something less than civilised, as savages or barbarians. cf refinement, elitism, civilised society, the Civilised World