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

Most of “Darlin’ ” follows the title character, as she first resists the church’s plan to civilize her, then gradually begins to come around to the idea that she needs to be “saved.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 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

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

He seized and tamed a continent with a hand of iron; he civilizes and controls it with a touch of velvet.

From Model Speeches for Practise by Grenville Kleiser

This is a civilized world we live in now.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

You would respect the movie more if it stuck with its depraved indifference to civilized behavior, rather than attempting a death-bed conversion to decency.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said External link “taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” suggesting we get what we pay for.

From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026

The Near East became the cradle of civilization: to be civilized, after all, means to live as a citizen, a town dweller.

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

Love, in Marivaux’s world, is a civilizing force — much to the fairy’s fury.

From New York Times ● Apr. 26, 2024

One might guess that the civilizing influence of Boomtown would form the arc of the season.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 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