civilize

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2026

The institute’s young patients — who identify variously, including as a panda, squirrel and spider — endure therapies designed to tame and civilize them.

From New York Times ● Dec. 2, 2021

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

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

“It cannot, in short, be better summed up than in these few words: It civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain barbarians.”

From The Library and Society Reprints of Papers and Addresses by Arthur Elmore Bostwick

"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

For years, Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner has been portrayed as the civilized way to travel to and from San Diego.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 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

They had civilized furniture in neutral colors and daffodils around their flower beds.

From "Please Ignore Vera Dietz" by A.S. King

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

Colonialism, once equated by the West with civilizing progress, became synonymous with iniquity.

From New York Times ● Dec. 10, 2023

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 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