civilize

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2026

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

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 John Bartlett

This is a civilized world we live in now.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 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

It made him aware of “the fragility of civilized life” and inspired “gratitude for the decency and work ethic of the police.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 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

It is in a way the most civilized of all the cardinals, and its use is only forced on us by the needs of cultivated modes of thought.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

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

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

From New York Times ● Dec. 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