How to Use civilization in a Sentence

civilization

noun
Definition of civilizationnext
Synonyms for civilizationnext
  • We are studying ancient Greek civilization.
  • Imagine a civilization that is thousands or millions of years older than our own.
    — Adam Frank, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2022
  • That’s why observatories tend to be far from civilization, where the sky is darkest.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 4 Oct. 2024
  • Experts say such a civilization is impossible because cities would be crushed by the pressure of the ice.
    — Eleanor McCrary, USA TODAY, 17 Sep. 2022
  • In other words, our brains might have learned over time to recognize what food looks like, even if there were no cheeseburgers at the dawn of civilization.
    — Ali Francis, Bon Appétit, 22 Sep. 2022
  • This column is still waiting for someone to name a great civilization built by progressive leftists.
    — James Freeman, WSJ, 23 Sep. 2022
  • For one, gold has a long history of value dating back to ancient civilizations and is still viewed as a stable asset.
    — Ryan Ermey, CNBC, 18 Oct. 2024
  • In a world where there is more comedy than at any other time in our civilization, the good is rare and the exceptional is divine.
    — Conan O'Brien, Washington Post, 14 Sep. 2022
  • Once society has ten times more energy than before, how our civilization can flourish!
    — Charlie Campbell, Time, 2 Oct. 2022
  • The insanely deluxe severity of the mansion setting, away from the prying eyes of civilization, ups the ante on the old-fashioned house of the first film.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 10 Sep. 2022
  • The civilization that dates back 4,500 years, coinciding with those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.
    — Munir Ahmed, BostonGlobe.com, 9 Sep. 2022
  • On this continent, agriculture—and therefore civilization—was born in Mesoamerica, where corn happened to be abundant.
    — Sarah Laskow, The Atlantic, 1 Oct. 2022
  • McCaleb, like Bezos and Musk, believes that the future of human civilization is beyond the Earth.
    — Tim Fernholz, Quartz, 12 Sep. 2022
  • These early cities, along with those in China, Africa, and the Americas, were the foundations of civilization.
    — R. Alexander Bentley, Discover Magazine, 17 Oct. 2024
  • The Western museum is a great accomplishment of human civilization.
    — David Frum, The Atlantic, 14 Sep. 2022
  • Sun and rain and bush had made the site look old, like the site of a dead civilization.
    — Howard W. French, The New York Review of Books, 29 Nov. 2022
  • And the first signs of civilization arose from the ashes.
    — Jamie Seidel, Fox News, 31 May 2018
  • Over the centuries, civilization brought leisure time and the need to fill it.
    — Tribune News Service, oregonlive, 15 Feb. 2022
  • Drink wine and look at the moon and think of all the civilizations the moon has seen passing by.
    — Tom Zoellner, SPIN, 9 Apr. 2024
  • This all takes place in the first draft of civilization.
    — New York Times, 7 Feb. 2022
  • The train tracks are one of the few reminders that civilization is near.
    — Christopher Reynoldsstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 29 Dec. 2022
  • The art form can be traced back to some of the oldest civilizations on the planet.
    — Christopher Parker, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Aug. 2023
  • But the tests indicate the civilization used the cacao seed, not just the fruity pulp.
    — Candice Choi, The Seattle Times, 31 Oct. 2018
  • The only sign of civilization is the towers and their ocean sounds.
    — Matt Allyn, Popular Mechanics, 6 Feb. 2018
  • The troops, at least, had a slice of civilization and each other.
    — Sig Christenson, ExpressNews.com, 26 Nov. 2020
  • And yet the world didn’t end, and civilization trudged onward.
    — New York Times, 11 Feb. 2022
  • The rise of the city is looked upon as the dawn of civilization, but a deep mystery surrounds the first city-dwellers.
    — Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books, 25 Feb. 2020
  • The falling ropes of the starting gate showed that these sprints were signs of civilization.
    — Janelle Peters, The Atlantic, 26 May 2017
  • This is kind of a struggle for the soul of Western civilizations in many ways.
    — Sophie Carson, Journal Sentinel, 20 May 2024
  • At some point, the man and his dogs attempted to hike back to civilization.
    — oregonlive.com, 24 July 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'civilization.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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