Word Finder - civility

definition

Speech or behaviour that is fit for civil interactions; politeness, courtesy.

definition

(chiefly in plural) An individual act or expression of polite behaviour; a courtesy.

definition

The state or fact of being civilized; civilization.

definition

A civil office; a civil capacity.

Civility is the second casualty of political debate.

She was now treated with every honour and civility, and finally established with her own court at St James's Palace.

Nelson was received with formal civility by the Russian officers, with whom he exchanged visits.

It's not rocket science, just basic civility.

With such huge and lumbering civility the country hands a chair to the city.

He was of imposing presence and had great conversational powers; but his inflexible integrity was not sufficiently tempered by tact and civility to admit of his winning general popularity.

In spite of the obviously trying circumstances, it's enlightening to entertain a guest who possesses some modicum of intelligence and civility.

If this was America, I'd never have opened my door but fortunately Oxford still retains some basic civility.

The bishop might have spared his visit, but since he offered that civility, they could not keep him at the gate.

A boy who is good at games is usually treated with great civility by the masters at an English Public School.

The same civility I received from Dr. Gibbons, Dr. Gardener, and others.

I am sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say nothing HE may not like to hear.

There is more civility and courteousness than you find now in many other international cities.

Less dramatically, perhaps, has been the decline in common civility, and neighborliness.

If we believe that these were all real people, with whom Juvenal lived in intimacy, we should conclude that he was most unfortunate in his associates, and that his own relations to them were marked rather by outspoken frankness than civility.

Though he had some scruples about doing business at that season, he received his visitors with much civility.

Avignon, at a distance from the party strife and somewhat parochial politics of the Italian commonwealths, impressed his mind with an ideal of civility raised far above provincial prejudices.

His principles were democratic, his tastes aristocratic. He did not like crowds, streets, hotels - "the people who fill them oppress me with their excessive civility."

There were no reports of looting, and many shared what little food they had, maintaining civility under trying circumstances.

She couldn't yet determine if the action were pure chauvinism or old-fashioned civility.

Palgrave says little of the desert part of the journey or of its Bedouin inhabitants, but much of the fertility of the oases and of the civility of the townsmen; and like other travellers in Nejd he speaks with enthusiasm of its bright, exhilarating climate.

He steadily investigated the muniments of all the colleges, and in 1667 made his first journey to London, where he visited Dugdale, who introduced him into the Cottonian library, and Prynne showed him the same civility for the Tower records.

Why is civility so lacking in discussions about food, nutrition, and food policy?

He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a kind of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed.

But the conditions under which it could arise, casting from itself all foreign and feudal trammels, recognizing its true past in ancient Rome, and reconstructing a civility out of the ruins of those glorious memories, were now at last granted.

Civility isn't the right word but at least they're speaking with one another.