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“Civilized” or “Civilised”

Language

Civilized and civilised are both English terms.

Usage

Civilized is predominantly used in 🇺🇸 American (US) English (en-US) while civilised is predominantly used in 🇬🇧 British English (used in UK/AU/NZ) (en-GB).

In terms of actual appearance and usage, here's a breakdown by country, with usage level out of 100 (if available):

Term US UK India Philippines Canada Australia Liberia Ireland New Zealand Jamaica Trinidad & Tobago Guyana
civilized 98 30 71 97 92 34 0 36 47 82 100 0
civilised 2 70 29 3 8 66 0 64 53 18 0 0

  • In the United States, there is a preference for "civilized" over "civilised" (98 to 2).
  • In the United Kingdom, there is a 70 to 30 preference for "civilised" over "civilized".
  • In India, there is a preference for "civilized" over "civilised" (71 to 29).
  • In the Philippines, there is a preference for "civilized" over "civilised" (97 to 3).
  • In Canada, there is a preference for "civilized" over "civilised" (92 to 8).
  • In Australia, there is a 66 to 34 preference for "civilised" over "civilized".
  • In Liberia, there is not enough data to determine a preference between "civilized" and "civilised".
  • In Ireland, there is a 64 to 36 preference for "civilised" over "civilized".
  • In New Zealand, there is a 53 to 47 preference for "civilised" over "civilized".
  • In Jamaica, there is a preference for "civilized" over "civilised" (82 to 18).
  • In Trinidad & Tobago, there is a preference for "civilized" over "civilised" (100 to 0).
  • In Guyana, there is not enough data to determine a preference between "civilized" and "civilised".
Examples

Below, we provide some examples of when to use civilized or civilised with sample sentences.

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Examples in Context

Examples of “civilized”

  • Under any civilized judicial system he could have…
  • …we are becoming ever more civilized.
  • …among several of the Five Civilized Tribes during and following their…
  • Civilized Man
  • …remain unreleased to this day ("Civilized Satanist," which utilized a Moby…
  • …Matt Dillon before he was civilized!"
  • 1908 "Civilized" Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous…
  • …change from emotional retaliation to civilized decisions regarding alleged crimes.
  • …tribal governments of the Five Civilized Tribes and admit the two…
  • To overthrow the Civilized, Hopper and Bellafide joined forces…

Examples of “civilised”

  • …the useful purposes of a civilised society."
  • Asurgarh offered an advanced, well civilised, cultured and urban human settlement…
  • Like all civilised nations, we abide by these…
  • …or war against either any civilised country or organised government; or…
  • …demons of the dimension more civilised but attract the attention of…
  • …than "in a more highly civilised society".
  • …knows how unsound is that civilised smile of incredulity at such
  • …semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on…
  • …against the very basis of civilised society.
  • …show claiming it was "as civilised as looking through the keyhole…


(Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.)


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