“Civilized” or “Civilised”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 6 prefer “civilized” and 4 prefer “civilised”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	civilized	civilised	Preference
United States	98	2	“civilized”
United Kingdom	30	70	“civilised”
India	71	29	“civilized”
Philippines	97	3	“civilized”
Canada	92	8	“civilized”
Australia	34	66	“civilised”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	36	64	“civilised”
New Zealand	47	53	“civilised”
Jamaica	82	18	“civilized”
Trinidad & Tobago	100	0	“civilized”
Guyana	0	0	Not enough data

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“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…

“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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