civil society
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.73 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
All of the institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies that are less than the state but greater than the family.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
Those things expected of a democratic society, such as free speech and human rights.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The only Way whereby any one divests himself of his natural Liberty, and puts on the Bonds of civil Society, is by agreeing with other Men to join and unite into a Community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure Enjoyment of their Properties, and a greater Security against any that are not of it."
- "Rousseau, however, thought that civil society as such […] is characterized by a fundamental self-contradiction and that it is precisely the state of nature which is free from self-contradiction; man in the state of nature is happy because he is radically independent, whereas man in civil society is unhappy because he is radically dependent."
- "Man’s decision to leave the state of nature is a natural decision. […] Civil society is, in effect, nature rendered reasonable."
Etymology
From the archaic sense of civil, “peaceful and well-ordered”. Later senses of civil society reflect 19th-century Hegelian influence, as well as the earlier argument that tyrannical governments exist in the state of nature in relation to their subjects.