Word.ws English Dictionary

civil disobedience

civil disobedience noun: a form of social protest, involving the active but non-violent refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or commands of an established authority, because they are considered to be morally wrong or detrimental.

Noun

civil disobedience (uncountable)

  1. A form of social protest, involving the active but non-violent refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or commands of an established authority, because they are considered to be morally wrong or detrimental.
    • We now had no alternative but to resort to civil disobedience, and we embarked in earnest on preparations for mass action.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 146

civil disobedience meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati and Arabic

civil disobedience in Tamil

சட்ட மறுப்பு

civil disobedience in Malayalam

active and non-violent refusal to obey
സിവിൽ നിയമലംഘനം sivil niyamalaṅghanaṁ

civil disobedience in Gujarati

active and non-violent refusal to obey
સવિનયભંગ savinyabhaṅg

civil disobedience in Arabic

active and non-violent refusal to obey
عِصْيان مَدَنيّ
More languagesFewer languages
civil disobedience in Indonesian
pembangkangan sipil
civil disobedience in Thai
อารยะขัดขืน aa-rá-yá-kàt-kʉ̌ʉn, การขัดขืนอย่างสงบ, การดื้อแพ่ง

Questions about civil disobedience

What does civil disobedience mean?
Civil disobedience means a form of social protest, involving the active but non-violent refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or commands of an established authority, because they are considered to be morally wrong or detrimental.
What is civil disobedience in Tamil?
Civil disobedience in Tamil is சட்ட மறுப்பு. See Civil disobedience meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is civil disobedience?
Civil disobedience is a noun.

Words near civil disobedience in the dictionary

  1. civil day
  2. civil days
  3. civil death
  4. civil defence
  5. civil defense
  6. civil disobedience
  7. civil enforcement officer
  8. civil enforcement officers
  9. civil engineer
  10. civil engineering
  11. civil engineers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: civil disobedience (page history and authors); civil disobedience (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-civil disobedience.wav.

Cite this entry: “civil disobedience.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/civil_disobedience. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.