civil society
civil society noun: all of the institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies that are less than the state but greater than the family.
Noun
civil society (countable and uncountable, plural civil societies)
- All of the institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies that are less than the state but greater than the family.
- Those things expected of a democratic society, such as free speech and human rights.
- Organized, internally peaceful human society; civilization.
- 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...1689, John Locke, Two Treatises of Government; republished as The Works of John Locke Esq., volume 2, 1727, page 185
- 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...1953, Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, page 282
- Antonyms:
- state of nature
civil society meaning in Tagalog, Arabic, Indonesian and Vietnamese
civil society in Tagalog
- institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies
- lipunang sibil
civil society in Arabic
- institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies
- مُجْتَمَع مَدَنِيّ mujtamaʕ madaniyy
civil society in Indonesian
- institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies
- masyarakat sipil, masyarakat madani
- organized and peaceful society — see also civilization
- kelompok masyarakat, peradaban
civil society in Vietnamese
- institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies
- xã hội dân sự
Antonyms of civil society
Forms of civil society
| plural | civil societies |
|---|
Origin of civil society
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.
Questions about civil society
- What does civil society mean?
- Civil society means all of the institutions, voluntary organizations and corporate bodies that are less than the state but greater than the family.
- What is civil society in Tagalog?
- Civil society in Tagalog is lipunang sibil. See Civil society meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is civil society?
- Civil society is a noun.
- What is the plural of civil society?
- The plural of civil society is civil societies.
Words near civil society in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: civil society (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 society.wav.
Cite this entry: “civil society.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/civil_society. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.