incivility

Noun

incivility (countable and uncountable, plural incivilities)

1. (uncountable) The state of being uncivil; lack of courtesy; rudeness in manner.
   • Courtezan. How say you now? is not your husband mad? / Adriana. His incivility confirms no less.c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
   • Beat on proud Billows, Boreas blow,
     Swell curled Waves, high as Jove’s roof,
     Your incivility doth show,
     That Innocence is tempest proof.1668, David Lloyd, Memoires of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings, and Deaths of those Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages that suffered by Death, Sequestration, Decimation, and otherwise for the...

   Synonyms:

   impoliteness

2. (countable) Any act of rudeness or ill-breeding.
   • Latona, in her flight from Juno, is churlishly intreated by the Lycian pesants, and denied the publique benefit of water: for which incivility these bawling Clownes are changed into croaking froggs, and confined unto that Lake for ever.1626, Ovid, “(please specify the page)”, in George Sandys, transl., Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished […], London: […] William Stansby, →OCLC
   • In truth, vve thought it (coming immediately from an infected place) an hazardous incivilitie, to put our ſelves upon them; for if any ſiniſter accident had fallen out about the ſame time (for Coincidents are not alvvaies Cauſes) vve ſhould have rued it for ever.a. 1639 (date written), Henry Wotton, “[Letters, &c. and Characters of Sundry Personages, […].] My Deare Nic. Pey.”, in Reliquiæ Wottonianæ. Or, A Collection of Lives, Letters, Poems; […], London...
3. (uncountable) Lack of civilization; a state of rudeness or barbarism.
   • BEAT on, proud billows; Boreas blow; / Swell, curled waves, high as Jove's roof; / Your incivility doth ſhow, / That innocence is tempeſt proof; / Though ſurly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; / Then ſtrike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm. [Attributed to Roger L'Estrange (1616–1704).]1781, [Mostyn John Armstrong], History and Antiquities of the County of Norfolk. Volume IX. Containing the Hundreds of Smithdon, Taverham, Tunstead, Walsham, and Wayland, volume IX, Norwich: Printed...