Cĭv'il, a.
a. [Lat. civilis, from civis, citizen, Fr., Pr., & Sp. civil, It. civile.]
Sense 1. Pertaining to a city or state, or to a citizen in his relations to his fellow-citizens or to the state; as, civil rights; civil government.
Sense 2. Pertaining to an organized community; reduced to order; subject to government; civilized; as, civil society.
Men that are civil do lead their lives after one common law appointing them what to do. Hooker.
Sense 3. Having the manners of one dwelling in a city, as opposed to those of savages or rustics; courteous; complaisant.
☞ “A civil man now is one observant of slight external courtesies in the mutual intercourse between man and man; a civil man once was one who fulfilled all the duties and obligations flowing from his position as a ‘civis.’” French.
Sense 4. Pertaining to a citizen, in distinction from a nobleman or an official; grave; not showy. Milton.
Sense 5. Relating to rights and remedies sought by action or suit.
Civil architecture, the architecture which is employed in constructing buildings for the purposes of civil life, in distinction from military and naval architecture, as private houses, palaces, churches, &c.—Civil death (Law), that which cuts off a man from civil society, or its rights and benefits, as banishment, outlawry, as distinguished from natural death.—Civil engineering, the science or art of constructing public works, as canals, railroads, docks, &c., as distinguished from military engineering, which is confined to war.—Civil law, in a general sense, the law of a state, city, or country; specifically, the Roman law; the municipal law of the Roman empire, comprised in the Institutes, Code, and Digest of Justinian and the Novel Constitutions. Blackstone.—Civil list, formerly a list of the entire expenses of the civil government; hence, the officers of civil government, who are paid from the public treasury; also, the revenue appropriated to support the civil government. By a late law, the civil list now embraces only the expenditures of the reigning monarch’s household. [Eng.] Brande. Blackstone.—Civil remedy (Law), that given to a person injured, by action, as opposed to a criminal prosecution.—Civil state, the whole body of the laity or citizens, not included under the military, maritime, and ecclesiastical states.—Civil suit, a suit for a private claim or injury.—Civil war, a war between citizens of the same country.—Civil year, the legal year, or annual account of time which a government appoints to be used in its own dominions, as distinguished from the solar year, measured by the revolution of certain of the heavenly bodies. Whewell.