civil action

1. 1.

   legal action to protect a private civil right or to compel a civil remedy (as distinguished from criminal prosecution)

   Broaderlegal action

Questions about civil action

What does civil action mean?

civil action means "legal action to protect a private civil right or to compel a civil remedy (as distinguished from criminal prosecution)".

Is civil action a common word?

civil action is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.