civility

1. 1.

   formal or perfunctory politeness

   Antonymsincivility

   Broadercourtesy
2. 2.

   the act of showing regard for others

   Synonymspoliteness

   Broaderaction

   Narrowercourtesydeferencedevoir

Other forms of civility

plural

civilities·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about civility

What does civility mean?

civility means "formal or perfunctory politeness". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in civility?

civility has 4 syllables: ci-vil-i-ty. The stress falls on "vil". In IPA it is /səˈvɪləti/.

What is another word for civility?

Close synonyms include politeness. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of civility?

The recorded antonyms are incivility.

Is civility a common word?

civility is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.