Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Partly civilized.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He explained that alcohol is “a loathsome excretion of a living organism”; that it will make a civilized young man successively “become semicivilized, semisavage, savage, and, at last, below the brute”; that “nearly two-thirds of all the money in circulation in America in the course of a year” passed through the grasping hands of the liquor trust.

    LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010

  • He explained that alcohol is “a loathsome excretion of a living organism”; that it will make a civilized young man successively “become semicivilized, semisavage, savage, and, at last, below the brute”; that “nearly two-thirds of all the money in circulation in America in the course of a year” passed through the grasping hands of the liquor trust.

    LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010

  • His fellow Kansas dry, Representative Edward C. Little, was less delicate: “It is not best for America that her councils be dominated by semicivilized foreign colonies in Boston, New York, Chicago.”

    LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010

  • His fellow Kansas dry, Representative Edward C. Little, was less delicate: “It is not best for America that her councils be dominated by semicivilized foreign colonies in Boston, New York, Chicago.”

    LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010

  • He also put on socks and heavy felt boots, not the sandals he would have worn in Videssos the city or any other place with even a semicivilized climate.

    Bridge of the Separator Turtledove, Harry 2005

  • The Tulc were a fierce people and, in many ways, only semicivilized.

    beneath an opal moon Lustbader, Eric 1980

  • And I'd no hope of pretending to be from a semicivilized community which they had trade relations with ..

    There Will Be Time Anderson, Poul, 1926-2001 1972

  • Forced to flee, he heads north through the equatorial jungle and across the grassy veldt toward the semicivilized kingdom of Kush.

    Conan of Cimmeria Howard, Robert E. 1969

  • Continuing his northward trek, now speeded by his possession of a horse, Conan at last reaches the semicivilized kingdom of Kush.

    Conan of Cimmeria Howard, Robert E. 1969

  • Criminals are a small minority in any semicivilized society.

    The Virtue of Selfishness Rand, Ayn 1961

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