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practice declamation by students. The public listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. Macaulay.

dejected himself even unto the hells. Udall. Sometimes she dejects her eyes in a seeming civility; and many mistake in her a cunning for a modest look. Fuller.

ed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion. Jer. Taylor.

Duty; service owed; hence, due act of civility or respect; -- now usually in the plural; as, they paid their devoirs to the ladies. "Do now your devoid, young knights!" Chaucer.

Rudeness of behavior or language; ill manners; manifestation of disrespect; incivility. Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes Error a fault, and truth discourtesy. Herbert.

o an act which contravenes the will or desires of; to offend by an act of unkindness or incivility; to displease; to refrain from obliging; to be unaccommodating to. Those . . . who slight and disoblige their friends, shall infallibly come to know the value of them by having none when they shall most need them. South.…

Want of respect or reverence; disesteem; incivility; discourtesy. Impatience of bearing the least affront or disrespect. Pope.

f, or lacking, sense, knowledge, or courtesy; as, empty brains; an empty coxcomb. That in civility thou seem'st so empty. Shak.

A letter or epistle; -- so called in civility or compliment; as, your favor of yesterday is received.

To grin with an air of civility; to leer. [Obs.] Grinning and fleering as though they went to a bear baiting. Latimer.

Civility or polite attention to ladies; in a bed sense, attention or courtesy designed to win criminal favors from a female; freedom of principle or practice with respect to female virtue; intrigue.

Courtesy; civility; complaisance. [Obs.] To show us so much gentry and good will. Shak.

A familiar appellation of civility, equivalent to "My friend", "Good sir", "Mister;" -- sometimes used ironically. [Obs.] With you, goodman boy, an you please. Shak.

Goodwife; -- a low term of civility or sport.

; to glorify; hence, to do something to honor; to treat in a complimentary manner or with civility. Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighten to honor. Esther vi. 9. The name of Cassius honors this corruption. Shak.

tion. All men are so full of their own fancies and idiopathies, that they scarce have the civility to interchange any words with a stranger. Dr. H. More.

Conduct or language unbecoming the person, the society, or the circumstances; rudeness; incivility. We should avoid the vexation and impertinence of pedants who affect to talk in a language not to be understood. Swift.

nd; to cause to stoop or bow; as, to incline the head or the body in acts of reverence or civility. With due respect my body I inclined. Dryden.

Want of comity; incivility; rudeness. [R.]

ropriety of behavior; that in behavior or manners which violates the established rules of civility, custom, or etiquette; indecorousness.