Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CI-VIL'I-TY, n. [L. civilitas, from civilis, civil; It. civilita; Sp. civilidad.]

1. The state of being civilized; refinement of manners; applied to nations; as distinguished from the rudeness of barbarous nations. – Spenser. Davies. Denham. [This sense is obsolescent or obsolete.]
2. Good breeding; politeness; complaisance; courtesy; decorum of behavior in the treatment of others, accompanied with kind offices, and attention to their wants and desires. Civility respects manners or external deportment, and in the plural, civilities denote acts of politeness. – Clarendon. South. Dryden.