a. Also 6 ciuike, 7 -icke, 7–8 -ick. [a. L. cīvic-us belonging to citizens, f. cīvis citizen; cf. F. civique.]
1. Of, pertaining, or proper to citizens.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 220. Of late they distinguish it … by the name of a Civic Education.
1805. Ann. Rev., I. 398. Volney printed a civic catechism.
1827. Southey, Penins. War, II. 596. Efforts … for organizing a civic and national resistance.
1871. Blackie, Four Phases, i. 16. He displayed a civic virtue on other occasions.
b. Civic crown († coronet, garland, wreath) [L. corōna cīvica]: a garland of oak leaves and acorns, bestowed as a much-prized distinction upon one that saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war.
This was app. the earliest use of the word: it was also the chief use in Latin.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apophth., 254 a–b. A garlande ciuike … whiche was woont to bee made of oken leues.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 115. The ciuick coronets … presented vnto such as had rescued a Romane citizen, and saued his life.
1629. Massinger, Picture, II. ii. The civic garland, The mural wreath.
1649. Marvell, Poems, Wks. I. Pref. 53. Our civil warrs have lost the civick crowne.
1842. Tennyson, Vision Sin, iv. Freedom, gaily doth she tread; In her right a civic wreath, In her left a human head.
(b). Arch. ‘A garland of oak leaves and acorns, often used as an ornament’ (Gwilt).
2. Of or pertaining to a city, borough or municipality; = CITY attrib.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Civick, pertaining to the city.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. lxiv. The unambitious heart and hand of a proud, brotherly, and civic band.
1835. T. Hook, G. Gurney, III. ii. (L.). In the civic acceptation of the word, I am a merchant;—amongst the vulgar, I am called a drysalter.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 355. The magnificence displayed by the first civic magistrate was almost regal.
1876. Green, Short Hist., iv. § 4 (1882), 191. London took the lead in this new development of civic life.
b. Of a city as a particular kind of locality.
1821. Byron, Juan, V. xxxvii. That he … Should now be butcher’d in a civic alley.
1836. Hor. Smith, Tin Trump., I. 24. His shoulders, like some of the civic streets, are widened at the expence of the corporation.
1845. R. W. Hamilton, Pop. Educ., iii. (ed. 2), 51. Civic residence is our peculiarity.
1877. Mrs. Oliphant, Makers Flor., vi. 165. This mood of mind is essentially civic, belonging to that straitened atmosphere of the town in which every man is judged by his contemporaries.
3. Of or pertaining to citizenship; occasionally in contrast to military, ecclesiastical, etc.; civil. Civic oath [F. serment civique]: an oath of allegiance to the new order of things, demanded from citizens in the French Revolution.
1789. Sparks, Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853), IV. 262. Your military rank holds its place in my mind notwithstanding your civic glory.
1791. Burke, Lett. Member Nat. Assembly, Wks. VI. 15. [Cromwell] chose an Hales for his chief justice, though he absolutely refused to take his civick oaths, or to make any acknowledgement whatever of the legality of his government.
1832. trans. Sismondi’s Ital. Rep., xvi. 344. 4000 soldiers drawn only from among families having a right to sit in the council-general, were called the civic militia.
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., I. 56. Every individual possessing the civic franchise, was held entitled to exercise it personally by his vote in all proceedings of the national conventions.
1866. Felton, Anc. & Mod. Gr., II. i. 13. That career of progress which afterwards made her [Greece] the teacher, not only of science, letters, and art, but of civic wisdom.
