What is "civility"

Usage examples of "civility".

I thought any small civilities I might shew or introductions I might give could do me no harm.

Notwithstanding the respectful civility expressed by the usurper towards the widow of Severus, she descended with a painful struggle into the condition of a subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death, from the anxious and humiliating dependence.

Covington Hitchcock stared at her, still awed, still wondering, still simmering with anger he tried in vain to mask with civility.

Veil, an affirmation of the validity of that need, on another it was a run from responsibilities at home, it was a rejection of traditions, it was a vastation of her ideal of civility which was woven about a proper appreciation of place, of the value of the class system with its beautiful symmetry of interaction, class with class.

There are some civilities which very likely prove unlucky for those to whom they are addressed, and it turned out so in this case, for my compliment turned his brain.

It stands in the history of the present time as a high school for the civility and mansuetude of the people.

He said he came from a place called Penpunt, which I thought a name so ludicrous that I called him by the name of his native village, an appellation of which he was very proud, and answered everything with more civility and perspicuity when I denominated him Penpunt, than Samuel, his own Christian name.

The act brought about an exchange of civilities between the head of this firm and Le Quoy, so that when the latter came to New York, desiring to invest in a country store until his fortunes should revive, Murray referred him to his friend Judge Cooper, under whose advice the Frenchman established himself in Cooperstown.

The more I resiled from their excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them.

Miss Morville, accepting the civility with equanimity, pointed out to him, in a helpful spirit, that Abney was still waiting to relieve him of his driving-coat.

Among the surprises of the unfolding drama, as tensions increased, was the extent to which the ardent, disputatious John Adams held himself in rein, proving when need be a model of civility and self-restraint, even of patience.

THE AUTUMN OF 1786 produced no improvement in relations with the British, whose icy civility Adams found all the more galling after the respect and affection he had been shown in Holland.

According to Adams, who provided several accounts of the confrontation, then and later, he received the general with appropriate civility, saying nothing of politics.

In this habitation twelve Albanian soldiers and an officer were quartered, who behaved towards them with civility.

Henry was away and Matilda Empress kept her own establishments in Rouen, it devolved upon the Duchess Eleanor to set up centers of civility in the West befitting the new Angevin dynasty whose prospects at this time rose so fair as to cast a shadow over the Ile itself.