Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

civil disobedience

(Encyclopedia)civil disobedience, refusal to obey a law or follow a policy believed to be unjust. Practitioners of civil disobedience usual base their actions on moral right and employ the nonviolent technique of p...

civil commitment

(Encyclopedia)civil commitment or involuntary commitment, process by which a court determines whether or not to order an individual to receive treatment or care or be confined. A person may be committed after a hea...

civil defense

(Encyclopedia)civil defense, nonmilitary activities designed to protect civilians and their property from enemy actions in time of war. A civil defense program usually includes measures taken during peace (e.g., bu...

civil engineering

(Encyclopedia)civil engineering: see engineering. ...

civil law

(Encyclopedia)civil law, as used in this article, a modern legal system based upon Roman law, as distinguished from common law. Civil law is based on written legal codes, a hallmark of the Roman legal system, in wh...

civil liberty

(Encyclopedia)civil liberty: see liberty.

civil rights

(Encyclopedia)civil rights, rights that a nation's inhabitants enjoy by law. The term is broader than “political rights,” which refer only to rights devolving from the franchise and are held usually only by a c...

civil service

(Encyclopedia)civil service, entire body of those employed in the civil administration as distinct from the military and excluding elected officials. The term was used in designating the British administration of I...

civil time

(Encyclopedia)civil time, local time based on universal time. Civil time may be formally defined as mean solar time plus 12 hr; the civil day begins at midnight, while the mean solar day begins at noon. Civil time ...

Code Civil

(Encyclopedia)Code Civil: see Code Napoléon.