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Origin and history of -ization

-ization

word-forming element of Latin and Greek origin making nouns of action, process, or state; see -ize + -ation.

Entries linking to -ization

"operation of converting wood or other organic substance into coal or charcoal," 1804, from carbon + -ization. Related: Carbonize; carbonized.

1704, in a now-obsolete sense "law which makes a criminal process civil," from civil + -ization.

The meaning "civilized condition, state of being reclaimed from the rudeness of savage life" is recorded by 1772, probably from French civilisation, serving as an opposite to barbarity and a distinct word from civility, as if from civilize + -ation.

The sense of "a particular human society in a civilized condition, considered as a whole over time," is from 1857. Related: Civilizational.

Civility, formerly the substantive of both civil and civilize—the latter of which it was not likely to suggest, except by help of its context,—was judiciously relieved of one of its meanings, by civilization. [Fitzedward Hall, "Modern English," 1873]
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