[a. F. civisme, f. L. cīv-is citizen: see -ISM. A well-known term of the French Revolution of 1789: although, according to Littré, not in the Dictionary of the Academy till 1835.] Principles of good citizenship.
a. orig. and esp. Devotion or well-affected disposition to the order established by the French Revolution of 1789. Certificate († card) of civism [F. certificat de civisme]: an attestation that the holder was thus well-affected. Cf. INCIVISM.
1792. Hist., in Ann. Reg., 17. Suspicions against the intentions of the King and the civism of his guards.
1793. N. Vansittart, Remarks on Fox’s Speech, 21. 6000 persons arrested [in Paris] for not having Cards of Civism.
1830. Blackw. Mag., XXVIII. 976. A pretext … for suspecting the ‘civism’ (to revive that Jacobin word) of eminent citizens.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., V. vii. At all turns, you need your ‘Certificate of Civism.’
1885. Times, 15 Dec., 6/6. Here is the Jacobin certificate of civism in actual play.
b. transf. to the ancient Greek and Roman republics, and to the citizen principle generally.
1832–4. De Quincey, Cæsars, Wks. X. 62. It might seem to throw some doubt … upon the sincerity of his civism, that undoubtedly Augustus cultivated his kingly connexions.
1845. R. W. Hamilton, Pop. Educ., v. (ed. 2), 107.
1880. G. C. Warr, in Academy, 25 Sept., 216. That the Roman ‘civism,’ the tradition of self-sacrifice for the public good, made the Roman people the rightful rulers of Europe.
c. fig. Citizenship, fraternity.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. Introd. 35. I wish them to consider in me the civisme of the arts and sciences [le civisme des arts et des sciences].
