civics

Etymology

It is formed from English civic + -ics,^[2][3][4] on the model of politics.^[2] The OED, which revised the entry in 2010, analyses it as civic with the plural suffix of nouns naming a field of study, as in ethics,^[5][6] and notes that it was apparently coined by H. R. Waite, who founded the American Institute of Civics in 1885.^[5] Etymonline likewise connects the first records with that institute, incorporated in May 1885.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The branch of political science that deals with citizenship and with the rights and duties of citizens: first recorded in 1885, in the Boston Daily Advertiser of 21 March.^[5][7] The 1989 edition of the OED and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dated it to 1886,^[8][9] and Dictionary.com places it in 1880–85, as an Americanism.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word began in the United States: the Shorter Oxford labels it originally American.^[6][3] Its early advocates meant it to be wider than "political science": an educator quoted in 1885 wanted it to cover the science of government, political economy and the part of social science bearing on government and citizenship.^[2] In American use it settled into the name of a school subject, the study of how national and local government works, taught as training for citizenship;^[7][10] Collins gives this as the specifically American and Canadian sense, beside the general sense of the study of citizens' rights and responsibilities.^[10] It is plural in form but usually takes a singular verb.^[6][10][9]

Timeline

• 1885 – the study of citizenship and of the rights and duties of citizens.^[5][7][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The study of the rights and duties of citizenship: She wrote a thesis on civics and voting.^[10][11][5]
2. (US and Canadian) The study of how government works, especially as a secondary school subject: He failed civics in tenth grade.^[7][10]

Related words

• civic
• citizen
• civil
• city
• politics

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt