CIV'IL, an epithet applicable to what ever relates to the community as a body, or to the policy and the government of the citizens and subjects of a state. It is opposed to criminal: as a civil suit, a suit between citizens alone, and not be tween the state and a citizen. It is also distinguished from ecclesiastical, which respects the church; and from military, which includes only matters relating to the army and navy.—The popular and colloquial use of the word civil. means complaisant, polite.—Ciril Law, is prop erly the peculiar law of each state, country, or city; but as a general and appropriate term, it means a body of laws composed out of the best Roman and Grecian laws, comprised in the Institutes, Code and Digest of Justinian, tc., and, for the most part, received and observed throughout all the Roman dominions for above 1200 years. This law is used un der certain restrictions in the English ecclesiastical courts, as also in the uni versity courts and the court of admiralty.
—Ciril List, the revenue appropriated to support the civil government ; also the officers of civil government who arc paid from the public treasury.—Ciri/ Death, in law, that which cuts off a man from civil society, or its rights and benefits, as banishment, outlawry, &e.; as distin guished from natural death.—Cirit War, a war between people of the same state, or the citizens of the same eity.—Ciri, Year, the legal year, or that form of the year which each nation has adopted for computing their time by. The civil year in England and other countries of Europe consists of 365 days for the common year, and 366 days for leap year.—Gird Ar chitecture, the architecture which is ap plied to buildings constructed for the purposes of civil life, in distinction from military and naval architecture.