civic center
Americannoun
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a building complex housing a theater or theaters for the performing arts and sometimes exhibition halls, a museum, etc., and usually constructed or maintained by municipal funds.
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a building or building complex containing a municipality's administrative offices, various departmental headquarters, courts, etc., and sometimes an auditorium, libraries, or other community or cultural facilities.
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a theater, meeting hall, or the like for community or public use.
Etymology
Origin of civic center
First recorded in 1905–10
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
When the olive green charter bus pulled into the suburban civic center in a conservative area east of Cincinnati just after 9 p.m. on Friday, the women were ready.
From Salon ● Nov. 29, 2025
Stout met Kirk for the first time in 2014 when he was speaking to a group of young Texas conservatives huddled in a small room of a civic center in Harris County.
From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2025
After a couple of minutes, it lifted off heading for an immense plume of smoke billowing above the civic center.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2024
“There are also opportunities to connect down to the arts district, the civic center, and Little Tokyo on the east-west streets,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2024
The head was in the midst of about fifty large, artificial earthen mounds—the ruins, Sterling concluded with excitement, of a previously unknown Maya civic center.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
