From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcivil disobedienceˌcivil disoˈbedience noun [uncountable] PROTESTwhen people, especially a large group of people, refuse to obey a law in order to protest in a peaceful way against the government
Examples from the Corpus
civil disobedience• Non-cooperation and civil disobedience, as Gandhi understands them, can not be construed as a coercive threat in this sense.• If he fasted, he was released from jail; if he attempted civil disobedience, he was back in again.• Do we intend to commit civil disobedience?• Would he desist from civil disobedience if he were convinced?• In Pittsburgh, there were a few sit-ins, invasions of churches, minor civil disobedience.• Nothing in their training or previous experience had accustomed them to this kind of civil disobedience.• It had to be a battle in which his side would fight with a special kind of weapon: civil disobedience.• That there are risks associated with civil disobedience no one would deny, and among them is the risk of anarchy. 