From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcivil serviceˌcivil ˈservice noun → the civil service
Examples from the Corpus
civil service• Almost 40 percent of the country's budget goes on the 57,000-strong civil service.• As for the civil service, it had to be cut down to the lowest level necessary.• In January cuts had been implemented in the civil service to reduce the public-sector wage bill.• Bureaucratic governments can do none of these things easily, thanks to their civil service regulations and tenure systems.• I must confess that I would prefer to see a pigtail with an earring rather than the traditional civil service bowler hat.• Instead, he became preoccupied with civil service and tried to put more and more city employees under its protection.• Yesterday civil service union leaders complained that security staff had initially treated it as a hoax.From Longman Business Dictionarycivil serviceˌcivil ˈservice noun the civil service the government departments of a country and the people who work for themBefore taking up his present job, he used to work in the civil service. 