locality
Americannoun
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a place, spot, or district, with or without reference to things or persons in it or to occurrences there.
They moved to another locality.
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the state or fact of being local or having a location.
the locality that every material object must have.
noun
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a neighbourhood or area
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the site or scene of an event
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the fact or condition of having a location or position in space
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of locality
From the Late Latin word locālitās, dating back to 1620–30. See local, -ity
Explanation
Use the noun locality when you need an official-sounding way to say "area" or "region." For example, you might say, "I am so pleased to finally have a doughnut shop in my locality." You're most likely to come across the word locality in a news story or business report. It's a formal way to talk about a neighborhood or a section of town. The mayor might make a speech about crime in a particular locality, or the prevalence of potholes in another locality. The word has been in use since the 1700's, from the Latin word localis, "relating to or belonging to a place."
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.
See Examples For:
There isn’t anywhere else that one can walk into and immediately satisfy the social instinct among a convivial and refreshingly diverse clientele in what is becoming an increasingly homogenized locality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
The site is also close to Sidi Abderrahmane, a landmark locality for Middle Pleistocene archaeology in Northwest Africa.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 7, 2026
No other government uses this system—no locality, no state, no country.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
There’s a value in locality, too; showing now, for example, not just what country the beans are from, but also what farm they’re grown on and what grade they are.
From Slate ● Dec. 22, 2025
Your agent will easily recognise the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
These include fees for fuel, ramps, handling, security, landing, infrastructure, events and localities, as well as holiday and after-hours fees—plus taxes on top of it all.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
The overall thrust of the package, the Evercore analysts said, is to reduce regulatory barriers that constrain housing construction by streamlining environmental reviews and encouraging localities to adopt zoning and building-code best practices.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
Across France and Germany, with temperatures climbing into the mid-30s, hundreds of localities saw records for May being broken.
From BBC ● May 25, 2026
Gates backs the authority of localities such as Huntington Beach to set their own policies, including around elections, zoning, housing and the environment.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
The trouble is that most of these remains are not from wet, coastal Alexandria or even the southern capital of Ptolemais, but instead from minor localities like Tebtunis, El-Hiba, and Oxyrhynchus.
From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro
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.
