provincial
Americanadjective
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belonging or peculiar to some particular province; local.
the provincial newspaper.
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of or relating to the provinces.
provincial customs; provincial dress.
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having or showing the manners, viewpoints, etc., considered characteristic of unsophisticated inhabitants of a province; rustic; narrow or illiberal; parochial.
a provincial point of view.
- Synonyms:
- small-town, rural
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(often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to the styles of architecture, furniture, etc., found in the provinces, especially when imitating styles currently or formerly in fashion in or around the capital.
Italian Provincial.
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History/Historical. of or relating to any of the American provinces of Great Britain.
adjective
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of or connected with a province
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characteristic of or connected with the provinces; local
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having attitudes and opinions supposedly common to people living in the provinces; rustic or unsophisticated; limited
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denoting a football team representing a province, one of the historical administrative areas of New Zealand
noun
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a person lacking the sophistications of city life; rustic or narrow-minded individual
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a person coming from or resident in a province or the provinces
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the head of an ecclesiastical province
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the head of a major territorial subdivision of a religious order
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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provincialitynoun
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interprovincialadjective
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nonprovincialadjective
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quasi-provincialadjective
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semiprovincialadjective
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subprovincialadjective
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unprovincialadjective
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nonprovinciallyadverb
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provinciallyadverb
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quasi-provinciallyadverb
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semiprovinciallyadverb
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unprovinciallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of provincial
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English (noun and adjective), from Latin prōvinciālis, from prōvinci(a) province + -ālis -al 1
Explanation
A provincial person comes from the backwaters. Someone from a small province outside of Provence, France, might seem a little more provincial and less worldly than someone from, say, Paris. Something or someone provincial belongs to a province, or region outside of the city. Provincial has a straightforward meaning when describing where someone is from, but it has some other shades of meaning too. Something provincial can be quaint and in a pleasing rural or country style, but it also can imply someone less sophisticated, as in someone with provincial, or simple, tastes. Individuals or groups of people who are considered narrow-minded are often labeled provincial, even if they're from the city.
Vocabulary lists containing provincial
The Great Gatsby
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Grade 11, List 5
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Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress
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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:
The provincial government urged communities to help police with the investigation, saying tackling crime remained a priority.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
In 2019, he assisted the campaigns of several leftist Peronist candidates in provincial races in Argentina, and later founded his own consultancy, Numen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026
About 30 percent of police stations still lack their own devices, a senior officer in the provincial capital Peshawar told AFP.
From Barron's ● Sep. 9, 2026
The provincial government has said it has nearly 14,500 fire-fighting personnel out in the field, with nine aircraft available for water-bombing, three for patrols and one for cloud-seeding operations trying to make rain.
From Barron's ● Sep. 6, 2026
With Anmin’s help, Farin appealed to the provincial magistrate, who also sided with the merchant.
From "Huntress" by Malinda Lo
Foreigners themselves were categorized into different groups, including free provincials, or peregrini, who were not Roman citizens; army recruits; and those living beyond the Roman border.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
They were inconspicuous, dressed like Russian provincials in parkas and tennis shoes.
From New York Times ● Sep. 10, 2018
Young German provincials such as the philosophers Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Johann Gottfried von Herder—the fathers, respectively, of economic and cultural nationalism—simmered with resentment toward cosmopolitan universalists.
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 25, 2016
In our bodies, in our communities, in our social classes, we are all provincials, all in need of correction and amplification by the encounter with other views and practices of life.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 22, 2016
Sometime they’d strike out and seize the military supplies they knew the provincials were collecting.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
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.
