localism

[ loh-kuh-liz-uhm ]

noun

1. a word, phrase, pronunciation, or manner of speaking that is peculiar to one locality.
2. a local custom.
3. excessive devotion to and promotion of the interests of a particular locality; sectionalism.
4. attachment to a particular locality.

localism

/ ˈləʊkəˌlɪzəm /

noun

1. a pronunciation, phrase, etc, peculiar to a particular locality
2. See provincialism
   another word for provincialism

Derived Forms

• ˈlocalist, noun
• ˌlocalˈistic, adjective

Other Words From

• local·ist noun
• local·istic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of localism¹

First recorded in 1815–25; local + -ism

Example Sentences

It’s come at a cost for our sense of community, and it may take a new localism to tame America’s vicious political and cultural polarization.

From Ozy

Rights preserved localism, rather than promoting individualism.

From Washington Post

Let him whose own enunciation is chemically free from localism or slovenliness cast the first stone even at "mebbe" and "ruther."

From Project Gutenberg

Under primitive conditions the political groups are small, the tendency to localism exceedingly strong.

From Project Gutenberg

The various bodies into which Christendom has been split up are infected with the same sort of localism as infects the state.

From Project Gutenberg

As New England township life grew up around the church, so western localism finds its nucleus in the school system.

From Project Gutenberg

Before you began to talk, I had been fancying that the vice of our journalism was its intense localism.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• accent
• idiom
• jargon
• language
• lingo
• patois
• pronunciation
• slang
• terminology
• tongue
• vernacular
• vocabulary