provincial
[pruh-vin-shuh l]
- belonging or peculiar to some particular province; local: the provincial newspaper.
- of or relating to the provinces: provincial customs; provincial dress.
- 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.
- (often initial capital letter) Fine Arts. 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.
- History/Historical. of or relating to any of the American provinces of Great Britain.
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Origin of provincial
Synonyms
See more synonyms for provincial on Thesaurus.com3. rural, small-town.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for provincial
Contemporary Examples
She tells us how little the federal and provincial governments have done to regulate the tar sands.
Twenty years ago it would have been laughable to believe that English provincial cuisine could match French provincial cuisine.
In a province with tens of thousands of Iraq Security Forces, Tikrit, the provincial capital, was seized without a fight.
And on Tuesday, a candidate for a provincial office and nine of his supporters were kidnapped and killed by the Taliban.
In July, parliament lowered its quota for female lawmakers on provincial councils from 25 percent to 20 percent.
Historical Examples
The provincial captains are drumming up for soldiers, in every newspaper.
Old NewsNathaniel Hawthorne
The provincial Congress, which had adjourned, immediately re-assembled.
Before the furor of 1876, how many scores of provincial English had?
The First ViolinJessie Fothergill
A man such as this was never intended to succeed in a provincial town.
The Fortune of the RougonsEmile Zola
They sat at all the meetings of National and Provincial and Regional committees.
Herbert HooverVernon Kellogg
provincial
- of or connected with a province
- characteristic of or connected with the provinces; local
- having attitudes and opinions supposedly common to people living in the provinces; rustic or unsophisticated; limited
- NZ denoting a football team representing a province, one of the historical administrative areas of New Zealand
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- a person lacking the sophistications of city life; rustic or narrow-minded individual
- a person coming from or resident in a province or the provinces
- the head of an ecclesiastical province
- the head of a major territorial subdivision of a religious order
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for provincial
adj.
late 14c., "pertaining to a province," from Old French provincial "belonging to a particular province (of friars)" (13c.), from Latin provincialis "of a province," from provincia (see province).
Meaning "of the small towns and countryside" (as opposed to the capital and urban center) is from 1630s, a borrowed idiom from French, transferred from sense of "particular to the province," hence "local." Suggestive of rude, petty, or narrow society by 1755. Classical Latin provincialis seems not to have had this tinge. In British use, with reference to the American colonies, from 1680s.
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n.
late 14c., "ecclesiastical head of a province," from provincial (adj.). From c.1600 as "native or inhabitant of a province;" from 1711 as "country person."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper