provincial

American  

[pruh-vin-shuhl] / prəˈvɪn ʃəl /

adjective

1. belonging or peculiar to some particular province; local.

   the provincial newspaper.

2. of or relating to the provinces.

   provincial customs; provincial dress.

3. 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

4. (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.

5. History/Historical. of or relating to any of the American provinces of Great Britain.

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noun

provincials plural

1. a person who lives in or comes from the provinces.

2. a person who lacks urban sophistication or broad-mindedness.

3. Ecclesiastical.

   1. the head of an ecclesiastical province.

   2. a member of a religious order presiding over the order in a given district or province.

provincial British  

/ prəˈvɪnʃəl, prəˌvɪnʃɪˈælɪtɪ /

adjective

1. of or connected with a province

2. characteristic of or connected with the provinces; local

3. having attitudes and opinions supposedly common to people living in the provinces; rustic or unsophisticated; limited

4. denoting a football team representing a province, one of the historical administrative areas of New Zealand

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noun

1. a person lacking the sophistications of city life; rustic or narrow-minded individual

2. a person coming from or resident in a province or the provinces

3. the head of an ecclesiastical province

4. the head of a major territorial subdivision of a religious order

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• provinciality
  noun
• interprovincial
  adjective
• nonprovincial
  adjective
• quasi-provincial
  adjective
• semiprovincial
  adjective
• subprovincial
  adjective
• unprovincial
  adjective
• nonprovincially
  adverb
• provincially
  adverb
• quasi-provincially
  adverb
• semiprovincially
  adverb
• unprovincially
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• provincials
  plural

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

provincial provincials

Smoke from blazes in northwestern Ontario has filtered down to Toronto, the provincial capital.

From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026

Stewart, who has written a book on Canadian prime ministers, said Carney's predecessors who have dealt over the decades with deep provincial frustrations have had to work to bring them back into the fold.

From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026

That’s my hope as I open “Middlemarch” and follow Dorothea Brooke while she struggles to reconcile her high ideals with the messy realities of provincial England.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

These two stories might seem like unrelated novelties — a viral toy and a tech-bro flex from a provincial government.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026

Here, her father would seem crass, with his unnecessary big words, and her mother provincial and small.

From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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

Naturally, to provincials in a military zone such as the one stretching south from Hadrian’s Wall, the implications tended to be alarming.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 28, 2019

During his 1917 second inaugural speech, for instance, Woodrow Wilson memorably declared "we are provincials no longer."

From Washington Post ● Jan. 20, 2017

The characters’ hard-won wisdom, a theme throughout Rousseau’s novels and other works, made them as popular with Kant, in Königsberg, as with quietly desperate provincials throughout Europe.

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 25, 2016

Sometime they’d strike out and seize the military supplies they knew the provincials were collecting.

From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes

Related Words

• local
• rural