provincialize

especially British, pro·vin·cial·ise

[pruh-vin-shuh-lahyz]

verb (used with object)

provincialized, provincializing 

1. to make provincial in character.

Other Word Forms

• provincialization noun
• deprovincialization noun
• deprovincialize verb (used with object)

Word History and Origins

Origin of provincialize¹

First recorded in 1795–1805; provincial + -ize

Example Sentences

These geographical conditions conspired to provincialize American culture.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive

Gwynne had left England in October, now nearly a year ago, but, having discovered from his solicitor that he could apply for letters of citizenship as late as the end of the third year after landing, had announced to Isabel his intention to travel slowly about the country "before settling down in its remotest part, which, from all accounts, was sufficiently unlike the rest to provincialize his point of view unless he saw something first of the East, South, and Middle West."

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For some years, moreover, the strange phenomenon has presented itself of the provincial towns being the prey of Parisian manufacturers, who reconstruct them and demolish their picturesque antiquity, in order to garnish their boulevards and fine mansions, while Paris, on the contrary, is directed and governed by provincials, who provincialize it just as the Parisian companies parisianize the provinces.

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If we are ever to have a national poet, let us hope that his nationality will be of this subtile essence, something that shall make him unspeakably nearer to us, while it does not provincialize him for the rest of mankind.

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This little planet could not provincialize such a man.

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