regional
Americanadjective
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of or relating to a region of considerable extent; not merely local.
a regional meeting of the Boy Scouts.
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of or relating to a particular region, district, area, or part, as of a country; sectional; local.
regional differences in pronunciation.
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Medicine/Medical, Anatomy. pertaining to, affecting, or localized in a particular area or part of the body.
regional anesthesia.
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having, exhibiting, or characterized by regionalism.
He writes regional novels.
noun
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Often regionals. a regional competition or tournament.
The basketball team won the regionals.
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a regional company, branch, stock exchange, etc..
Regionals are getting stiff competition from the national firms.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of regional
From the Latin word regiōnālis, dating back to 1645–55. See region, -al 1
Explanation
Regional is bigger than local and smaller than national. The local weather forecast covers your city and perhaps a few suburbs; the regional forecast gives you more: maybe a slew of counties, maybe the whole state, maybe even several states. People who write dictionaries like to think of regional as being a precise term, having to do with well-defined geographic and cultural areas within larger nations: like regional cuisines, regional customs and even, in places like the Great Lakes, regional weather patterns. But lots of times regional is fuzzier than that. A regional high school has students from more than one town, but just how many towns depends on other factors — the local political structure, the number of kids in the area, and the like.
Vocabulary lists containing regional
Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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The Syrian Refugee Crisis Continues
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Geography and World Regions
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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.
The proposal includes voluntary funding from regional countries and the shipping and oil industries, the officials said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
Open regional heats will be held in London and Manchester in September for those who want to be in with a chance of beating Littler.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Overnight, lower temperatures, weaker winds and higher air humidity helped make progress against the blazes west of the capital, the Madrid regional government said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
Last week, shares of Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase gained, while most of the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index’s large regional banks declined.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Often their words were set down in a style that attempted to capture the original regional dialect and grammar.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
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.
