small-town

[smawl-toun]

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of a town or village.

   a typical, small-town general store.

2. provincial or unsophisticated.

   small-town manners.

Other Word Forms

• small-towner noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of small-town¹

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

Her LP is a narrative of troubled love and shattered small-town lives in which sparkly country songs sit alongside drones that conjure the hum of electrical lines snaking down a highway.

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They come from villages, farming families and small-town hostels, with many learning the sport only in the past few years.

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Questions multiplied, but one seemed more elusive than the rest: How did a baby-faced novice from small-town California dupe some of academia’s brightest minds?

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Though we now lived in a city much larger than White Sulphur Springs or Marion or Bluefield, we felt everyone’s small-town love, care, and concern.

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In 2024, that hope was pinned on Tim Walz, the flannel-wearing, “Midwestern nice” governor whose small-town roots were supposed to unlock the rural Midwest for a Harris–Walz victory.

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