Definition of "provincial"

provincial

/pɹəˈvɪn(t)ʃəl/

adjective
comparative more provincial, superlative most provincial
1. Of or pertaining to a province.
2. Constituting a province.
3. Exhibiting the ways or manners of a province; characteristic of the inhabitants of a province.
  Quotations
  […] fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces.
  1856 December, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Samuel Johnson ”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871
4. Not cosmopolitan; backwoodsy, hick, yokelish, countrified; not polished; rude
  Quotations
  That awful little Cedar Whatever is no thriving megalopolis, and you people are so provincial, it's appalling.
  2011, KD McCrite, In Front of God and Everybody
5. Narrow; illiberal.
6. Of or pertaining to an ecclesiastical province, or to the jurisdiction of an archbishop; not ecumenical.
7. Limited in outlook; narrow.
noun
plural provincials
1. A person belonging to a province; one who is provincial.
2. (Roman Catholicism) A monastic superior, who, under the general of his order, has the direction of all the religious houses of the same fraternity in a given district, called a province of the order.
  Quotations
  The Franciscan provincial Diego de Landa set up a local Inquisition which unleashed a campaign of interrogation and torture on the Indio population.
  2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 700
3. (obsolete) A constitution issued by the head of an ecclesiastical province.
  Quotations
  Or els is thys Goddis law,Decrees or decretals,Or holy sinodals,Or els provincyals,Thus within the walsOf holy church to deale […]?
  c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, page 65, lines 130–135
4. A country bumpkin.

Definition of "provincial"

provincial

adjective

Quotations

Quotations

noun

Quotations

Quotations