provincial

Pluralprovincials

1. 1
   adjective

   Of, relating to, or connected with a province, such as one of the administrative divisions of a country.

   Provincial elections in Ontario drew record turnout this spring.

   The artifacts are housed in a provincial museum far from the capital.

   Similarregional, local

   Oppositenational, federal

   Note

   The root sense, and the one that stays neutral: Latin prōvinciālis meant simply "of a province", and the word passed through Old French and Middle English with its spelling intact. It is the administrative adjective of a provincial government or a provincial dialect. It pairs naturally with municipal when levels of government are listed side by side. The judgment carried by the "unsophisticated" meaning grew out of this plain sense.

2. 2
   adjective

   Lacking the sophistication or polish of the city; countrified, unrefined, or crude in manners.

   Despite his provincial table manners, he charmed everyone at dinner.

   Critics dismissed her early paintings as provincial imitations of Parisian masters.

   Similarunsophisticated, unrefined, unpolished, rustic, countrified

   Oppositesophisticated, refined, urbane, polished

   Note

   The disparaging sense, close kin to hick, yokelish and backwoodsy, is aimed at manners and polish. In KD McCrite's In Front of God and Everybody (2011), a speaker sets a small town against a "megalopolis" and declares "you people are so provincial", which makes the city the yardstick. Keep it apart from the "narrow-minded" meaning: provincial table manners are unpolished, while a provincial attitude is closed.

3. 3
   adjective

   Limited or narrow in outlook; unwilling to consider ideas or ways of life beyond one's own familiar world.

   Her provincial attitude toward foreign films kept her from some great cinema.

   Refusing to read translated literature struck me as deeply provincial.

   Similarparochial, insular, narrow-minded, small-minded, blinkered

   Oppositecosmopolitan, broad-minded, open-minded, worldly

4. 4
   adjective

   Displaying the ways, manners, or customs characteristic of a province and its inhabitants, as distinct from those of the capital or major cities.

   The novel captures the provincial rhythms of life in a small cathedral town.

   His provincial hospitality, insisting every guest stay for supper, endeared him to the newcomers.

   Similarrural, rustic, small-town

   Oppositeurban, metropolitan, cosmopolitan

   Note

   Here the word describes rather than condemns: it names the habits and style of a place outside the center. Macaulay, writing on Samuel Johnson in 1856, describes someone "fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces", and the phrase shows how close description sits to mockery. Context decides which side the word falls on. Once the tone turns openly scornful, it has moved into the "unpolished" meaning.

5. 5
   adjective

   Narrow and intolerant in attitudes or opinions; illiberal toward views and customs unlike one's own.

   The town council's provincial morality codes drove young artists away.

   Banning foreign newspapers struck observers as provincial and fearful.

   Similarparochial, narrow-minded, insular, small-minded, illiberal

   Oppositecosmopolitan, liberal, broad-minded, tolerant

6. 6
   adjective

   Constituting a province, or holding the formal rank of a province within a country.

   The treaty organized the conquered lands into provincial units, each with its own governor.

   Lawmakers debated whether the sparsely settled district qualified for provincial status.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A person belonging to or coming from a province; someone from outside the capital or major cities.

   The new rail line let a provincial reach the capital and return home in a single day.

   The university drew ambitious provincials hoping to make their names in the city.

   Note

   The neutral noun simply places a person outside the capital, and it carries no insult in itself. Context can tip it toward the "country bumpkin" noun, however. Writers who want only the geography often choose "someone from the provinces" instead.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   An unsophisticated or unpolished person from a rural area; a country bumpkin.

   He played the wide-eyed provincial, gawking at every skyscraper.

   To the salon's regulars, the young poet was just another provincial with mud still on his boots.

   Similarbumpkin, rustic, yokel

   Oppositesophisticate, urbanite

9. 9
   adjective

   Relating to an ecclesiastical province, the group of dioceses under an archbishop's jurisdiction, rather than to the church as a whole.

   Provincial synods addressed disputes that individual dioceses could not settle.

   The new liturgy required provincial approval before parishes could adopt it.

   Note

   Church government gives the word a precise scope. A province here is a group of dioceses under an archbishop, so a provincial synod or council binds only the sees within it. In this setting the opposite is ecumenical, meaning the universal church, rather than urban or cosmopolitan. None of the condescension of the everyday senses attaches to it.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A superior of a religious order who, under the order's general, directs all the houses of the order within a district known as a province.

    The Jesuit provincial reassigned several priests to mission posts that summer.

    Each provincial reports to the order's superior general.

    Note

    Religious orders borrow the vocabulary of civil government: an order's district is its province, and the superior who runs it takes the adjective as a title. The order's name usually comes first, as when Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity (2009) writes of "the Franciscan provincial Diego de Landa." Context keeps this office apart from someone from a province, since both are the same noun.

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