PROVINCIAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does provincial mean? 

• PROVINCIAL (noun)
  The noun PROVINCIAL has 2 senses:

1. (Roman Catholic Church) an official in charge of an ecclesiastical province acting under the superior general of a religious order

2. a country person

  Familiarity information: PROVINCIAL used as a noun is rare.

• PROVINCIAL (adjective)
  The adjective PROVINCIAL has 2 senses:

1. of or associated with a province

2. characteristic of the provinces or their people

  Familiarity information: PROVINCIAL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROVINCIAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(Roman Catholic Church) an official in charge of an ecclesiastical province acting under the superior general of a religious order

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

the general of the Jesuits receives monthly reports from the provincials

Hypernyms ("provincial" is a kind of...):

functionary; official (a worker who holds or is invested with an office)

Domain category:

Church of Rome; Roman Catholic; Roman Catholic Church; Roman Church; Western Church (the Christian Church based in the Vatican and presided over by a pope and an episcopal hierarchy)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A country person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

bucolic; peasant; provincial

Hypernyms ("provincial" is a kind of...):

rustic (an unsophisticated country person)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "provincial"):

cottar; cotter (a peasant farmer in the Scottish Highlands)

moujik; mujik; muzhik; muzjik (a Russian peasant (especially prior to 1917))

• PROVINCIAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or associated with a province

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

provincial government

Pertainym:

province (the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation)

Derivation:

province (the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Characteristic of the provinces or their people

Context example:

narrow provincial attitudes

Similar:

bumpkinly; hick; rustic; unsophisticated (awkwardly simple and provincial)

corn-fed (strong and healthy but not sophisticated)

insular; parochial (narrowly restricted in outlook or scope)

jerkwater; one-horse; pokey; poky (small and remote and insignificant)

stay-at-home (not given to travel)

untraveled; untravelled (not having traveled much, especially to foreign lands; not having gained experience by travel)

Antonym:

cosmopolitan (composed of people from or at home in many parts of the world; especially not provincial in attitudes or interests)

Derivation:

province (the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation)

 Context examples 

I have not traced these checks yet, but I have no doubt that they were banked under that name at some provincial town where Oldacre from time to time led a double existence.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Men at his time of life do not change all their habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Whether those pleading orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs?

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned professions.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But young men didn't—at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn't—drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

I shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace—or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons—rid of my provincial squeamishness forever.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)