provincial

comparative more provincial · superlative most provincial

1. Of or pertaining to a province.

   a provincial dialect

   2 more examples

   a provincial government

   More than 100 provincial and municipal firefighters were brought in, with helicopters and aircraft used to drop water and fire retardant, while bulldozers were digging firebreaks.

   2016 May 4, Nicky Woolf, “Fort McMurray: Canada wildfires force evacuation of oil sands city”, in The Guardian

2. Constituting a province.
3. Exhibiting the ways or manners of a province; characteristic of the inhabitants of a province.

   […] 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, →OCLC

4. Not cosmopolitan; limited in outlook; narrow; illiberal.
   1. extreme degreeBackwoodsy, hick, yokelish, countrified; not polished; rude.

      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. Of or pertaining to an ecclesiastical province, or to the jurisdiction of an archbishop; not ecumenical.

   a provincial synod

plural provincials

1. A person belonging to a province; one who is provincial.
2. CatholicismA 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.

   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. obsoleteA constitution issued by the head of an ecclesiastical province.

   Or els is thys Goddis law, Decrees or decretals, Or holy sinodals, Or els provincyals, Thus within the wals Of holy church to deale […]?

   c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 65, lines 130–135

4. A country bumpkin.

1. not comparableobsoleteOf or pertaining to Provence; Provençal.

   With two Provincial roses on my razed shoes.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]