Provincialisms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Expressions or linguistic traits characterized by a specific region
2. references to local dialects or colloquialisms that distinguish a particular area
3. features of language that reflect the culture and customs of a specific province or locality

Etymology: "Provincialism" is the word's base, and it is the plural of that noun, so the key history sits in "provincial" and "provincialism." The base comes from Latin "provincia," which originally meant a territory under Roman rule outside Italy, a sphere of duty assigned to a magistrate. Over the centuries, a "province" came to mean any outlying region away from the capital, and "provincial" took on the sense of rural, unsophisticated, or behind the times, a meaning that still carries an edge of condescension. "Provincialism" entered English in the 1600s, and its earliest senses were often critical, describing a local habit of speech or behavior that marked someone as narrow or unpolished. The neutral sense the meaning here reflects, a regional word or expression valued for what it reveals about a place, developed later and is now the usual sense in linguistics. The plural "provincialisms" simply refers to several such regional expressions, such as local dialect words or idioms.

Synonyms: localism, regionalism

Antonyms: cosmopolitanism