From Old French provincial, from Latin provincialis, equivalent to province + -ial.

• (RP) IPA: /pɹəˈvɪn(t)ʃəl/
• (America) IPA: /pɹəˈvɪnt͡ʃəl/

provincial

1. Of or pertaining to a province.

   a provincial government

   a provincial dialect

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

     […] fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces.

4. Not cosmopolitan; backwoodsy, hick, yokelish, countrified; not polished; rude
   • 2011, KD McCrite, In Front of God and Everybody:

     That awful little Cedar Whatever is no thriving megalopolis, and you people are so provincial, it's appalling.

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

   a provincial synod

7. Limited in outlook; narrow.

• rural

• French: provincial
• German: provinziell, provinzial
• Italian: provinciale
• Portuguese: provincial
• Russian: провинциа́льный
• Spanish: provincial

• Portuguese: interiorano, provinciano
• Russian: провинциа́льный

• Spanish: provinciano, paleto

provincial (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.
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 700:

     The Franciscan provincial Diego de Landa set up a local Inquisition which unleashed a campaign of interrogation and torture on the Indio population.

3. (obsolete) A constitution issued by the head of an ecclesiastical province.
   • 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:

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

4. A country bumpkin.

provincial (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Of or pertaining to Provence; Provençal.
   • 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]:

     With two Provincial roses on my razed shoes.