喜樂美語

Picture a country as a capital city plus everything else. Provincial means belonging to the everything-else: the provinces, the places out beyond the centre. The word is neutral on a map — but once you look at those places from the capital's point of view, a judgment starts creeping in.

一個國家被切成「首都」和「首都以外」。provincial 指的就是「以外」的那一塊——省、地方、外圍。這個畫面在地圖上本來是中性的，只是位置的差別；但英文這個字的整條路，就是從「不在中心」慢慢滑向「離中心太遠、所以見識也窄」。理解這個字的關鍵，是看見這條從地理到評價的滑坡。

From the word’s history

From Latin prōvinciālis, 'of a province' — a province being a territory the empire governed from Rome, always at a distance from the centre.

來自拉丁文 prōvinciālis（屬於行省的）。羅馬帝國的 province 是由羅馬遙控管理的外地，這個字從出生就內建了「相對於中心的外圍」這個位置感——不是自成一格的地方，而是「離中心多遠」的地方。

Wiktionary (provincial < Latin prōvinciālis 'of a province')

登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。

容易混在一起的字在訂閱裡。容易混在一起的字需要訂閱帳號。

同家族的字

a比較級 more provincial最高級 most provincial

n複數 provincials

原始詞典資料11 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

Provincialadj

  • 1

    obsoleteOf or pertaining to Provence; Provençal.

    • With two Provincial roses on my razed shoes.

provincialadj/pɹəˈvɪn(t)ʃəl/

  • 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.

    • […] fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces.
  • 4

    Not cosmopolitan; limited in outlook; narrow; illiberal.

  • 5

    Not cosmopolitan; limited in outlook; narrow; illiberal.

    • That awful little Cedar Whatever is no thriving megalopolis, and you people are so provincial, it's appalling.
  • 6

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

    • a provincial synod

provincialnoun/pɹəˈvɪn(t)ʃəl/

  • 1

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

  • 2

    CatholicismChristianityRoman-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.
  • 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 […]?
  • 4

    A country bumpkin.

摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。