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Provincial   Listen
adjective
Provincial  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to province; constituting a province; as, a provincial government; a provincial dialect.
2.
Exhibiting the ways or manners of a province; characteristic of the inhabitants of a province; not cosmopolitan; countrified; not polished; rude; hence, narrow; illiberal. "Provincial airs and graces."
3.
Of or pertaining to an ecclesiastical province, or to the jurisdiction of an archbishop; not ecumenical; as, a provincial synod.
4.
Of or pertaining to Provence; Provencal. (Obs.) "With two Provincial roses on my razed shoes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Provincial" Quotes from Famous Books



... are copied with much painstaking, there may be errors unperceived in some of the letters; but at least one of the words is misspelt by the provincial artist, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... effecting a transition to a popularly elected government after four decades of authoritarianism, addressing charges of cronyism and corruption, holding the military accountable for human rights violations, and resolving growing separatist pressures in Aceh and Irian Jaya. On 30 August 1999 a provincial referendum for independence was overwhelmingly approved by the people of Timor Timur. Concurrence followed by Indonesia's national legislature, and the name East Timor was provisionally adopted. The independent status of East Timor - now under UN administration ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... of Manchester has proved himself utterly unable to meet his engagement. The public of the metropolis, however, may feel quite confident that Brown, Jones, and Robinson will not allow any provincial manufacturer to practise such dishonesty on the City ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... is a misprint, or a provincial pronunciation, for "leach," that is, blood-suckers. Had it been gnats, instead of fleas, there might have been some sense, though small probability, in Warburton's suggestion of the Scottish "loch." Possibly "loach," or "lutch," may be some lost word ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... unbounded confidence and assurance, attempt to, and well nigh succeed in placing chess influence at their feet with a Boss the shows determination openly and unequivocally expressed. The control of most of the London chess columns, and a large number of the Provincial is also in foreign hands and proves a very powerful weapon ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... worth eight hundred per annum have sunk like a summer pond and make hardly five hundred, chiefly in unpaid entries, the plain inference is that, whether he minds it or not, he is in debt. Those were less expensive times than our own, and provincial life was comparatively modest; but the ease with which a medical man who had lately bought a practice, who thought that he was obliged to keep two horses, whose table was supplied without stint, and who paid an insurance ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... This provincial preservation of a word of such rare occurrence in Anglo-Saxon, and of which no example has yet been found in old English, is a remarkable circumstance. The word has evidently signified, like the Gothic, in the first place poor; then wretched, miserable; and hence, perhaps, its ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various

... to our satisfaction, in our provincial abode: it was a watering-place, which my husband, as a bachelor, had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... late and venerable Charles Willson Peale was at Mount Vernon, in 1772, engaged in painting the portrait of the provincial colonel, some young men were contending in the exercise of pitching the bar. Washington looked on for a time, then grasping the missile in his master-hand, whirled the iron through the air, which took the ground far, very far, beyond any of its ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... Clermont, where he had settled when paralysis of the legs had obliged him to retire from active service. For nearly five years afterwards, her mother, a Parisian by birth, had remained in that dull provincial town, managing as well as she could with her scanty pension, but eking it out by fan-painting, in order that she might bring up her daughter as a lady. She had, however, now been dead for fifteen months, and had left her child penniless and ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... making a great noise at Paris; I wished to go and see it represented at a paltry provincial theatre at Blois. Coming out of the theatre on foot, the people of the place followed me in crowds from curiosity, more desirous of knowing me because I was an exile, than from any other motive. This kind of celebrity which I derived from misfortune, much more than from talent, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... which glow with all the color, chiaroscuro and life-like detail of a Dutch panel. The power of Balzac is unique as a descriptive writer; his knowledge of the female heart is more profound, and covers a far wider range than anything exhibited by a provincial author, such as Richardson. But he has also the marvelous faculty of suggesting spiritual facts in the life and consciousness of his characters, by the picturesque touches with which he brings before ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden

... without much hazard of contradiction, that Banks have existed in Scotland for near one hundred and twenty years—that they have flourished, and the country has flourished with them—and that during the last fifty years particularly, provincial Banks, or branches of the principal established and chartered Banks, have gradually extended themselves in almost every Lowland district in Scotland; that the notes, and especially the small notes, which they distribute, entirely supply the ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... or still less of a sixteenth century. Scott can describe no character without assigning to it its place in the social organism which has been growing up since the earliest dawn of history. This was, of course, no accident. He came at the time when the little provincial centres were just feeling the first invasion of the great movements from without. Edinburgh, whether quite comparable to Athens or not, had been for two or three generations a remarkable centre of intellectual cultivation. Hume and Adam Smith were only the most conspicuous members of a society ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... are persuaded, as not founded upon true principles, and we shall best advance by properly appreciating what has been done before us. We will not here enter into the subject of the decadence of art, nor its causes. We believe that if adequate national and provincial galleries were formed, more especially at our universities, the improved public taste would create a demand which this country would not lack genius to supply. We are not in the exact condition of Italy at the sudden rise of art there. The public, in the days of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... Lamotte, a provincial nobleman of ancient lineage and moderate health, ex-equerry to the King, desired in the year 1774 to dispose of a property in the country, the estate of Buisson-Souef near Villeneuve-le-Roi, which he had purchased some ten ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... very pretty withal, and not so merely to the eyes of her lover, or of the Renault family, or of the little city where she lived. Provincial towns are apt to be easily satisfied. They give the reputation of being a pretty woman or a great man, cheaply; especially when they are not rich enough in such commodities to show themselves over particular. In capitals, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... had taught Antoninus dancing and had been a favorite of Saoterus, and through the influence thus acquired he had been introduced to the theatre at Rome. But, as he was disliked there, he was driven out of Rome and went to Lugdunum, where he delighted the people, who were rather provincial. And, from a slave and dancer, he came to be an army leader and prefect.] He advanced to such power in the household of Antoninus that both the prefects were as nothing compared to him. Likewise Epagathus, himself also a Caesarian, had equal influence with him ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... prosperous city of 50,000 inhabitants, the capital of the wealthy province of Echigo, with a population of one and a half millions, and is the seat of the Kenrei, or provincial governor, of the chief law courts, of fine schools, a hospital, and barracks. It is curious to find in such an excluded town a school deserving the designation of a college, as it includes intermediate, primary, and normal schools, an English school with 150 pupils, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... past. If, on exchange of worlds, man loses his memory, he virtually ceases to exist, and might just as well be annihilated. A future life with perfect oblivion of the present is no life at all for us. Is not this style of thought the most provincial egotism, the utter absence of all generous thought and sympathy unselfishly grasping the absolute boons of being? It is a shallow error, too, even on the grounds of selfishness itself. In any point of view the difference is diametric and immense between a happy ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... always. The very hotel in which we stayed—the Charleston—is like no other hotel in the United States, though it has about it something which caused me to think of the old Southern, in St. Louis. Still, it is not like the Southern. It is more like some old hotel in a provincial city of France—large and white, with a pleasing unevenness of floor, and, best of all, a great inner court which, in provincial France, might be a remise, but is here a garden. If I mistake not, carriages and coaches did in earlier times drive through the arched entrance, now ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... Emporia. So it really is not of arms and the man that this story is written, nor of Henry and me, and the war; but it is the eternal Wichita and Emporia in the American heart that we shall celebrate hereinafter as we unfold our tale. Of course, that makes it provincial. And people living in New York or Boston, or Philadelphia (but not Chicago, for half of the people there have just come to town and the other half is just ready to leave town) may not understand this story. For in some respects New York is larger ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... still have about a year to stay. When that's over, you will go back to England. You will settle in some small place, and spend your life, or the best part of your life, there—oh, Maurice, you are my kind friend, but I tell you frankly, I couldn't face life in an English provincial town. I'm not ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... least, women possessed the suffrage in our first settlements. In New England, in the early days, when church-membership as the basis of the franchise excluded three- fourths of the male inhabitants from its exercise, women could vote. Under the old Provincial charters, from 1691 to 1780, they could vote for all elective offices. From 1780 to 1785, under the Articles of Confederation, they could vote for all elective offices except the Governor, the Council, and the Legislature. The comment made upon this by the Suffrage writers is, that "the ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... believe personally that the main object of the Yuen-nan provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Yuen-nan-fu to the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a monthly stipend if the official "face" can be preserved and the Chinese dogged official ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... interest, gave way to unrestrained exultation. The wisdom, the prudence, the holiness of the "great Liberator," were extolled as unmatched in the annals of statesmanship. A few whose self-interest constrained their subserviency, shrugged wisely and said nothing, while several provincial journals stoutly maintained the undoubted and enduring supremacy of the great national aim ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... due deference to the people who pronounce the name of Quimper-Corentin as the synonyme of all that is ridiculous and provincial, it is a most delightful place, and well worth other more respected ones. You will not, it is true, find the charms and riotous wealth of colouring possessed by Quimperle; still, I know of few things that can equal the charming ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... contemplating the grandeur of my native country and her miraculous growth," writes to me an old literary friend. The feeling normally breaks out in the grossest laudation of everything American. The ultra-provincial twang which we still hear amongst the servant-classes of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and which is so notable in the nouveau riche, modified by traditional nasalisation and, as in Australia, by climatic influences, is American and, therefore, the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... despise the monikin who is not above local vanities and provincial admiration! You ought to have seen that, sir, for I frankly admit, sir, that no rabble can be worse than ours, and that we are all going to the devil, as fast as ever we can. No, sir, a most miserable rabble, sir.—But as for this street, and our houses, and our cats, and ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... and 2 cities* with provincial status; Bulawayo*, Harare*, Manicaland, Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West, Masvingo, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Yorkers, no matter what their station, Lawrence cherished a provincial contempt for such people as are not of Manhattan. While he was woefully timid in the presence of firearms, and the flash of steel reduced him to a panic, he was a past master at the "manly art," and carried a punch in which he reposed unlimited ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... proved a failure, Lola, swallowing her disappointment, directed her thoughts to her old love, the ballet. To this end, she placed herself in the hands of a M. Roux; and, a number of engagements having been secured by him, she began a provincial tour at Bordeaux. By the time it was completed the star and her manager were on such bad terms that, when they got back to Paris, the latter was dismissed. Thereupon, he hurried off to a notary, and brought an action against his ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... and vindictive. To gratify his pride he conceived the idea of erecting a magnificent palace, and to obtain an appropriation from the Provincial Assembly he exhausted all his promises and intrigues. In this effort on the legislators he was aided by the blandishments of his lady and her sister, Miss Wake, relatives of Lord Hillborough, and he was finally successful. The result was, that he erected ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... well-behaved, kindly sort of person, of a simple character, which I took to belong to the class and locality, rather than to himself individually. I could not very well understand all that he said, owing to his provincial dialect; and when he spoke to his own countrymen, or to the women of the house, I really could but just catch a word here and there. How long it takes to melt English down into a homogeneous mass! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... proceeding in this kingdom was to hold a synod at Lingkopin; to fix on a see for the new archbishopric about to be created. But the members, consisting of the heads of the clergy of Sweden and Gothland, could not agree on the point, as, out of a spirit of provincial rivalry, the one party claimed the honor for Upsala, and the other for Skara. Finding that the dispute was too hot to be soon settled, the Cardinal Legate consecrated St. Henry of Upsala bishop of that city, introduced various new regulations respecting the celibacy of the clergy and the payment ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby

... when he was thirty-seven years old, Israel Putnam entered the Provincial army for service in the French-and-Indian War, and rose to the rank of colonel before the war was over in 1764. He went with the Connecticut troops on several expeditions against the French forts at Crown ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton

... the local committee had gone to Brussels to negotiate a loan; he would be back in four or five days and if I would just wait, they would settle everything beautifully. That did not please me, so I suggested in my usual simple and direct way that the Governor rob the safe and pay me with provincial funds, trusting to be paid later by the committee. It took some little argument to convince him, but he had good nerve, and by half-past twelve he brought forth 275,000 francs in bank-notes and handed them over to me for a receipt. Sticking this into my pocket, I made ready to ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... the schoolma'am. That is, he discovered the raw product and adapted it. He even coined the word, and it struck the world as being so very funny that we forthwith adopted it as a term of provincial pleasantry and quasi-reproach. The original term used was "school mother," but when it reached these friendly shores we translated it "schoolmarm." ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... One of the provincial music halls in England has the roof arranged like a roll-top desk, so that in hot weather it can be rolled back, thus making a sort of roof garden out of it. An American Song and Dance Team was making their first European appearance there; their act was a ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... by Mr. Duncan, and presented to the Minister of the Interior of the Dominion of Canada, in May, 1875. The occasion of this important document being drawn up was the occurrence of some conflict of opinion between the Provincial Government of British Columbia at Victoria and the Dominion Government of Ottawa, respecting the Indian Land Question. The same thorny problems that have so often given trouble in South Africa and New Zealand ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... II. was drawn by Penn's own hand and was nobly liberal. It ordained perfect religious toleration for all Christians, and forbade taxation save by the provincial assembly or the English Parliament. Under William and Mary, greatly to his grief, Penn was forced to sanction the penal laws against Catholics; but they were most leniently administered, which ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... learning and arguments with grace and propriety. It is in vain to expect that a boy should speak well in public, who cannot, in common conversation, utter three connected sentences without a false concord or a provincial idiom; he may be taught with much care and cost to speak tripod sentences;[4] but bring the young orator to the test, bring him to actual business, rouse any of his passions, throw him off his guard, and then listen to his language; he will ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... I was obliged to take up my lodgings at Mechlin, where I addressed myself to the intendant, giving him an account of the disaster I had met with, and desiring I might have credit at the inn, as our whole company could not raise the value of a sixpence. This gentleman, though a provincial, was polite in his way, and not only granted my request, but invited me to lodge at his own house. I accordingly gave him my company at supper, but did not choose to sleep at his quarters, because he appeared to be what the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... note of modern criticism, which is rarely roused to indignation save when confronted by the infrequent outrage of some intellectual anarchist. If the critics of the more important journals were not so enthusiastic as their provincial confreres, they were at least gentle with "The Improbable Marquis." A critic of genius would have said that such books were not worth writing, still less worth reading. An outspoken critic would have said that it was too dull to be an acceptable presentation of a life that ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... far frae the centre o' the world—as they've a way o' dubbin London! I like London, fine, ye'll ken. It's a grand toon. I'd be an ungrateful chiel did I no keep a warm spot for the place that turned me frae a provincial comic into what I'm lucky enow to be the day. But I'm no wishfu' to pass my days and nichts always in the great city. When I've an engagement there, in the halls or in a revue, 'tis weel enow, and I'm happy. But always and again there'll be somethin' tae mak' me mindfu' ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... The Visits of Shakespeare's Company of Actors to the Provincial Cities and Towns of England, Illustrated by Extracts Gathered from Corporate Records. Privately printed. ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... out or coming in, or to any particular voice, or to the chirping of a bird, is so far a Pagan. Indeed, all these, and innumerable others of the same description of superstitious among Christians, are remnants of ancient paganism; as they have been denounced by the censures of popes, provincial councils, synodical decrees, and other grave authorities. And, though there were not such a cloud of witnesses, there would be no difficulty in proving the disease of pagan origin. For, independent of those ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... nominated his old fellow-workers at St. Paul's, Cibber, the sculptor, and Strong, the master mason, Grand Wardens. In Queen Anne's reign there were 129 lodges—eighty-six in London, thirty-six in provincial cities, and seven abroad. Many of the oldest lodges in London are in the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... be credited with some, at least, of the genuine sentiment which impelled the accuser of Warren Hastings. We must couple with the Verrines the admirable letter of the orator to his brother Quintus on the government of a province, and his own provincial administration, which, as was said before, appears to have been excellent. Cicero rose, not as an adherent of the aristocracy, but as their opponent, and the assailant, a bold assailant, of the tyranny of Sulla. He was brought to the front in politics, as Sallust avers, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... the world. Soaked in the vices of Paris, he affects to be the fellow-well-met of the provinces. He is the link which connects the village with the capital; though essentially he is neither Parisian nor provincial,—he is a traveller. He sees nothing to the core: men and places he knows by their names; as for things, he looks merely at their surface, and he has his own little tape-line with which to measure them. His glance shoots over all ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... following statement: "International value is regulated just as inter-provincial or inter-parishional value is. Coals and hops are exchanged between Northumberland and Kent on absolutely the same principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and Spain."—Ruskin, "Munera ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... north. Setting out in their light open skiffs from the islands at the mouth of the Elbe, or off the shore afterwards submerged in what is now the Zuyder Zee, the English or Saxon pirates crossed the sea with the prevalent north-east wind, and landed all along the provincial coasts of Gaul and Britain. As the empire decayed under the assaults of the Goths, their ravages turned into regular settlements. One great body pillaged, age after age, the neighbourhood of Bayeux, where, before the middle of the fifth century, it established a flourishing colony, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... generated no such fiery enthusiasm as sustained the African Donatists; the newness of its origin allowed no venerable traditions to grow up round it like those of heathenism, while its imperial claims and past successes cut it off from the appeal of later heresies to provincial separatism. When, therefore, the last overtures of Theodosius fell through in 383, the heresy was quite unable to bear the strain of ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... stay for simply months! Everything is so wonderful, here in Asgard; it makes our little capital of Roncevaux seem so utterly provincial. I'm going to tell Your Imperial Majesty a secret. I'm going to see if I can lure some of your wonderful ballet dancers back to Durendal with me. Aren't I naughty, raiding ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... precise information. We read, for example, that at the new year 1502 the majority of the officials bought their places at 'prezzi salati' (pungent prices); public servants of the most various kinds, custom-house officers, bailiffs (massari), notaries, 'podesta,' judges, and even governors of provincial towns are quoted by name. As one of the 'devourers of the people' who paid dearly for their places, and who were 'hated worse than the devil,' Tito Strozza let us hope not the famous Latin poet is mentioned. About the same time every year the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... be 72,000l.[146] The public buildings are said to be, some of them, handsome and commodious. Court-house, barracks, hospital, orphan-schools, jails, and government house, rank among the principal buildings of Hobart Town; and in many respects it appears to resemble a provincial sea-port in the mother country. It has some excellent inns, good wharfs and warehouses, and public banks, besides a few considerable manufacturing establishments. A small stream runs nearly through the centre of ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... Perhaps the reason of this is that the latter were national in their character, whereas scientific inquiry, throughout the nineteenth century, was carried on upon international lines, or, at least, in a spirit unprecedentedly non-provincial. The vast achievements of science, practical and theoretical, were produced for the world, not for a race. Mr. Asquith speaks with justice and eloquence of the appearance of Darwin's Origin of Species which he distinguishes as being "if ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... and details of this system it will be necessary to speak at some length. It was the first, and probably the best, instance of that form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word for provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of "satrapial" administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution of one ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... Raymonde going a little in advance, and Morvyth following, as if they had no acquaintance with each other. It was perhaps as well for their mutual composure that they visited separate shops, for Morvyth's provincial accent and Raymonde's cold might have been mirth-provoking to a fellow conspirator, though they passed muster well enough with strangers. At the end of ten minutes the two girls were hurrying back, each armed with a large parcel. These were handed at once to scouts when they reached the Grange, ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... Celtic. He was a man who made friends quickly, and was soon at home among the students, roaring their favourite songs, and dancing their favourite dances at the dancing-places of that day, joining with a pleasant heartiness in all their innocent dissipations. For guilty dissipation the young provincial had no taste. Did he not carry the images of two kind and pure women about with him wherever he went, like two attendant angels ever protecting his steps; and could he leave them sorrowing on thresholds they could not pass? Ah, no! He was loud ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... of English merchandise as a measure of retaliation against Britain, and she was the first also to invite a general congress of all the Colonies. On the breaking out of hostilities New York immediately joined the patriot cause. The English authority was overthrown and the government passed to a provincial congress. ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... orthodox. To a remarkable extent the local colorists passed by the immediate problems of Americans—social, theological, political, economic; nor did they frequently rise above the local to the universal. They were, in short, ordinarily provincial, without, however, the rude durability or the homely truthfulness of ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... Alphabet, are twenty-six in number."—Ib., p. 2; T. Smith's, 5; Fisk's, 10; Alger's, 9; et al. "A writer who employs antiquated or novel phraseology, must do it with design: he cannot err from inadvertence as he may do it with respect to provincial or vulgar expressions."—Jamieson's Rhet., p. 56. "The Vocative case, in some Grammars, is wholly omitted; why, if we must have cases, I could never understand the propriety of."—Bucke's Classical Gram., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... air engines has recently been patented in this country and in Europe by Col. F. E. B. Beaumont, of the Royal Engineers, and we learn from accounts given in the London and provincial papers that it has proved highly ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... knight spoke aloud, in a speech which, though provincial, might be understood by all to whom the French language was known, while even those who understood it not, gathered its interpretation from his tone and manner. "What churl is this," he said, "who has remained sitting stationary like a block of wood, or the fragment of a rock, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... ages, Vanessa being the elder; but the younger girl with her greater keenness of vision, more exuberant health and spirits, and more resolute unscrupulosity, had so carried the heart of the other by storm that it was Vanessa, the provincial termagant, who looked up to and worshipped her sister dare-devil of the Metropolis, and who watched her for her ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... at Madame Hulot as Tartuffe casts at Elmire—when a provincial actor plays the part and thinks it necessary to emphasize its ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... provincial borders once crossed, bases of operations will be established in the enemy's country, so that international quarrels with the Washington Government may be evaded. There are to be lands chosen at ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... whirlwinds. This word does not occur in any English dictionary or glossary. It gave me much trouble, and a walk of seven miles, to discover its meaning. It is the Saxon for noise, whirlwind, turbulence. This provincial word was probably derived from some Saxon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... irritating, and the overacted kittenishness of the girl made her sick at heart, although she betrayed no sign of her feeling. Helene could not understand that despite its mammoth size, New York is relatively provincial in the club and theatrical community, his acquaintanceship numbering into the thousands. Town Topics, the social gossipers of the newspapers and talkative club men bandied names about in such wise that it was easy for members of Pinkie's profession to satisfy their hopeful curiosity—prompted ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... of traffic, on Saco's banks today! O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's restless play! Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand beguile, And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... had not improved any since the war. There was room for improvement, but no room for progress, because there was no necessity for progress. The people were contented. They were satisfied with things as they existed, though they had an honest, provincial faith in the good old times that were gone. They had but one regret—that the railroad station, four miles away, had been named Azalia. It is true, the station consisted of a water-tank and a little pigeon-house where tickets were sold; but ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... elder Pepin left a king of mature years under the guardianship of his own widow and her child; and these feeble regents were forcibly dispossessed by the most active of his bastards. A government, half savage and half corrupt, was almost dissolved; and the tributary dukes, and provincial counts, and the territorial lords, were tempted to despise the weakness of the monarch, and to imitate the ambition of the mayor. Among these independent chiefs, one of the boldest and most successful was Eudes, duke of Aquitain, who in the southern provinces of Gaul usurped the authority, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... about the boy who broke his leg over the chair he had failed to put away after breakfast. Her romances were the good old Nursery Legends of Dick Whittington, the Babes in the Wood, and so forth. My dreams became less like the columns of a provincial newspaper. I imagined myself another Marquis of Carabas, with Rubens in boots. I made a desert island in the garden, which only lacked the geography-book peculiarity of "water all round" it. I planted beans in the fond hope that they would tower to ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... arranged that they should go to Mrs. Hoskyn's after the lecture. Meanwhile they went to Sydenham, where Alice went through the Crystal Palace with provincial curiosity, and Lydia answered her questions encyclopedically. In the afternoon there was a concert, at which a band played several long pieces of music, which Lydia seemed to enjoy, though she found fault with the performers. Alice, able ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... be a very high-class shop indeed, despite the fact that there was a pawnbroking branch of the business. The place was quite worthy of Bond Street, the stock was brilliant and substantial, the assistants quite above provincial class. As Bell was turning over some sleeve-links, Chris was examining a case of silver and gold cigarette-cases and the like. She picked up a cigar-case at length and asked the price. At the mention of fifty guineas she dropped the trifle ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... was born in New York (1783) when the present colossal city was a provincial town that retained many of its quaint Dutch characteristics. Over all the straggling town, from the sunny Battery with its white-winged ships to the Harlem woods where was good squirrel shooting, Irving rambled at ease on many a day when the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... there—young men about the city who had not much to do, and who were induced by the lady's charms to neglect that little; but all gave way to Mr Thorne, who was somewhat of a grand signor, as a country gentleman always is in a provincial city. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... bounds. Youth itself seemed to be restored in the strength of his fury. He saw dimly the men standing around looking on; he saw, as in a dream, the man cutting on the rick, and he uttered incoherent sentences which those only understood who were accustomed to his provincial accent. ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... smiles, to the little table of his choice. Many eyes were drawn to the young pair. He was a man to be noticed in any company, but in presence and in air she was his not unworthy mate. He himself became aware, even then, perhaps more than ever then, that this provincial girl stood transplanting to a metropolitan setting ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... lips, and some had green hair. Possessed of diverse kinds of feet and lips and teeth, they had diverse kinds of arms and heads. Clad in diverse kinds of skins, they spoke diverse kinds of languages, O Bharata! Skilled in all provincial dialects, those puissant ones conversed with one another. Those mighty companions, filled with joy, gambolled there, cutting capers (around Kartikeya). Some were long-necked, some longnailed, some long-legged. Some amongst them were large-headed and some ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the editorial scythe,—or, to be truly modern, I should say mowing-machine,—I have gathered some strange sheaves of this sort of humor. Like many provincial newspapers, that to which I am attached makes a feature of printing the social happenings in villages of the surrounding country, and these out-of-town correspondents "don't do a thing to" the English language. One of them invariably refers to the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... continually going on some disorganization or proscription. But under the empire the time seemed made expressly for great proselytism which should overrule both the quarrels of neighborhoods and the rivalry of dynasties. Attacks on liberty were much more frequently owing to the remnants of the provincial or communal authority than to the Roman administration. Of this truth we have had and shall have many occasions to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... you will look in some provincial history of Ireland for Odo (Hugh) Oneil, King of Ulster. When did he live? I have got a most curious seal of his, and know no more of him than of Ouacraw ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... Military College at Kneller Hall—is an extraordinary feature in musical history. All previous variations in pitch—and they have comprised as much as a fourth in the extremes—having been due either to transposition, owing to the requirements of the human voice, or to national or provincial measurements. The manufacture of brass instruments is a distinct craft, although some of the processes are similar to those used by silversmiths, coppersmiths, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... much smaller than New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, Boston is essentially a great city, with a very animated street life, and nothing in the least provincial about it. But it is not in these great capitals, not even in this marvellous Chicago where I am now writing, that one most clearly realises the bewildering potentialities of the United States. It is precisely in the minor, the provincial cities, which ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... contact with attorneys in every part of the country, and heightened his popularity amongst all classes of his fellow-countrymen. In 1786 he entirely withdrew from ordinary circuit practice, and confined his exertions in provincial courts to the causes for which he was specially retained. No advocate since his time has received an equal number of special retainers; and if he did not originate the custom of special retainers,[12] he was the first English barrister who ventured ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... sub-orders of learned men. And the first of these deserving our attention is the class of "Seanchaidhe," pronounced Shanachy. The ollamh seems to have been the historian of the monarch of the whole country; the shanachy had the care of provincial records. Each chieftain, in fact, down to the humblest, had an officer of this description, who enjoyed privileges inferior only to those of the ollamh, and partook of emoluments graduated according to his usefulness in the state; ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... Whittington's, though he pretended afterward that he had done so. The people were more uniformly well dressed, there were not so many of them, and the hostess was sure of knowing her acquaintances at first glance; but there was the same ease, the same unconstraint, the same absence of provincial anxiety which makes a Washington a lighter and friendlier London. There were rather more sallow attaches; in their low-cut white waistcoats, with small brass buttons, they moved more consciously about, and looked weightier ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... All eastern and European observers comment with horror on the border brawls, especially the eye-gouging. Englishmen, of course, in true provincial spirit, complacently contrasted them with their own boxing fights; Frenchmen, equally of course, were more struck by the resemblances than the differences between the two forms of combat. Milfort gives a very amusing account of the "Anglo-Americains d'une espece particuliere," ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... all this helps me to nothing but to go and yawn in the corner of some drawing-room! If a young man speaks to me he treats me as a child; if I am asked in marriage, it is for my dowry; if somebody presses my hand in a dance, it is sure to be some provincial fop; as soon as I appear anywhere, I excite a murmur of admiration; but nobody speaks low, in my ear, a word that makes my heart beat. I hear impertinent men praising me in loud tones, a couple of feet ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... not exist for tracing the history of the separate breeds. About the commencement of the Christian era, Columella mentions a five-toed fighting breed, and some provincial breeds; but we know nothing about them. He also alludes to dwarf fowls; but these cannot have been the same with our Bantams, which, as Mr. Crawfurd has shown, were imported from Japan into Bantam in Java. A dwarf fowl, probably the true Bantam, is referred to in an old Japanese Encyclopaedia, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... with their singing the birds were making the April mornings melodious. The Provincial Congress was in session at Cambridge, and Samuel Adams and John Hancock had left Boston and with Dorothy Quincy were with Reverend Mr. Clark in Lexington. Abraham Duncan discovered that General Gage had sent ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... find Monsieur Droqville staring at that old stone figure by moonlight. Anything to pass the time. You, I see, suffer from ennui, as I do. These little provincial towns! Heavens! what an effort it is to live in them! If I could regret having formed in early life a friendship that does me honor, I think its condemning me to a sojourn in such a place would make me do so. You go on towards Paris, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... pretend. How much better, after all, if she had married her Englishman for love! And she is much troubled now because, as she declares, she is dependent upon my bounty. That is my happiness, my consolation," the good man added simply, "and her father, the Marquis, was kind to me when I was a young provincial and a stranger. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... who are gone out of the world I shall say nothing. Of those who are still alive and have very little decency of conduct there are many, among whom there is an ex-provincial named Father Dr. Ballendi, Calvi, Zoratti, Bigliaci, Guidi, Miglieti, Verde, Bianchi, Ducci, Seraphini, Bolla, Nera di Luca, Quaretti, &c. But wherefore any more? With the exception of three or four, all those whom I have ever known, alive or dead, are of the same character; ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... houses, especially in the provincial towns, all look so remarkably alike, that I thought I might have been mistaken; and as my time is extremely limited—in fact I'm sailing ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... word oxen, though it was quite common in Old and Middle English; for instance, eyen (eyes), treen (trees), shoon (shoes), which last is still used in Lowland Scotch. Hosen is found in the King James version of the Bible, and housen is still common in the provincial ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... shower"—an entertainment that is somewhat on the order of an informal tea at which each guest brings some gift to the bride—has been called "provincial." It has a recognized place in middle class society, at least, and may be made an enjoyable function. No two "showers" are alike, hostesses vieing with each other in the endeavor to present something original ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... famous still, though ignorant of Greek, He writes cantatas every month and anthems once a week: And still in every capital and each provincial town Piano organs play the ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... elected constable in October, 1678. He was the chief man of the place, had been deputy fiscael of New Netherland in the time of Governor Stuyvesant, and held many provincial and local offices. In 1659 he and Augustine Herrman went to Maryland on an embassy for Stuyvesant; see its journal in Narratives of Early Maryland, in this series, pp. 309-333. Thus it may have been he who told Danckaerts and Sluyter of Herrman and of Bohemia ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... college, attended by the soldiers and all the rabble of the town. This was intended at present for our prison, till orders were received from the governor, who resided at Chaco, above thirty leagues from this place. When we got to the college, the corregidore desired the father provincial, as they stiled him, or head of the Jesuits here, to find out what religion we were of, or whether we had any or not. He then retired, the gates were shut, and we were conducted to a cell. We found in it something like ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... new Order held its first Chapter at the Church of the Portiuncula. The numbers of the Brotherhood and the area over which their labours extended had increased so vastly that it was already found necessary to nominate Provincial Ministers in ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... these schools, with their provincial French and their mechanical accomplishments, with their cheap parade of diplomas and commencements and other public honors, have an ever fresh interest to all who see the task they are performing in our new social order. These girls are not being educated for governesses, or to be exported, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... spell of power, making him absolute dictator of Mexico and disposer of the destinies of its people. At the same time, one of his most servile tools and successful imitators was at the head of the Provincial Government, having Santa Fe for its capital. This man was Manuel Armijo, whose character may be ascertained, by those curious to study it, from reading the chronicles of the times, especially the records of the prairie ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... the other man and confuse our identity with his. To put yourself in his place is the only way to understand and appreciate him. It is imagination that gives us this faculty of transmigration of souls; and to have imagination is to be universal; not to have it is to be provincial. Let me see—wouldn't you rather be a citizen of the Universe than a citizen of Peoria, Illinois, which modest town the actors always speak of as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... purpose, the following quotation from your own lunarian proclamation.—"And we (Lord Howe and General Howe) do command (and in his majesty's name forsooth) all such persons as are assembled together, under the name of general or provincial congresses, committees, conventions or other associations, by whatever name or names known and distinguished, to desist and cease from all such treasonable actings ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... held many priceless memories of it, the early evacuation of the town had left her free for domestic matters, which had prospered despite poverty and hard times and the great loss of population. Many of the old Tory families had returned to England, and the remnants of the provincial aristocracy were being lessened by death and absorbed by marriage. The squires and gentry of the small towns, most of them intense patriots, had filled their places and given tone to social life, that was still formal, if some of the old stateliness ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... on the second day of July, 1776 (two days before the Declaration of Independence), the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, assembled at Burlington, extended suffrage to all ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... shoulders. Litigation is long. Perfidy was in possession. Possession is nine points. The female students are now sitting with their hands before them, juggled out of their studies, in plain defiance of justice and public faith, waiting till time shall show them whether provincial lawyers can pettifog as well as ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... George had talked of coming home in the summer, and she began to think of saving up for a new carpet for the drawing-room. Then the last time she went to the town she saw some curtains of a most artistic pattern, and particularly cheap. So much good taste for so little money was rare in provincial shops. By and by she might do without something which would balance the cost of the curtains. And she had another ambition—to provide Jemima with black dresses and white muslin aprons for afternoon wear in addition to her wages, that the outward aspect ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... undying vitality which seems to animate races already a thousand years old, and above all, for a very remarkable cosmopolitanism which pervades Roman society. A set of people whose near relations are socially prominent in every capital of Europe, could hardly be expected to have anything provincial about them in appearance or manners; still less can they be considered to be types of their own nation. And yet such is the force of tradition, of the patriarchal family life, of the early surroundings in which are placed these ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an high degree; some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... overcome with wondering admiration of her courage, and of self-reproach at his own short-sightedness. This was the girl he had looked upon as a spoiled village beauty, satisfied with her small triumphs and provincial elevation, and vacant of all other purpose. Here was she—the all-unconscious heroine—and he her critic helpless at her feet! It was not a cheerful reflection, and yet he took a certain delight in his expiation. Perhaps he had half believed in her without knowing it. What could he ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... spotless integrity and high average ability. Contrast with the work of these men, from the days of Wellesley, the first Minto, and Dalhousie, from the time of Canning to Lawrence and the second Minto, the provincial administration of imperial Rome, of Spain and Portugal at their best, of even the Netherlands and France. For a whole generation of thirty years the civilians who studied Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi came daily under the gentle spell of Carey, who, though he had failed to keep the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... letter he went on to remark, "I say ten dollars as being enough and not a halfpenny too much. It is all I ask. If you can get fifteen dollars on these terms, pocket the balance. But never sell the provincial right to a New York manager. It is worth a great deal more than the New York right, properly worked. It is no use showing it to Laura Keene. I spoke to her in England ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... Do you really think so? Then she must have been frowsy and provincial, after all; and I thought her so ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... altogether a stranger to me. For the last week or so I had been rather on the look-out for him in all the public places where in a provincial town men may expect to meet each other. I saw him for the first time (wearing that same grey ready-made suit) in a legitimist drawing-room where, clearly, he was an object of interest, especially to the women. I had caught his name as Monsieur Mills. The lady who had introduced me took ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... of national prejudice and misrepresentation, he felt the impossibility of the Gironde. He was wrong in denying to Scott the power of being inside his characters: but he really had a good deal of that power himself. It was one of his innumerable and rather provincial crotchets to encourage prose as against poetry. But, as a matter of fact, he himself was much greater considered as a kind of poet than considered as anything else; and the central idea of poetry is the idea of guessing ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... general practice seems clear, and it extended even to Britain (p. 129), and though blocks forming exactly a 'iugerum' or a half 'iugerum' are rare, the Italian land-measure certainly affected the civilization of the provincial towns. ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield

... announcement. It was known to be under discussion, but the closed doors of Congress excluded the populace. They awaited, in throngs, an appointed signal. In the steeple of the State House was a bell, imported twenty-three years previously from London by the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania. It bore the portentous text from Scripture: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." A joyous peal from that bell gave notice that the bill had been passed. It was the knell of ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... there surely is a moment when Tantalus rebels, crosses his arms, and defies hell, throwing up his part of the eternal dupe. That is what I shall come to if anything should thwart my plan; if, after stooping to the dust of provincial life, prowling like a starving tiger round these tradesmen, these electors, to secure their votes; if, after wrangling in these squalid cases, and giving them my time—the time I might have spent on Lago Maggiore, seeing the waters she sees, basking in ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... hammer-throwing, for the honourable member of Parliament was a full-blooded Highlander himself and an ardent supporter of "the games." But only Fatty Freeman's finesse could have extracted from Dr. Kane, the Opposition candidate for Provincial Parliamentary honours, the cup for the hundred yards race, and other cups from other individuals more or less deeply interested in Dominion, Provincial, and Municipal politics. The prize list secured, it needed only ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... the bend came a procession which told plainly enough what had happened; a procession of boats filled with dark-coated provincial soldiers, a few white-coats, many women and children. No flags flew astern; the very lift of the oars told of disgrace and humiliation. Thus came Payan de Noyan with his garrison, prisoners on parole, sent down by the ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... young man has, as they say, his foot in the stirrup. Desplein did not fail to take Bianchon as his assistant to wealthy houses, where some complimentary fee almost always found its way into the student's pocket, and where the mysteries of Paris life were insensibly revealed to the young provincial; he kept him at his side when a consultation was to be held, and gave him occupation; sometimes he would send him to a watering-place with a rich patient; in fact, he was making a practice for him. The consequence was that in the course ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac

... publishing their correspondence with these societies, attributed a consequence to them infinitely beyond what they have had pretensions to:—a prophet, it is said, is not honoured in his own country—I am sure a Jacobin is not. In provincial towns these clubs are generally composed of a few of the lowest tradesmen, who have so disinterested a patriotism, as to bestow more attention on the state than on their own shops; and as a man may be an excellent patriot without the aristocratic talents of reading and writing, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... he had been less in love, he would have understood that the dealers, always quick to discern their customers' ideas, had blessed Heaven for sending them a tasteless little bigot, who would take their old-fashioned goods off their hands. So he comforted the pretty provincial. ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... But if he did it one time by mistake what would he do to go to confession? Perhaps he would go to confession to the minister. And if the minister did it he would go to the rector: and the rector to the provincial: and the provincial to the general of the jesuits. That was called the order: and he had heard his father say that they were all clever men. They could all have become high-up people in the world if they had not become ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... to be a credit to him in the more serious contests in the ring, but all showed an aptitude for wrestling and boxing, and the lanista was well content with this, as the games in the arena frequently commenced with these comparatively harmless sports, and in many of the provincial cities wrestlers and boxers were ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... of the educative influences of this period were the tours undertaken by the young Prince. In the autumn of 1856, accompanied by those who could best instruct him in the matters witnessed, he visited the great seats of industry in Provincial England including mills, ironworks, coal mines and engineering centres. In April 1857 he enjoyed a tour through the beautiful Lake region and especially appreciated the hill-climbing in Cumberland. During June he accompanied the Queen on a state visit ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... drew his sword beneath the Cambridge elm he stood forth as the first American, the best type of man that the New World could produce, with no provincial taint upon him, and no shadow of the colonial past clouding his path. It was this great quality that gave the struggle which he led a character it would never have attained without a leader so constituted. Had he been merely a colonial Englishman, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... rapid money-getting, when lavishness comes close on the back of want. In old-fashioned times an "independence" was hardly ever made without a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have found that quality in every provincial district, combined with characters as various as the fruits from which we can extract acid. The true Harpagons were always marked and exceptional characters; not so the worthy tax-payers, who, having once pinched from real necessity, retained even in ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... governor to waive his right to re-try the case, accepting their trial of it as sufficient, and content himself with the other half of his prerogative—the passing and the execution of the sentence. Sometimes provincial governors did so, either through indolence or out of compliment to the native authorities; and especially in a religious cause, which a foreigner could not be expected to understand, such a compliment might seem a boon which it was not unreasonable ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... had been sent him from the country by one of his fellow-clerks, and he had locked them up, lest Mr. Michael Penfold, who was much respected in the office, should see them. He could not say where they came from; perhaps from some provincial paper. If of any value to Miss Rolleston, she was quite at liberty to keep them. He added there was a coffee-house in the city where she could read all the London papers of that date. This letter, which contained a great many more words than the other, was submitted to Undercliff. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... circulate the bulletins, the arrival of which was in no way kept secret, among the American Press, and to see to it that they should be reproduced as fully as possible, which was done, especially in the provincial Press. ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... according to difference of country almost entirely fails. If applied as a principle of classifying manuscripts, or modes of exegesis, or liturgical uses, sufficient variety is exhibited to prove that the Christian church was a collection of provincial churches, each possessing its national peculiarity, each contributing to swell the general harmony by uttering its own appropriate note; but, when applied to the subject of apologetic, the method fails to show a difference in the ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... not become so arrogant and oppressive that the people will have no chance to express their views, as this may inspire hatred on the part of the people. The relation between the Central Government and the provincial centres is like that between the trunk and branches of a tree. If the branches are all withered, how can the trunk continue to grow? It is hoped that the Great President, while giving due consideration ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... two practical men, the brothers Robert, threw himself ardently into the investigation of the modes of inflating balloons with this gas, which was then called INFLAMMABLE AIR. Guessing that it was much lighter than that which Montgolfier had been obliged to make use of in his third-rate provincial town, Charles leagued himself with his two assistants to constrict a balloon of taffeta, twelve feet in diameter, covered with india-rubber, and ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... freebooters had shown the Macgregors of what materials their leader was composed. The black mail was a private contribution, often compulsatory, for the maintenance of the famous black watch, an independent corps of provincial militia, and so called from the colour of their dress, in contradistinction to the red soldiers, or leidar dearag. "From the time they were first embodied," writes General Stewart, "till they were regimented, the Highlanders continued to wear the dress of their country. This, as it consisted ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... and spread it on her garden wall to consult while I drank. "Why," she said, "you don't mean to say a little place like West Burton is marked on a map." This is the very antipodes of the ordinary provincial pride, which would have the world's axis project from the ground hard by the village pump. But pride of place is not, I ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... post on the mainland, was left with only a flat-boat to keep up his communication with the island. He had under his command the first battalion of the Seventy-first Highlanders, now much weakened in numbers, part of a Hessian regiment, some provincial volunteers, and a detachment of artillery, the whole not exceeding 500 effective men. Hearing that General Lincoln was advancing against him, Colonel Maitland sent all his sick, baggage, and horses across to the island, and placed the post as far as possible in a defensive ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... in slowly, and, excepting for the smaller provincial papers, treated him with an indifference that was worse than neglect. "This interesting novel by Mr. Westcott"—"A pleasant tale of country life by the author of 'Reuben Hallard.' Will please those who like a quiet agreeable ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... practically independent power. The proper comparison is rather between the English baronies of whatever rank and those continental feudal dominions which were formed by natural process half economic and half political, without definite delegation of sovereign powers, within or alongside the provincial countships, and this comparison would ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... approved of the remedy. He gave my father several letters of introduction to persons of consideration at Exeter; among others, one whom he justly described as a poet and a physician, and the best of men, the late Dr. Hugh Downman. Provincial cities very often enjoy a transient term of intellectual distinction. An eminent man often collects around him congenial spirits, and the power of association sometimes produces distant effects which even an individual, however gifted, could scarcely have ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... considerable sums yearly in relief for decayed members of the trade, the Licensed Victuallers having also a residential Asylum for a number of their aged members or their widows in Bristol Road.—The journeymen printers opened a branch of the Provincial Typographical Association Oct. 12, 1861, though there was a society here previously.— The first local union we find record of was among the knights of the thimble, the tailors striking for an increase in wages ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... not commercial. John Gilpin's fate is typical of those who would carry things on horseback in bottles. Like words, however, potsherds enlighten us more about frontiers and contrasts than about uniformities. They are terribly provincial and tell their tale with a twang. We can trace our Bandkeramik and Schnurkeramik and Urfirnissmalerei and all that sort of technological idiom, across the map, as we can trace the centum and satem languages. ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... twelvemonths before, which at that time promised to become a profitable financial speculation. The manager, Colonel Smyth, he informs us, originally a landed proprietor, and a man of good family in England, had been, before the troubles, master of one of his Majesty's provincial mints, and by virtue of his office an honorary privy councillor. On the breaking out of the civil war he commanded a regiment in the king's service, but, at its termination, fled with hundreds of others into France, from whence he came to Jersey, ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley

... her was of medium height, with light close-cut hair, hollow cheeks that seemed to have been lately scraped with a razor, and light gray troubled eyes. A suit of cheap black, ill fitting, hastily acquired, and provincial even for Pineville, painfully set off these imperfections, to which a white cravat in a hopelessly tied bow was superadded. A terrible idea that this combination of a country undertaker and an ill-paid circuit preacher on probation was his best holiday tribute to her, and not a funeral ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... commonly thus designated from a minor possession, during his father's lifetime. Whatever, in things of this sort, used to be practised among the French noblesse, might be traced, till very lately, in the customs of the Scottish provincial gentry.—- J.G.L. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... provincial Bishops who are under a Primate or Metropolitan; but the word now is applied especially to assistant Bishops, such as the Bishop of Bedford, ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... your say, Eester," said the husband, using the provincial pronunciation of America for the name, and regarding his noisy companions, with a look of habitual tolerance rather than of affection. "But the birds you shall have, if your own tongue don't frighten ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... When he was a child, he had once been patted on the head in his father's shop by no less a man than Samuel Johnson, as the Doctor went round the Borough canvassing for Mr. Thrale; and the child was true to this early consecration. 'A life of lettered ease spent in provincial retirement,' it is thus that the biographer of that remarkable man, William Taylor, announces his subject; and the phrase is equally descriptive of the life of Edward Barron. The pair were close friends, 'W. T. and a pipe render everything agreeable,' ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the beginning of the new era in American business organization. This war found the American people isolated and provincial. It left them with a new feeling ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... a blue capote with cape attached, garrisoned the citadel. They were brave and loyal to the Republic, and the object of deep grudge to the Chicos, for they were Basques of the towns. Many of these provincial militiamen had come in from the small pueblos in the neighbourhood, where they ran the risk of being eaten up by "the bhoys;" and this was the only accession to the population which redeemed the dismal, tradeless port from the appearance ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea



Words linked to "Provincial" :   one-horse, rustic, parochial, unsophisticated, province, jerkwater, bumpkinly, Roman Catholic, bucolic, Western Church, Church of Rome, cottar, insular, poky, moujik, peasant



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