Provincial vs Insular - What's the difference?
provincial | insular |
Of or pertaining to province; constituting a province; as, a provincial government; a provincial dialect.
Exhibiting the ways or manners of a province; characteristic of the inhabitants of a province.
* ,
Not cosmopolitan; countrified; not polished; rude; hence, narrow; illiberal.
* Ayliffe,
Of or pertaining to an ecclesiastical province, or to the jurisdiction of an archbishop; not ecumenical; as, a provincial synod.
(obsolete) Of or pertaining to Provence; Provencal.
* ,
limited in outlook; narrow
A person belonging to a province; one who is provincial.
(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 2010, p. 700:
A country bumpkin.
----
Of, pertaining to, being, or resembling an island or islands.
* 1836 , , Astoria , ch. 6:
Situated on an island.
* 1851 , , Moby-Dick , ch. 1:
Separate or isolated from the surroundings; having little interaction with external parties; provincial.
* 1903 , , Call of the Wild , ch. 1:
Having an inward-looking, standoffish, or withdrawn manner.
* 1905 , , Where Angels Fear to Tread , ch. 6:
Relating to the insula in the brain.
As adjectives the difference between provincial and insular
is that provincial is of or pertaining to province; constituting a province; as, a provincial government; a provincial dialect while insular is of, pertaining to, being, or resembling an island or islands.As nouns the difference between provincial and insular
is that provincial is a person belonging to a province; one who is provincial while insular is an islander.provincial
English
(Webster 1913)Adjective
(en adjective)- Provincial airs and graces.
- With two Provincial roses on my razed shoes.
Noun
(en noun)- The Franciscan provincial Diego de Landa set up a local Inquisition which unleashed a campaign of interrogation and torture on the Indio population.
insular
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- With these he held undisputed sway over his insular domains, and carried on intercourse with the chiefs or governors whom he had placed in command of the several islands.
- There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs.
- [H]e had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation.
- Harriet was fretful and insular . Miss Abbott was pleasant, and insisted on praising everything.