parochial
adjective
Did you know?
In the Greek of the New Testament, the word paroikia means "temporary residence in a foreign land" and comes from the Greek word for "stranger": paroikos. Early Christians used this designation for their colonies because they considered heaven their real home. But temporary or not, these Christian colonies became more organized as time went on. Thus, in Late Latin, parochia became the designation for a group of Christians in a given area under the leadership of one pastor—what we came to call a parish in the 14th century. Both parish and its related adjective parochial were borrowed at that time directly from Anglo-French terms that had been derived from the Late Latin. We didn't begin to use parochial in its "narrow" sense until the mid-19th century.
Synonyms
Examples of parochial in a Sentence
Jedediah Purdy, New York Times Book Review, 22 Feb. 2009
There is no patience for the parochial, the small-time, the stay-in-place, not in Los Angeles.
—Richard Hoffer, Sports Illustrated, 8 Sept. 2008
… during the mid-1780s, Madison had two great goals. The first was to inculcate an enlightened sense of national interest in legislators whose political instincts were innately parochial.
—Jack N. Rakove, Original Meanings … , 1996
our pastor and other parochial leaders
voters worried about their own parochial concerns
Saleem H. Ali, Forbes, 3 Nov. 2024
Slipknot have since gone multi-platinum, founded their own music festival, and stretched far beyond their parochial metal scene into persistent cultural relevance.
—Emma Madden, Vulture, 31 Oct. 2024
It’s driven by Netanyahu’s narrow, parochial, domestic political calculations, driven by messianism and, frankly, the fascistic and often genocidal outlook of his more extreme right-wing partners.
—Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2024
How can a place be at once so cosmopolitan and so parochial?
—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for parochial 
Dictionary Entries Near parochial
Cite this Entry
“Parochial.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parochial. Accessed 23 Nov. 2024.
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parochial
adjective
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parochial
adjective
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