different between province vs locale

English

Etymology

From Middle English provynce, from Anglo-Norman province, Middle French province, from Latin pr?vincia (“territory brought under Roman domination; official duty, office, charge, province”), from Proto-Indo-European *pr?w- (“right judge, master”). Cognate with Gothic ???????????????????????? (frauja, “lord, master”), Old English fr?a (“ruler, lord, king, master”). See also frow.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p??v?ns/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p??v?ns/

Noun

province (plural provinces)

1. A region of the earth or of a continent; a district or country. [from 14th c.]
   • 1859, Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species:

     We should find, as we do find, some groups of beings greatly, and some only slightly modified […] in the different great geographical provinces of the world.

2. An administrative subdivision of certain countries, including Canada and China. [from 14th c.]
   • 2016, The Guardian, 4 May:

     All of Fort McMurray, with the exception of Parson’s Creek, was under a mandatory evacuation order on Tuesday, said Robin Smith, press secretary for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo in the Canadian province [of Alberta].

3. (Roman history) An area outside Italy which is administered by a Roman governor. [from 14th c.]
   • 2008, Mark Brown, The Guardian, 28 November:

     He reminded his audience of events in 88BC, when the same Mithridates invaded the Roman province of Asia, on the western coast of Turkey.

4. (Christianity) An area under the jurisdiction of an archbishop, typically comprising a number of adjacent dioceses. [from 14th c.]
   • 1838, The Churchman, p. 44:

     In 1309, neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor his suffragans would attend in Parliament while the Archbishop of York had the cross borne erect before him in the province of Canterbury.

5. (Roman Catholicism) An area under the jurisdiction of a provincial within a monastic order.
6. (in the plural, chiefly with definite article) The parts of a country outside its capital city. [from 17th c.]
   • 1937, The Guardian, 1 April:

     To-day the first part of the new Indian Constitution comes into force with the granting of a large measure of autonomy to the provinces.

7. An area of activity, responsibility or knowledge; the proper concern of a particular person or concept. [from 17th c.]
   • 1984, Dorothee Sölle, The Strength of the Weak: Toward a Christian Feminist Identity, page 37:

     Just as money is the province of the economy and truth the province of science and scholarship, so love is the province of the family (Niklas Luhmann).

Usage notes

Province is the generic English term for such primary divisions of a country, but is not used where another official term has widespread use, such as France's regions and departments, Switzerland's cantons, or America's and Australia's states. Territories and colonies are sometimes distinguished from provinces as unorganized areas of low or foreign population, which are not considered an integral part of the country. Sovereign subdivisions of a larger whole, such as the principalities of the former Holy Roman Empire or the countries with the European Union, are likewise not usually described as provinces.

Synonyms

• (principal subdivision of a state): circuit, tao, dao, route, lu (imperial and early Republican China)

Coordinate terms

• canton (Swiss); county (British); department (French); oblast (Russian); state (USA, Australian); voivodeship (Poland)
• shire
• territory

Derived terms

• provincehood
• Provincetown
• provincewide

Related terms

• provincial

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: provins

Translations

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin pr?vincia. Doublet of Provence.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p??.v??s/

Noun

province f (plural provinces)

1. province
2. the countryside (of France), the French regions (other than the Parisian region), provincial France

Related terms

• provincial

Further reading

• “province” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Noun

province f pl

1. plural of provincia

Synonyms

• provincie

Middle English

Noun

province

1. Alternative form of provynce

Middle French

Noun

province f (plural provinces)

1. province (subdivision of a territory)

Descendants

• French: province
• ? Middle English: provynce, provynse, province, provyns
  • English: province
    • Tok Pisin: provins
  • Scots: province

References

• province on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)

Old French

Alternative forms

• provinz, pruvince

Noun

province f (oblique plural provinces, nominative singular province, nominative plural provinces)

1. province (subdivision of a territory)

Descendants

• Middle French: province
  • French: province
  • ? Middle English: provynce, provynse, province, provyns
    • English: province
      • Tok Pisin: provins
    • Scots: province
• Norman: provînche, provinche

References

• province on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (province, supplement)

Walloon

Noun

province f (plural provinces)

1. province

English

Etymology

From French local (adj), nominal use of the adjective.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /l???k??l/
• Rhymes: -??l
• (US) IPA^(key): /lo??kæl/
• Rhymes: -æl

Noun

locale (plural locales)

1. The place where something happens.

   Being near running water and good shade, the explorers decided it was a good locale for setting up camp.

2. (computing) The set of settings related to the language and region in which a computer program executes. Examples are language, currency and time formats, character encoding etc.
3. (mathematics) A partially ordered set with the following additional axiomatic properties: any finite subset of it has a meet, any arbitrary subset of it has a join, and distributivity, which states that a binary meet distributes with respect to an arbitrary join. (Note: locales are just like frames except that the category of locales is opposite to the category of frames.)

Hyponyms

• (mathematics): spatial locale

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?.kal/

Adjective

locale

1. feminine singular of local

Italian

Etymology

From Late Latin loc?lis, loc?lem, from Latin locus.

Adjective

locale (plural locali)

1. local

Noun

locale m (plural locali)

1. room

Related terms

• località
• localizzare
• localmente
• locare
• locativo
• luogo

Anagrams

• alcole

Latin

Adjective

loc?le

1. nominative neuter singular of loc?lis
2. accusative neuter singular of loc?lis
3. vocative neuter singular of loc?lis

References

• locale in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)