Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, supported by, or located in a parish.
- adj. Of or relating to parochial schools.
- adj. Narrowly restricted in scope or outlook; provincial: parochial attitudes.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to a parish: as, a parochial custom.
- Local; provincial; narrow.
Wiktionary
- adj. Pertaining to a parish.
- adj. Characterized by an unsophisticated focus on local concerns to the exclusion of wider contexts; elementary in scope or outlook.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to a parish; restricted to a parish.
- adj. Limited; narrow; having or characterized by narrow interests centered on oneself or one's local community; narrow-minded; provincial.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. narrowly restricted in outlook or scope
- adj. relating to or supported by or located in a parish
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman parochial and its source Late Latin parochialis, an alteration of paroecialis ("of a church province"), from paroecia, from Hellenistic Greek παροικία (paroikia, "stay in a foreign land") , later “community, diocese”, from Ancient Greek πάροικος (paroikos, "neighbouring, neighbour"), from παρα- (para-) + οἶκος (oikos, "house"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin parochiālis, from parochia, diocese; see parish. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“No one makes this point better than Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, who often discusses the power of storytelling and its capacity to bring us outside and beyond what she calls our parochial "circles.”
The Huffington Post: Joseph Smigelski: Film Review: Just Like Us
“Music director Alexander Platt said the name change also "transcends" what he called the parochial competition that occasionally occurs between Milwaukee and Waukesha.”
Jacksonville Business News - Local Jacksonville News | Jacksonville Business Journal
“His patronizing view of peasants, with their relative advantage in parochial skills, is quite common.”
I'll Defend IQ, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Not at all – most of as working class or lower middle class kids were privately educated in parochial schools that our parents scrimped to pay for, then benefited from the public colleges in our states.”
“No matter how wide-ranging their selections, American festivals — New York, Chicago, San Francisco, even Sundance — remain parochial events, but Cannes is bigger than the city that bears its name.”
“My friends in parochial school remained status quo.”
“He drew attention to Powell's remarks last week at a convention of minority journalists that he was obliged as secretary not to take part in "parochial debate.”
“Ncube was also critical of South African journalists, whom he described as parochial and ignorant about the region and the rest of the continent.”
“Informing this celebration of the parochial is that peculiar product of the Romantic era, a rhetoric of English nationhood that attempts to dissociate national feeling from precisely the widened circle of sympathy with which we might otherwise associate one's love of one's country.”
“But Fitzmyer's answers lack the brevity and the certainty, the Thomistic elegance and the sometimes cinematic splendor, of the answers that I learned as a child in parochial school, of the vaguely more sophisticated answers I received at subsequent times in my education, and of the answers that, frankly, one still hears from the pulpit.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘parochial’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pabouche, pabulous, pabulum, pacable, pace, pachydermia, pachyglossal, pachymeter, pachynsis, paciferous, pacificate, pactolian and 1766 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
replete, steeped, eminent, indiscriminate, voracious, automaton, prognosticate, technology, abound, matron, tinge, compound and 297 more...
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beautiful words
phantasmagoric, basorexia, sapiosexual, nomophobia, procrastination, resuscitate, onomatopoeia, serendipity, cataglottism, parochial, humbug, spelunking
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GRE Study guide
Going through the Magoosh website, words I pulled from the verbal section. 2012.
magnanimous, correlate, anglicized, simulacrum, tantamount, obsequiousness, subterfuge, vehement, vociferous, benign, concomitant, veracity and 83 more...
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DAY8_01/11/2013
People You Wouldn't Want To Meet _AND_ Religious Words
syncretic, ecclesiastical, parochial, jaundice, jejune, bilious, choleric, Sanguine, martinet, curmudgeon, misanthrope, reprobate and 8 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1832 more...
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GRE Reference
A list of words unfamiliar to me that I have repeatedly encountered in GRE question sets.
parochial, clique, salacious, aegis, ostracize, conceited, sacrilegious, inane, serendipity, gourmand, polemic, tenuous and 138 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
tatterdemalion, panopticon, idioglossia, hypnagogue, hypnopomp, defenestration, anacoluthon, scofflaw, affront, edifying, palimpsest, naufrage and 475 more...
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Advanced Words: Part II
facetious, felicitous, grandiloquent, germane, repatriate, exigency, exculpate, etheral, fatuous, heterogeneous, hiatus, idiosyncrasy and 118 more...
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Need to Know!
elicit, educe, refute, cogency, churlish, martinet, veritable, polyglot, dissemble, histrionics, prevarication, verbiage and 166 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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My Revised GRE Preparation List
Words from the new GRE : This list consists mostly of words from the book Magoosh-GRE-vocab-ebook, which is one of the best vocab materials available, especially if you have started preparing one ...
alacrity, prosaic, veracity, paucity, contrite, trite, maintain, laconic, pugnacious, disparate, egregious, innocuous and 533 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for parochial.

SouvikDubey mnemonics view from a parrots eye that is parochial Aug 7, 2012
dailyword Father Ted used this word when he was giving a policeman his address after looking at a couple in the process of making love. Jun 10, 2012
alejinha Patriotic Sep 19, 2010