township

noun

town·​ship ˈtau̇n-ˌship 

1

a

: town sense 5

b

: a unit of local government in some northeastern and north central states usually having a chief administrative officer or board

c

: an unorganized subdivision of the county in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont

d

: an electoral and administrative district of the county in the southern U.S.

2

: a division of territory in surveys of U.S. public land containing 36 sections or 36 square miles

3

: an area in the Republic of South Africa that was segregated under apartheid for occupation by persons of non-European descent

4

: an ancient unit of administration in England identical in area with or a division of a parish

Examples of township in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Jennifer Ping, the GOP member and vice chair of the Marion County Election Board, voted against adding 9 to 11 a.m. hours at the eight township early voting centers. —Brittany Carloni, The Indianapolis Star, 31 Oct. 2024

Tracy Carner, a 64-year-old seasonal maintenance worker who lives in East Springfield, a rural township in the county, is among the voters who backed Trump in 2016 but flipped to Biden in 2020. —Nina Turner, Newsweek, 30 Oct. 2024

This book is not only a retelling of the crime—a story that Till’s family, among others, has already published—but also a rich and wandering history of the township in which Till died: the few square miles of plantations that helped birth both the blues and the Ku Klux Klan. —The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2024

The location is about 40 miles from Marquette in the western part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and the township it was seen in was last reported to have a population of 262, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. —Darcie Moran, Detroit Free Press, 16 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 4

Kids Definition

township

noun

town·​ship ˈtau̇n-ˌship 

1

: a unit of local government in some northeastern and north central states

2

: a division of territory in surveys of U.S. public land containing 36 square miles (about 93 square kilometers)