Word of the Day

: August 22, 2020

parochial

adjective puh-ROH-kee-ul

What It Means

1 : of or relating to a church parish

2 : of or relating to a parish as a unit of local government

3 : confined or restricted as if within the borders of a parish : limited in range or scope (as to a narrow area or region) : provincial, narrow

parochial in Context

The book is marred by the parochial viewpoint of its author, who fails to take into account the interplay between local and global economies.

"Her father, Joseph, a taxi driver who owned his cab, took a second job to pay tuition for the children to attend parochial school." — Melanie Burney, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 29 June 2020

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.