local

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈləʊ.kəl/, US /ˈloʊ.kəl/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English localle,^[2][3] borrowed from Late Latin locālis (“pertaining to a place”), partly through Old French local,^[4][5][6] from Latin locus (“place, spot”),^[4][7] earlier stlocus.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pertaining to position, and in medicine “confined to one part of the body”: 1392.^[5][4][6]

Semantic evolution

In theology local meant “relating to position in space” from 1485.^[9] The sense “limited to a particular place” is from about 1500,^[4] and the application to a small district and its inhabitants from the late 17th century.^[10] Local colour was a painters' term in 1721, and came to mean anything picturesque about 1900;^[4] local option (1868) was a temperance term for a community's right to ban the sale of liquor.^[4] The noun meant a medicine applied to one part of the body in the early 15th century.^[4] It came to mean an inhabitant of a place in 1824 or 1825,^[5][4] a newspaper item about local matters in 1869, a stopping train in 1879, a branch of a trade union in 1888, and a neighbourhood pub in 1934.^[4][5] Localize (1792) is first found in Mary Wollstonecraft.^[5] Locale is the French noun local with an e added to show the change in pronunciation, as in morale.^[10][11]

Timeline

• 1392 – adjective, of position; of one part of the body.^[5]
• early 15th century – noun, a local remedy.^[4]
• 1485 – of position in space.^[9]
• c. 1500 – limited to a particular place.^[4]
• 1721 – local colour.^[4]
• 1792 – localize (Wollstonecraft).^[5]
• 1824 – noun, a local inhabitant.^[5]
• 1879 – a local train.^[4][5]
• 1888 – a union branch.^[4]
• 1934 – the local pub.^[4]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Belonging to or typical of a particular place.
2. Of a town or district rather than a larger area: local government.
3. Not general or widespread.
4. (medicine) Affecting one part of the body: a local anaesthetic.
5. Of a train or bus, stopping at all or most stations; not express.

Noun

1. A person who lives in a particular place.
2. A local train or bus.
3. A local branch of an organization, especially a trade union.
4. (British) A pub near one's home.

Word family

• locally
• localness
• localism
• locality
• localize
• interlocal
• localise
• localite

Related words

• locate
• location
• locative
• locator
• locus
• locale
• allocate
• dislocate
• locomotive

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press