Also 5–6 localle, 5–7 locall, 6 locale. [a. F. local (= Sp., Pg. local, It. locale), ad. L. locāl-is, f. loc-us place.]
A. adj.
1. Pertaining to or concerned with ‘place’ or position in space. Now chiefly in local situation.
1485. Caxton, Chas. Gt., 1. And also in recountyng of hye hystoryes the comune vnderstondyng is better content to the ymag[i]nacion local than to symple auctoryte to which it is submysed. Ibid., Envoy 250. The ymagynacion locall.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., IV. xvii. (1634), 675, marg. A local presence of the body of Christ.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., V. i. 17 (1st Qo. Fisher, 1600), G 3. The Poets penne turnes them to shapes, And giues to ayery nothing, a locall habitation, And a name.
1659. Pearson, Creed (1839), 335. As to a local descent into the infernal parts they all agree.
1706. W. Jones, Syn. Palmar. Matheseos, 46. Some of these Powers have borrowed their Denominations from Local Extension.
1777. Priestley, Matt. & Spir. (1782), I. xix. 231. The Cartesians … maintain … that spirits have no extension, nor local presence.
1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), VI. 341. The local situation of the lands devised.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. v. 109. This change of local situation was at once a change of moral condition.
† b. Having the attribute of ‘place’ or spatial position. Obs.
1533. Frith, Answ. More (1548), 55. Ye Lord, whiche to shewe his humanite to be locall (that is to saye: contained in one place onely) dyd saye vnto his disciples. I ascende vnto my father. Ibid., 55 b. Howe dyd he ascende in to heauen, but because he is locall and a very man.
1565. Jewel, Replie Harding’s Answ., VI. 348. His [Harding’s] answeare is, that Christes bodie is Local onely in one place.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 734. Angels peraduenture at this daie are more aptly saide to bee locall or in place not circumscriptiuely, but definitiuely.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. ii. III. (1651), 246. [They] will have Hell a materiall and locall fire in the center of the earth.
1718. Prior, Solomon, I. 564. A higher flight the venturous goddess tries, Lenving material worlds, and local skies.
1729. Swift, Direct. Birthday Song, 272. That sound divine the truth has spoke all, And pawn’d his word, Hell is not local.
† c. Local motion, movement from place to place, motion of translation, locomotion. Obs.
1561. Eden, Arte Nauig., I. viii. 10. The elementes are … moueable by locall motion.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, xxiii. 208. Zoophytes … that is such creatures as though they goe not from place to place, and so cause a locall motion of their whole substance, yet in their partes, they haue a distinct and articulate motion.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. v. 831. It is certain, that cogitation, (phancy, intellection, and volition) are no local motions.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 34. Plants have no local or progressive Motion.
d. Grammar. Relating to place or situation.
1842. Jelf, Greek Gram., II. 230. [heading] Local Dative. Ibid. (1845), I. 296. [Adverbs] are divided into a. Local,… b. Temporal,… c. Modal [etc.]. Ibid., 298. The Local adverbs in ει, as … ἐκεῖ.
1889. E. A. Sonnenschein, Lat. Gram., § 348. Local Clauses. (Clauses of Place.)
e. Psychol. Local sign (after G. localzeichen): that element in a sensation that is the basis of our instinctive judgment as to its locality.
1874. J. Sully, Sensation & Intuition, 70.
1884. Bosanquet, trans. Lotze’s Metaph., 490.
2. Belonging to a particular place on the earth’s surface; pertaining to or existing in a particular region or district.
Local time: the time of day or night reckoned from the instant of transit of the mean sun over the local meridian.
? 14[?]. in Myrr our Ladye, p. xxi. Priuileges ordynary iniunccions localle statutes laudable custons decrees & al other ordynaunces.
1612. Selden, Illustr. Drayton’s Poly-olb., i. init. If in Prose and Religion it were as iustifiable, as in Poetry and Fiction, to inuoke a Locall power … I would therin ioyne with the Author.
1687. in Magd. Coll. & Jas. II. (O. H. S), 112. That College had the Bishop of Winchester for their Visitor Local.
1740. Pitt, Æneid, VIII. 461. The Swains the Local Majesty rever’d.
1792. Anecd. W. Pitt, II. xxix. 125. I have no local attachments; it is indifferent to me, whether a man was rocked in his cradle on this side or that side of the Tweed.
1833. Herschel, Astron., iii. 139. Two observatories … provided with accurate means of determining their respective local times.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., v. I. 612, note. Oldmixon, who was a boy at Bridgewater when the battle was fought,… was so much under the influence of local passions that his local information was useless to him.
1868. Gladstone, Juv. Mundi, ii. (1870), 31. The name Γραῖα … is only a local name of a settlement of … Boeotians.
1891. E. Peacock, N. Brendon, II. 313. Mr. Yeo, the local lawyer.
b. With restrictive force: Limited or peculiar to a particular place or places.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 170. Those ceremonies that are not locall, I willingly omit.
1781. Cowper, Retirement, 119. Truth is not local, God alike pervades And fills the world of traffic and the shades.
1811. Henry & Isabella, I. 3. Her ideas were as local as Andrew’s; and they neither of them seemed likely to disturb the brain of the other.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1868), I. i. 5. The importance of the struggle would have been more local and temporary.
1871. Morley, Carlyle, in Crit. Misc., Ser. I. (1878), 189. That letter (of the moral law) read in our own casual and local interpretation.
c. Belonging to a town or some comparatively small district, as distinct from the state or country as a whole. Local government, the administration of the affairs of a town (or other limited area) by its inhabitants, as distinguished from such administration by the state at large.
Local board: in England and Wales spec. (see quots. 1863 and 1901). Local Government Board: a department of State established in 1871, to act as the central authority for Local Government in England and Wales.
1688. Connect. Col. Rec. (1859), III. 439. The law that doth confirm or locall lawes.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., V. i. (1869), II. 402. The local or provincial expenses of which the benefit is local or provincial … ought to be no burden upon the general revenue of the Society.
1786. Burke, W. Hastings, Wks. 1842, II. 191. He the said Warren Hastings hath left the said troops, by his new treaty, without any local controul.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), I. 128. Such is the national importance which a merely local privilege may sometimes bestow.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, III. 279. The local government was involved in a discussion with the Supreme Court at the Presidency.
1860. Mill, Repr. Govt. (1865), 116/2. Among the duties classed as local, or performed by local functionaries, there are many which might with equal propriety be termed national.
1863. H. Cox, Instit., III. ix. 732–3. In the places and districts in which the [Local Government] Act is adopted, it is carried into execution by local Boards…. The local Boards have extensive powers of undertaking and regulating the drainage and cleansing of towns, the suppression of nuisances, and similar matters of police.
1880. E. Robertson, in Encycl. Brit., XI. 21. Local government repeats on a small scale the features of the supreme government, but its business is chiefly judicial and administrative.
1901. Fairlie, Munic. Administr., 69. An important change … was made by the Local Government Act of 1894…. The urban local boards are called Urban District Councils, and the term of office of the councillors is fixed at three years.
d. In various specific collocations. Local examination, the name given to certain examinations of boys and girls, held in a number of different places under the direction of a central board at one of the Universities. Local preacher (among the Methodists), a layman who is authorized to preach in the district in which he resides, as distinguished from the ordained itinerant ministers. Local rank (see quot. 1876). Local veto: the prohibition of the sale of liquors in a district, under the system of local option (see e); hence the nonce-wds. local-vetoist, -vetoism.
1772. Wesley, Wks. (1872), III. 476. A Justice levied a fine on a Local Preacher, on pretence of the Conventicle Act.
1858. Exam. Students Not Members Univ. Camb., 15. Notice for Local Examinations.
1861. 4th Ann. Rep. Delegacy (Local Exam.), 1. The Oxford Local Examinations for the year 1861 commenced on Tuesday, May 28.
1876. Voyle & Stevenson, Milit. Dict. (ed. 3), 327. Local rank, the rank given to an officer in her Majesty’s service serving in a foreign land with other troops, whereby he is placed in his proper position, as regards equality of rank, with those officers whose first commissions are of the same date, but who have been more fortunate in promotion.
1885. Min. Wesleyan Confer., 369. Our supply of Ministers is drawn from our Local-preachers.
1894. Sir W. Lawson, in Westm. Rev., 27 Sept., 4/3. What would happen if they, the Local Vetoists, got their bill?
1900. A. J. Balfour, in Daily News, 29 May, 2/5. Perhaps the hon. baronet would reverse his opinion about the infallibility of democracies, or even of local vetoism.
e. Local option. The right granted by the legislature of a country or state to the inhabitants of each particular district to decide whether the trade in liquor shall be prohibited within the district. Hence occas. by extension, the principle of allowing localities to decide for themselves whether they will accept or reject certain regulations. Hence Local optionism, the principle of local option; Local optionist, an advocate of local option.
1878. Samuelson, Hist. Drink, 218, note. The tendency of legislation seems to be towards ‘local option’ or ‘permissive prohibition.’
1880. Daily News, 28 Jan., 2/4. The Home Rulers, the Teetotallers, the Local Optionists.
1882. Encycl. Brit., XIV. 688/2. Those celebrated ‘local option laws’ which are in force in some of the United States. Ibid., 689/1. Such laws are in force in Massachusetts, New Jersey (which had the Chatham Local Option Law of 1871), New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Vermont.
1882. M. Arnold, Irish Ess., 174. Measures like that for granting Local Option, as it is called, for doing away the addiction of our lower class to their porter and their gin.
1901. Scotsman, 28 Feb., 6/3. The reluctance of the Welsh and Midland miners to admit the principle of local option.
3. Law. (In renderings of the AF. phrases chose local, trespas local.)
1598. Kitchin, Courts Leet, 180 b. Pur ceo que le chose est local, & annex al franketeñ.
1607. Cowell, Interpr., s.v. Chose, Chose locall is such a thing as is annexed to a place. For example: a mill is chose locall. [With reference to Kitchin.]
1708. Termes de la Ley, 419. An Action of Trespass for Battery, is transitory and not local, and therefore the place need not be … set down in the Declaration.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Trespass, Trespass local is that which is so annexed to the place certain, that if the defendant join issue upon a place, and traverse the place mentioned in the declaration, and aver it; it is enough to defeat the action.
4. Pertaining to a particular place in a system, series, etc., or to a particular portion of an object.
a. Pertaining to, or affecting, a particular part or organ of the body. Chiefly Med., of diseases, ailments, etc., and hence of remedies that are applied to such ailments.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Formul., R ij b. The fyrste shal be of the locall remedyes of hote apostemes.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., 25 b/2. The doctours make no mention of locale medicines in these diseases.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., IV. v. 244. Tell me you Heauens, in which part of his body Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there, That I may giue the locall wound a name.
1667. Milton, P. L., XII. 387. Dream not of thir fight, As of a Duel, or the local wounds Of head or heel.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Local Medicaments, those Remedies that are apply’d outwardly to a particular Place, or Part; as Plaisters, Salves, Ointments, &c.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Obs., 145. I employed only local means for their cure.
1813. J. Thomson, Lect. Inflam., 179. The Local or Topical treatment of inflammation.
1834. Cycl. Pract. Med., III. 49/1. The symptoms may be considered as local and general, the local being, principally, pain, tenderness, and tumefaction; the general, fever [etc.].
1874. J. Sully, Sensation & Intuition, 56. The exquisite delicacy of local sensibility, especially that of the retina.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 11. A local inflammation or hæmorrhage.
b. Electricity and Magnetism. Local action, action between different parts of a plate in an electric battery as distinguished from the general action of the battery. Local attraction (see quot. 1867). Local battery, local circuit (see quot. 1868). Local current, a current set up by local action; also, a current in a local circuit.
1841. Brande, Man. Chem. (ed. 5), 297. In the common battery … much local action takes place upon the zinc plates without contributing to the circulating forces.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Local attraction, the effect of the iron in a ship on her compasses; it varies with the position of a compass in a ship, also with that of a ship on the earth’s surface, and with the direction of the ship’s head.
1868. Culley, Handbk. Telegr. (ed. 3), 169. Local circuit, one which includes only the apparatus in the office, and is closed by a relay…. Local [battery], the battery of a local circuit.
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 101. We then work by local currents. Ibid. A local battery. Ibid., 102. In flowing through R′ it … completes the local circuit by which the local current flows from L′B′ through M′.
c. Arith. Local value: that value (of a numeral figure) that depends on its place or serial position.
1853. Barn. Smith, Arith. & Algebra (1857), 2. All numbers have a simple or intrinsic value, and also a local value.
d. Photogr. Local reduction (see quot.).
1892. Bothamley, Ilford Man. Photogr., viii. 68. Local reduction (i.e., reduction of parts of the image) can be effected by … applying a very weak solution of the ferricyanide.
e. Local colo(u)r: (a) Painting. The color that is natural to each object or part of a picture independently of the general color-scheme or the distribution of light and shade. (Now usu. collect. sing.: formerly the pl. was used.) (b) Hence, in works of art or literature: The representation in vivid detail of the characteristic features of a particular period or country (e.g., manners, dress, scenery, etc.), in order to produce an impression of actuality.
1721. Bailey, Local Colours, in painting, are such as are natural and proper for each particular Object in a Picture.
1782. J. T. Dillon, trans. Meng’s Sk. Art Paint., 76. The local tints of the flesh, in every part are admirably diversified. Ibid., 80. If Titian was happy in his tints, and the local colour of his objects, Correggio … exceeded him in [etc.].
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XIII. 599/2. The happy dispositions of colours both proper and local.
1821. Craig, Lect. Drawing, i. 15. The objects were all drawn … with a pen and … then thinly washed over with indications of their local colours.
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 8. The local colour, which is the self colour of an object, and what we mean when we talk of a ‘red coat’ or a ‘green field.’
1884. Sat. Rev., 22 Nov., 666/2. There are [in Doris] some capital pictures of the times of landlord shooting … without anything Irish in character, or dialogue, or local colour.
5. Pertaining to places (in the geographical sense) or to an individual place as such.
1605. Camden, Rem., Surnames (1614), 112. The most surnames in number, the most ancient, and of best account, haue bene local, deduced from places in Normandie and the coyntries confining.
1857. R. Morris (title), The Etymology of Local Names.
Mod. One of the most trustworthy of local etymologists.
6. Math. Pertaining to a locus. Local problem, a problem in which the object is to determine a geometrical locus.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., Local Problem.
a. 1865. Sir W. R. Hamilton, Elem. Quatern. (1899), I. 39. The degree of the function f, or of the local equation, marks (as before) the order of the curve [etc.].
B. sb. (absol. use of the adj.)
1. A person who is attached by his occupation, function, etc., to some particular place or district; an inhabitant of a particular locality. Chiefly pl.
1835. Hood, Poetry, Prose, & Worse, xxxv. How sweet to be drawn for the locals By songs setting valour a-gog.
1891. ‘H. Haliburton,’ Ochil Idylls, 148. Gang freely, fishers, by their banks, Baith foreign loons an’ locals.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 16 March, 1/3. He has been what is known in the legal world as a ‘local’—that is, he has confined his practice to courts of Lancashire, and has not taken up a professional abode in London.
1901. H. G. Hutchinson, in Longm. Mag., July, 236. We go to some ‘rough’ as the locals call it—ground of long grass … giving fine protection for partridges.
b. esp. A local preacher (see A. 2 d).
1824. Carr, Craven Dial., Gloss. 90. Local, a local preacher amongst the Methodists.
1889. T. E. Brown, Manx Witch, etc. 121. He cudn go on by the hour Like these Locals.
2. Something local.
a. An item of local interest in a newspaper; collect., local news, matter of local interest.
a. 1869. W. Carleton, Farm Ballads, Editor’s Guest, 36. So long as the paper was crowded with ‘locals’ containing their names.
1888. Barrie, When a Man’s Single (1900), 17/1. There’s a column of local coming in, and a concert in the People’s Hall.
b. A postage-stamp current only in a certain district. c. U.S. Postal matter bearing an address locally used but not known generally.
1870. Routledge’s Ev. Boy’s Ann., Feb. Suppl. 3/1. The apparently interminable Russian locals. Ibid. (1873), Jan. Suppl. 4. Russian and Egyptian Locals.
1882. U.S. Offic. Postal Guide, 681. Locals and nixes. Matter addressed to places which are not post offices is unmailable.
d. Telegraphy. A local battery or circuit (see A. 4 b).
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech.
e. A local train; a train that serves the stations of a particular district. (In recent Dicts.)
1902. Strand Mag., Jan., 74/2. He boarded the local in the morning.
f. A local examination (see A. 2 d).
1893. Athenæum, 4 Feb., 157/3. This [book] is intended mainly for students preparing for … the University Locals.
