Definition of "parochial"

But for men of principle and honour and straightforward thought there could be no middle course and no paltering with petty issues of party or parochial advantage.

1918 1st of February, Daniel Desmond Sheehan, “Why I Joined The Army”, in Daily Express, London

Its atmosphere might have been provincial, but it was never merely parochial.

1969, T.C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830, page 341

The society had apparently been formed the previous year, but as the Cheltenham Spa Railway Society, which sounded rather parochial and unambitious - particularly as (by all accounts) its founders had gathered in a garden shed in the town.

2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques Cheltenham (1928)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 60

If the vast majority of the citizens of our Southeast Asian countries are subjects rather than parochials, the question is: are they also participants?

2006, Ian Marsh, Democratisation, Governance and Regionalism in East and Southeast Asia

Australia is divided between cosmopolitans and parochials.

2022, Sumeyya Ilanbey, Daniel Andrews