Synonyms

small-town

American

[smawl-toun] / ˈsmɔlˈtaʊn /

adjective

of, relating to, or characteristic of a town or village.

a typical, small-town general store.
provincial or unsophisticated.

small-town manners.

Other Word Forms

small-towner noun

Etymology

Origin of small-town

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

That’s where Vachon, a small-town farm boy from French-speaking Quebec, came in.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 12, 2026

“The Scarlet Letter” has engraved Nathaniel Hawthorne’s name into our national psyche as a critic of tyrannical small-town morality.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026

Jared Keeso stars in this “Letterkenny” spinoff satirizing performative masculinity among a small-town Canadian hockey team.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 27, 2026

For now though, style and savings appear to have trumped concerns about sustainability, with many small-town Indians only just getting on to the fast-fashion bandwagon.

From BBC • Feb. 22, 2026

Gone were the small-town rhythms and the day of the waterman, replaced by connections to the larger world and the vitality of middle-class dreams.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023