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Translation

province

Word origin

From Latin provincia, the territory a Roman magistrate was given to administer. The Latin word's own derivation is disputed and no account has won.

Origin
Latin
Root
provincia
English cognates
province, provincial, Provence

Other proposed origins

  • One long-standing proposal reads provincia as pro ('on behalf of') plus vincere ('to conquer'), a conquered territory held for Rome. (pro + vincere)
  • Another takes it from an unattested provincus tied to the vocabulary of legal claim rather than conquest, and treats the vincere link as folk etymology. (provincus)

Examples

.

The country has twelve provinces.

.

He was born in a small province in the north.

.

The capital of the province is old and beautiful.

is an administrative division below the level of the state: a Canadian province, a Spanish provincia, an Italian provincia. Keep it apart from , which is geographical and vague and does not imply a governor, and from , which is the sovereign thing or a federal member of one.

Like the English word, it carries a second, disparaging sense - the provinces as everywhere that is not the capital. o is a provincial in that social sense, and provinca in front of the wrong noun will be read as a slight.

No seam to look for. It is easy to see -inc- sitting inside the word and reach for the affix list, but Esperanto has no -inc- suffix; the nearest real ones are -- and --, and neither is present here. - is a single borrowed root, and the -inc- is just the middle of the Latin word.

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

provinco: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "provinco" (province): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 37.