small town meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

small-town

adjalso spelled small-town

Etymology small + town

Pertaining to a small town; provincial.

He was brought up in the 350s and 360s in small-town North Africa.2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 301:

noun

A small (generally rural) town.

I went to heaven,– / ’T was a small town, / Lit with a ruby, / Lathed with down.a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “I went to heaven”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, Second Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1891, page 196:
There's only one good use for a small town / You hate it—and you know you'll have to leave1990, Lou Reed, John Cale, “Smalltown”, in Songs for Drella: