Township
noun ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The territory of a town.
"The train is usually crowded and half the township of Forres seems to turn out to watch it go off."
- 2 an administrative division of a county wordnet
- 3 A subdivision of a county. Canada, US
- 4 An area set aside for nonwhite occupation. South-Africa
"In addition, the council has completed the planning of a new Coloured township on the site of the existing African township."
- 5 A nonwhite (usually subeconomic) area attached to a city. South-Africa
"Growing up in the township of Zwide, just outside Port Elizabeth, bed for Kolisi was a pile of cushions on the living-room floor and finding enough to eat was a daily struggle. […] So, the man from the townships can certainly empathize with the pain lockdown is inflicting on the less fortunate in his country."
Show 1 more definition
- 6 A small town. Australia, New-Zealand
Example
More examples"Lucy was the shyest and most beautiful of all the girls in the land, and Caroll was the bravest and noblest of all the boys in the township."
Etymology
From Middle English towneship, townschip, tounshipe, tunscipe, from Old English tūnsċipe (“the inhabitants of a town; township”), equivalent to town + -ship.
Related phrases
More for "township"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.