Etimology
From Middle English local, from Late Latin locālis (“belonging to a place”), possibly also via Old French local; ultimately from Latin locus (“a place”). The ring-theoretic senses derive from Krull, who first referred to Noetherian commutative rings with a unique maximal ideal as "Stellenring" (Stellen (“place”) + ring) in 1938. The term was inspired by algebraic geometry, where local rings encode information about the behavior of curves (surfaces, etc.) at points; hence, describe "local" behavior.
adjective
local (comparative more local, superlative most local)
From or in a nearby location.
(computing, of a resource) Connected directly to a particular computer, processor, etc.; able to be accessed offline.
(computing, of a variable or identifier) Having limited scope (either lexical or dynamic); only accessible within a certain portion of a program.
(mathematics, not comparable, of a condition or property) Applying to or satisfied by substructures understood as "near points;" in particular:
(mathematics, not comparable, of a condition or property) Detectable from the behavior of substructures understood to be "near points;" in particular:
(algebra, of a ring) Having a unique maximal (left) ideal.
(medicine) Of or pertaining to a restricted part of an organism.
Descended from an indigenous population.
Examples
Holonyms: statal, national, federal, unional, supranational, global
We prefer local produce.
Not unnaturally, “Auntie” took this communication in bad part. […] Next day she […] tried to recover her ward by the hair of the head. Then, thwarted, the wretched creature went to the police for help; she was versed in the law, and had perhaps spared no pains to keep on good terms with the local constabulary.
A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer. A supplier many miles away would then take the part to the local matternet station for airborne dispatch via drone.
Antonym: remote
local disk drive
local file
The panel shows both local and remote sites.
Antonym: global
A Hausdorff space satisfying local compactness need not be compact!
Flatness is a local property.
Synonym: topical
local lesion
The patient didn't want to be sedated, so we applied only local anesthesia.
Hawaiian Pidgin is spoken by the local population.
noun
local (plural locals)
A person who lives near a given place.
A branch of a nationwide organization such as a trade union.
(rail transport) Clipping of local train.
(British) One's nearest or regularly frequented public house or bar.
(programming) A locally scoped identifier.
(US, slang, journalism) An item of news relating to the place where the newspaper is published.
(colloquial, medicine) Clipping of local anesthetic.
(finance) An independent trader who acts for themselves rather than on behalf of investors.
(fandom slang, derogatory) A Twitter user who is not a part of Stan Twitter.
Examples
It's easy to tell the locals from the tourists.
Taunton station is busy - even more so when the inbound working of my Bristol train arrives, laden with the usual mix of 'staycationers' and locals.
I'm in the TWU, too. Local 6.
The expresses skipped my station, so I had to take a local.
Synonym: stopper
Antonyms: fast, express
I got barred from my local, so I've started going all the way into town for a drink.
As they take me to my local down the street.
Functional programming languages usually don't allow changing the immediate value of locals once they've been initialized, unless they're explicitly marked as being mutable.
Globals are visible anywhere in your application, whereas locals are visible only in the function in which they're declared.
Well, Mr. Dalton, you may add nine staples to your dossier of thirty‐one broken bones, two bullet wounds, nine puncture wounds and four steel screws. That’s an estimate, of course. I’ll give you a local.
Synonym: floor trader
On most futures exchanges, there are two major types of futures traders/members: commission brokers and locals.
Her camera roll is filled with pictures and videos of her idol, she doesn't let any of her friends see her account because "no locals allowed", […]
Locals are characterised by their seeming lack of involvement or ~expertise~ on the platform.
Heck, even locals sometimes use GIFs of her when they feel like tweeting with taste.
adverb
local (comparative more local, superlative most local)
In the local area; within a city, state, country, etc.
Examples
It's never been more important to buy local.
Coca-Cola, for example, shifted its stance, unsuccessfully, between “think global, act global” and “think local, act local” during the tenures of three different CEOs in the late 1990s and early 2000s.