non-localadj.n.
/nɒnˈləʊkl/, U.S. /nɑnˈloʊk(ə)l/ A. adj.
1. That is not local (in various senses); not relating to, originating from, or restricted to a particular place or locality.
ΚΠ
1864 R. Burton Dahome II. 136 A belief so abstract as Monotheism, asomatous and non-local.
1908 Westm. Gaz. 3 Feb. 2/2 He has in three weeks done all that any non-local candidate could do.
1965 Eng. Stud. Apr. 140 Non-local forms of their names can hardly..affect the outcome of an investigation.
1973 H. L. Nieburg Culture Storm xi. 211 First-hand experience and interpersonal communications coexist with the stream of information in which the individual recognizes nonlocal events as dangers and opportunities.
1996 Cycle Touring & Campaigning Apr. 59/1 Harriet Harman, Tony Blair, and now even the latter's senior schools advisor have all recently been criticised for their decision..to sent their children to non-local schools.
2. Mathematics and Physics. Designating an operation or property of a topological space that is not applicable only to a specified neighbourhood in the space; (spec. in quantum theory) relating to the phenomenon whereby properties of isolated systems which are not causally related classically or relativistically may depend on each other.
ΚΠ
1938 Amer. Jrnl. Math. 60 468 This non-local elimination will be carried out by using a theorem on almost periodic functions.
1954 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 223 468 By ‘theories with non-local interactions’ we shall here understand equations in which the point interactions of the usual, ‘local’, field theories are replaced by integral expressions..in order to avoid singularities.
1969 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 313 187 The infinitesimal generators of this semi-group provide us with the required relationship between local physical quantities and and the non-local operators S(x,y).
1981 Math. of Computation 37 261 The method involves a reformulation of the problem on a bounded domain with a nonlocal boundary condition.
1998 New Scientist 22 Aug. 27/3 What happens in one part of the Universe can have instantaneous ‘nonlocal’ consequences in other parts, no matter how far away they might be.
B. n.
A person who does not inhabit, or is not associated with, a particular place or locality.
ΚΠ
1944 J. B. Speer Fancyclopaedia 33/2 The first fanzines were club organs, published mainly for members and a few non-locals who might be interested.
1969 C. Jencks & D. Riesman Acad. Revol. iv. 167 The less affluent students are also more likely to attend publicly subsidized institutions that discourage non-locals from applying. Conversely, colleges with an upperclass outlook have seldom been able to recruit enough ‘suitable’ students locally.
1989 Washington Post (Electronic ed.) 25 Aug. The metro area has become, according to some locals, the best place in the country to play table tennis, or, according to non-locals, at least a very good place to play.
2002 Guardian 10 June i. 14/8 Today a police chief from Palos Verdes, south of Los Angeles, is to meet a representative of the world's leading surfers' organisation in a bid to ensure that chasing away non-locals from good surfing beaches, known as localism, and fighting over the same wave, known as surf rage, do not get out of control.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1864