little town vs small town (2025)

This text is from TOEFL.

In 1769 in a little town in Oxfordshire, England, a child with the very ordinary name of William Smith was born into the poor family of a village blacksmith.

Can I substitute "small" for "little" to mean the same thing?

Goooodman said:

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Can I substitute "small" for "little" to mean the same thing?

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Maybe. The connotations of "small town" and "little town" aren't necessarily the same, although "the meaning" is more or less the same.

Goooodman said:

Can I substitute "small" for "little" to mean the same thing?

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Why would you want to?

I'd call it a village, as, amongst others, do britainexpress.com and oxfordshirevillages.co.uk.

Yes, Churchill in Oxfordshire is a village; it is not a town.

I presume that the writer thought that "little town" and "village" were synonyms and chose the former so as not to repeat the same term as in "village blacksmith".

It's worth noting that TOEFL is an American exam. Given the linguistic and cultural differences in people's understanding of concepts such as 'town' between the UK and the US, it's not surprising that the odd inaccuracy should creep in.

Wordy McWordface said:

[...]

It's worth noting that TOEFL is an American exam. Given the linguistic and cultural differences in people's understanding of concepts such as 'town' between the UK and the US, it's not surprising that the odd inaccuracy should creep in.

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In the US, "a little town" sounds a bit precious or literary; "a small town" is very common (and carries all kinds of social and political baggage). We tend not to use "village" except in certain special cases (Greenwich Village, Old Sturbridge Village), although in some states "village" has a specific legal meaning.

The Newt said:

In the US, "a little town" sounds a bit precious or literary; "a small town" is very common (and carries all kinds of social and political baggage).

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Yes, I suspect the American writer made a deliberate choice here.

They may have been avoiding the US-centric connotations of 'small town' and chose instead to sound quaint, British and old-fashioned: hence the rather precious phrase 'little town'.

tunaafi said:

Why would you want to?

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I just want to know whether they mean the same thing.

Hello everyone,

As far as I understand then, it's always safe to use 'small' and say, for example, 'I live in a small town'. If I say 'I live in a little town', different people might interpret it differently. Some would think it sounds childish, some would think it's probably incorrect. Is that right?

Thank you, nice people.

"Little" is more emotive, but it can sound childish on occasion.

"Little" is often paired with another adjective, and that is unremarkable.

I would make a distinction here:
I live in a small village.
I live in a pretty little village. ("A pretty small village" would mean something different.)

velisarius said:

"Little" is more emotive, but it can sound childish on occasion.

"Little" is often paired with another adjective, and that is unremarkable.

I would make a distinction here:
I live in a small village.
I live in a pretty little village. ("A pretty small village" would mean something different.)

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Thank you so much! This is so interesting and helpful. Would 'I live in a pretty small village' mean 'I live in quite a small village' then? Would it be incorrect to use it to mean 'in a beautiful small village'? Or is the meaning different, and I don't understand it right?

By definition, villages are small, and so you don't need to say it. But in 'a beautiful little village', 'little' adds an emotive element, and suggests that the village is pretty/charming/quaint etc.

Cross-posted, but replying to post #13.

heypresto said:

'little' adds an emotive element

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but not always positive I think - a poky little village has little to recommend it, for example.

velisarius said:

I live in a small village.

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To me, this describes a group of a few houses that is almost a hamlet rather than a village.

velisarius said:

I live in a pretty little village.

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The village is small and attractive. (A positive version of "twee".)

velisarius said:

("A pretty small village" would mean something different.)

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The village is quite/fairly small but still recognisable as a village.

Small town:
AE: See Newt at #7: There is a very specific noun phrase "Small town America". It describes a group of houses, settlement, or township that is a distance from similar places and is distinguished by having traditional social values. The population is irrelevant to the use or the size of "town". See https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article24694813.html

"in popular culture dating back more than a century, small-town America is a place where the people go to church, work hard and help one another in ways unknown in the cities and suburbs of America."

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BE: A settlement usually with some industry and with a population of between, say, 8,000 and 40,000. There is no information about the social values. There is no equivalent "small-town UK/Britain/England/Wales, etc".

Here are the opening lines of a song by John Mellencamp, where small fits the rhythm but also the idea.

🎶
Well, I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Probably die in a small town

As said above, we don't generally have anything we call villages in everyday English in the US (perhaps in Alaska). (There are some states with legal entities called villages but in Illinois that's based on the form of government and not the size or quaintness or location. One of those "villages" has 60,000 people and is in the urban/suburban area of Chicago surrounded by miles of other suburbs.)

So we have cities and towns in everyday English in the US*, and towns can be all different sizes. If someone says "I come from an itty bitty little town in Montana" it might be what somebody in the UK would consider a village in nature. But in the song I quoted above, "small town" does have a cultural meaning as well as being a reference to size. It represents a way of life. It's part cliche and part truth. Using "little" in that spot wouldn't have that same nuance.

* Most of those "towns" are likely cities in the legal sense. If they are chartered by the state they are a city in most places, even if they have only 500 people.

heypresto said:

'Oh great big town of Bethlehem' would work.

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Or "small-ish town"

'Tiny town' alliterates nicely. Or 'teen(s)y town'.