territorial.

1. Relating to a defined area or its governance.

2. Inclined to guard a space, resource, or responsibility against intrusion.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• territorial boundary
• territorial jurisdiction

On the page

The dispute concerned territorial jurisdiction over the islands.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Relational sense normally non-gradable; behavioral sense comparative more territorial, superlative most territorial. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: character, behavior. Commonness: moderately common.