Other forms: locals
Local means belonging to the area right around here. The local shop, local news, a local doctor, local people.
As a noun it means somebody who lives in the area — ask a local — and, in British English, your nearest pub: down the local. Both are informal and common. Note that local is relative and always needs a centre: local to what? A local call, a local train and a local anaesthetic all use the same idea of limited range. In computing, local means on this machine rather than on a server, which is the same idea again.
1adjectivelocalBelonging to the area nearby.
“The local shop stays open until ten.”
synonyms: nearby, neighbourhood
2nounlivesSomebody who lives in the area.
“Ask a local — they will know.”
3adjectiveaffectingAffecting only one part rather than the whole.
“It was done under a local anaesthetic.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
local is a relation to a place.
Latin localis comes from locus, a place — the same root as location, locate and locomotive, which is something that moves from place to place. Local has always meant of a place, without saying which.
Proto-Indo-European
*stel-
Old French
local
Latin
locālis — belonging to a place
Middle English
local
English, today
local
From Middle English local, from Latin locālis (“belonging to a place”), possibly also via Old French local; ultimately from Latin locus (“a place”). The local derive from Krull, who first referred to Noetherian commutative rings with a unique maximal ideal as "Stellenring" (Stellen + 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA