WordCodex

main

See also: Main, mäin, and -main

main - English

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: mān, IPA: /meɪn/
  • Homophones: mane, Maine

Adjective

main (not comparable)

  1. Of chief or leading importance; prime, principal.
  2. Chief, most important, or principal in extent, size, or strength; consisting of the largest part.
    • Synonym: largest
    • main timbers
    • main branch of a river
    • main body of an army
  3. (archaic, of force, strength, etc.) Full, sheer, undivided.
  4. (dialectal) Big; angry.
  5. (nautical) Belonging to or connected with the principal mast in a vessel.
  6. (obsolete) Great in size or degree; important, powerful, strong, vast.

Derived terms

Terms derived from main (adjective)

Translations

Adverb

main (comparative more main, superlative most main)

  1. (Britain, dialectal) Exceedingly, extremely, greatly, mightily, very, very much.

Verb

main (third-person singular simple present mains, present participle maining, simple past and past participle mained)

  1. (transitive, slang) Short for mainline (“to inject (a drug) directly into a vein”).
  2. (transitive, gaming) To mainly play a specific character or side, or with specific equipment, during a game.
    • He mains the same character as me in that game.
    • What race do you main and what is your favourite race to beat?
    • For new players, I recommend maining the dagger and using the axe as a backup weapon.
  3. (obsolete) To convert (a road) into a main or primary road.

Noun

main (plural mains)

  1. That which is chief or principal; the chief or main portion; the bulk, the greater part, gross.
    1. (video games) The primary character that one plays in a video game in which one can play more than one character.
      • Antonym: alt
      • My WoW main has reached level cap and I’m on my way getting my first alt there as well.
  2. A large cable or pipe providing utility service to an area or a building, such as a water main or electric main.
  3. (informal) Short for main course (“the principal dish of a meal”).
    • I had scampi and chips for my main and a slice of cheesecake for dessert.
  4. (now poetic) The high seas.
  5. (now archaic, US dialectal) The mainland.
  6. (nautical) Short for mainsail.
  7. (obsolete, except in might and main) Force, power, strength, violent effort.

Derived terms

Terms derived from main (noun)

Translations

  • Bulgarian: основна част f (osnovna čast)
  • Danish: hoved-
  • Bulgarian: главна тръба f (glavna trǎba)
  • Danish: hovedledning c
  • Finnish: pääjohto
  • German: Hauptleitung f
  • Khmer: បំពង់ធំ (bɑmpʊəng tʰom)
  • Manx: ard-phiob f
  • Finnish: iso (fi)
  • Swedish: store (sv) c (usually in the definite form)

Noun

main (plural mains)

  1. (obsolete, gaming) A hand or match in a game of dice.
  2. (obsolete, gaming) The largest throw in a match at dice; in the game of hazard, a number from one to nine called out by a person before the dice are thrown.
  3. (obsolete, gaming) A stake played for at dice.
  4. (obsolete, gaming, sports) A sporting contest or match, especially a cockfighting match.
  5. A banker's shovel for coins.

Noun

main (plural mains)

  1. (obsolete, rare) A basket for gathering grapes.

Anagrams

main - Cimbrian

Alternative forms

Determiner

main (plural main, bon/dar maindarn) (Sette Comuni)

  1. (attributive) my
    • De main muutar ist noch jung. ― My mother is still young.
    • An zun bon maindarn ghéet noch suul. ― My son still goes to school. (literally, “A son of mine still goes to school.”)
    • Maina muutar! ― My mother!
  2. (predicative) mine
    • De khua ist main. ― The cow is mine.

Usage notes

The following rules apply to all Sette Comuni Cimbrian possessive determiners:

  • They are inflected by number and gender in only exclamations (i.e. vocative case).
  • Before nouns, they are inflected for number only and follow the corresponding definite article (a form of dar).
    • The plural ending is -en, or -∅ when the pronoun itself ends in -n.
  • Predicatively, they are uninflected and the definite article is not used.
  • Following bon (“of”) or dar (the only surviving trace of a genitive definite article; used for all numbers and genders) they end in -darn.

Inflection

Inflection of main
masculine feminine neuter plural
maindar maina maines maine
These inflections are only used in exclamations.

main - Dalmatian

Pronoun

main

  1. (first-person singular pronoun, oblique case) me

main - Finnish

Noun

main

  1. instructive plural of maa

Anagrams

main - French

Pronunciation

Noun

main f (plural mains)

  1. hand
  2. (soccer) handball
  3. (poker) hand
  4. quire

Synonyms

Meronyms

Holonyms

Derived terms

Descendants

  • →? English: main
  • →⇒ German: Lamäng
  • Haitian Creole: men
  • Louisiana Creole: men
  • ⇒ Mauritian Creole: lame

Anagrams

main - Indonesian

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /main/
  • Hyphenation: main

Verb

main (bermain)

  1. to play

Derived terms

main - Javanese

Verb

main

  1. to gamble

main - Kaiep

Noun

main

  1. woman

main - Malay

Pronunciation

  • (Johor-Selangor) IPA: /maen/
  • (Riau-Lingga) IPA: /maɪn/

Verb

main (Jawi spelling ماءين, used in the form bermain)

  1. to play

Derived terms

Regular affixed derivations:

  • pemain (“player”) [agentive / qualitative / instrumental / abstract / measure] (peN-)
  • mainan [resultative / locative / collective / variety / verbal noun / fruit] (-an)
  • main-main [reduplication] (redup)
  • permain [causative passive] (peR-)
  • permainkan [causative passive + causative benefactive] (peR- + -kan)
  • mainkan [causative benefactive] (-kan)
  • maini [causative (locative) benefactive] (-i)
  • memain [agent focus] (meN-)
  • memainkan [agent focus + causative benefactive] (meN- + -kan)
  • dimain [patient focus] (di-)
  • dimainkan [patient focus + causative benefactive] (di- + -kan)
  • termain [agentless action] (teR-)
  • bermain [stative / habitual] (beR-)

Descendants

main - Middle English

Noun

main

  1. Alternative form of mayn

Adjective

main

  1. Alternative form of mayn

main - Middle French

Noun

main f (plural mains)

  1. (anatomy) hand

Descendants

main - Norman

Alternative forms

  • man (continental Normandy)
  • môin (Guernsey)

Noun

main f (plural mains)

  1. (Jersey, anatomy) hand

Derived terms

  • dé (“finger”)

main - Northern Sami

Pronoun

main

  1. locative plural of mii

main - Old French

Alternative forms

Noun

main f (oblique plural mainz, nominative singular main, nominative plural mainz)

  1. (anatomy) hand

Descendants

main - Old Irish

Noun

main

  1. Alternative spelling of mainn

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
RadicalLenitionNasalization
main also mmain after a proclitic main pronounced with /ṽ(ʲ)-/ unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

main - Tok Pisin

Verb

main

  1. to play

main - Welsh

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /mai̯n/
  • Homophone: maen (South Wales)

Adjective

main (feminine singular main, plural meinion, equative meined, comparative meinach, superlative meinaf)

  1. slender, thin
  2. fine

Mutation

Welsh mutation
radicalsoftnasalaspirate
main fain unchanged unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
Meaning and Definition of main
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