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Main vs Branch - What's the difference?

main | branch |

In nautical terms the difference between main and branch

is that main is the mainsail while branch is a certificate given by Trinity House to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.

As nouns the difference between main and branch

is that main is strength; power; force; violent effort while branch is the woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.

As proper nouns the difference between main and branch

is that main is a river in southern Germany, flowing from Bavaria to the Rhine while Branch is {{surname|lang=en}.

As an adjective main

is great in size or degree; vast; strong; powerful; important.

As an adverb main

is very; very much; greatly; mightily; extremely; exceedingly.

As a verb branch is

to arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.

main

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), partly from (etyl) . More at (may).

Adjective

(-)
  • (label) Great in size or degree; vast; strong; powerful; important.
  • * (Samuel Daniel) (1562-1619)
  • Principal; prime; chief; leading; of chief or principal importance.
  • * (John Tillotson) (1630-1694)
  • * , chapter=7
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.}}
  • *{{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild
  • , title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=5 , passage=By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.}}
  • Principal or chief in size or extent; largest; consisting of the largest part; most important by reason or size or strength.
  • * (John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Yesterday’s fuel , passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.
  • Full; undivided; sheer (of strength, force etc.).
  • * 1817 , (Walter Scott), , XII:
  • (label) Belonging to or connected with the principal mast in a vessel.
  • (label) Big; angry.
  • Derived terms
    * main drag * main road

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • Very; very much; greatly; mightily; extremely; exceedingly.
  • * 1799 , Samuel Foote, The works of Samuel Foote :
  • * 1840 , Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Leigh Hunt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The dramatic works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan :
  • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) , later also taking senses from the adjective.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • * Spenser
  • That which is chief or principal; the chief or main portion; the gross; the bulk; the greater part.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • * 1858 , Humphrey Prideaux, James Talboys Wheeler, An historical connection of the Old and New Testaments :
  • * Francis Bacon
  • * 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, page 90:
  • * 1624 , John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes (Meditation XVII):
  • * 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby-Dick :
  • * Dryden
  • A large pipe or cable providing utility service to a building or area, such as water main or electric main.
  • (label) The mainsail.
  • Derived terms
    {{der3, (large pipe or cable) gas main, mains (qualifier), water main , in the main , main brace , main drag , maincrop , mainframe , mainland , mainline, main line , mainmast , mainplane , mainsail , mainsheet , mainspring , mainstreet, main street , maintop , maintopmast}}

    Etymology 3

    ; compare (manual).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A hand or match in a game of dice.
  • (Prior)
    (Thackeray)
  • A stake played for at dice.
  • * Shakespeare, The First Park of King Henry IV
  • The largest throw in a match at dice; a throw at dice within given limits, as in the game of hazard.
  • A match at cockfighting.
  • * Thackeray
  • A main-hamper, or fruit basket.
  • (Ainsworth)

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    *

    branch

    English

    Alternative forms

    *

    Noun

    (es) (wikipedia branch)
  • The woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.
  • Any of the parts of something that divides like the branch of a tree.
  • the branch of an antler, a chandelier, a river, or a railway
  • (geometry) One of the portions of a curve that extends outwards to an indefinitely great distance.
  • the branches of a hyperbola
  • A location of an organization with several locations.
  • Our main branch is downtown, and we have branches in all major suburbs.
  • A line of family descent, in distinction from some other line or lines from the same stock; any descendant in such a line.
  • the English branch of a family
  • * Carew
  • his father, a younger branch of the ancient stock
  • (Mormonism) A local congregation of the LDS Church that is not large enough to form a ward; see .
  • An area in business or of knowledge, research.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Robert L. Dorit , title=Rereading Darwin , volume=100, issue=1, page=23 , magazine= citation , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}
  • (nautical) A certificate given by (Trinity House) to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.
  • (computer architecture) A sequence of .
  • Synonyms

    * (part of a tree) bough, tillow, twig, see also

    Verb

    (es)
  • To arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.
  • To produce branches.
  • To divide into separate parts or subdivisions.
  • (computing) To jump to a different location in a program, especially as the result of a conditional statement.