Main vs Mother - What's the difference?
main | mother |
(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= *{{quote-book, year=1935, author=
, 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= 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.
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 :
* 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.
A hand or match in a game of dice.
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.
A (human) female who (a) s a child (b) gives birth to a baby (c) donates a fertilized egg or (d) donates a body cell which has resulted in a clone. Sometimes used in reference to a pregnant female, possibly as a shortened form of mother-to-be.
* 1988 , Robert Ferro, Second Son ,
* 1991 , (Susan Faludi), The Undeclared War Against American Women ,
A female parent of an animal.
(figuratively) A female ancestor.
* 1525 , ,
* 1844 , , Fragment on the Church , Volume 1,
(figuratively) A source or origin.
* 1606', '', Act 4, Scene 3, '''1866 , George Steevens (editor), ''The Complete Works of William Shakespeare ,
* 1844 , , Fragment on the Church , Volume 1,
(when followed by a surname) A title of respect for one's mother-in-law.
(figuratively) Any elderly woman, especially within a particular community.
(figuratively) Any person or entity which performs mothering.
* The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel. –Judges
* Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. –Galatians
A film or membrane which is developed on the surface of fermented alcoholic liquids, such as vinegar, wine, etc., and acts as a means of conveying the oxygen of the air to the alcohol and other combustible principles of the liquid, thus leading to their oxidation.
The principal piece of an astrolabe, into which the others are fixed.
The female superior or head of a religious house; an abbess, etc.
(obsolete) Hysterical passion; hysteria.
To treat as a mother would be expected to treat her child; to nurture.
*
Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind.
(euphemistic, coarse, slang) Motherfucker.
(euphemistic, colloquial) A striking example.
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*
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As a noun main
is .As a proper noun mother is
one's mother.main
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), partly from (etyl) . More at (may).Adjective
(-)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.}}
George Goodchild
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.
Derived terms
* main drag * main roadAdverb
(en adverb)Etymology 2
From (etyl) , later also taking senses from the adjective.Noun
(en noun)Quotations
* (English Citations of "main")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)- (Prior)
- (Thackeray)
- (Ainsworth)
Statistics
*Anagrams
*External links
* 1000 English basic words ----mother
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) ).Noun
(en noun)- I am visiting my mother'''(a) today.'' — ''My sister-in-law has just become a '''mother'''.(b)'' — ''Nutrients and oxygen obtained by the '''mother (c) are conveyed to the fetus.
- He had something of his mother in him, but this was because he realized that in the end only her love was unconditional, and in gratitude he had emulated her.
- The antiabortion iconography in the last decade featured the fetus but never the mother .
- The lioness was a mother of four cubs.
- And Ada[Adam] called his wyfe Heua[Eve] because she was the mother of all that lyveth
page 17,
- But one in the place of God and not God, is as it were a falsehood; it is the mother falsehood from which all idolatry is derived.
- The Mediterranean was mother to many cultures and languages.
page 278,
- Alas, poor country: / Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot / Be call'd our mother , but our grave:
page 17,
- But one in the place of God and not God, is as it were a falsehood; it is the mother falsehood from which all idolatry is derived.
- Mother Smith, meet my cousin, Doug Jones.
5:7, KJV.
4:26, KJV.
- (Shakespeare)
Synonyms
* See also * metro-Antonyms
* (with regards to gender) father * (with regards to ancestry) daughter, son, childHypernyms
* (a female parent) parentCoordinate terms
* (a female parent) fatherDerived terms
* antimother * be mother * biological mother * birth mother * foster mother * grandmother, great-grandmother * Mother City * Mother Earth * motherfucker * Mothering Sunday * mother-in-law * motherland * motherload * mother lode * Mother's Day * mother-to-be * mother wit * motherwort * refrigerator mother * stepmother * surrogate motherVerb
(en verb)- She had seen fewer years than any of us, but she was of such superb Evehood and simplicity that she mothered us from the beginning.
References
*American Heritage Dictionary of the English LanguageFourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company 2003.
Etymology 2
Calque of Arabic .Noun
(en noun)- "The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun." — (Saddam Hussein)