Main vs Primary - What's the difference?
main | primary |
(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.
The first in a group or series.
* Bishop Pearson
* John Locke
Main; principal; placed ahead of others.
(geology) Earliest formed; fundamental.
(chemistry) Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
(label) idiopathic
A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party.
The first year of grade school.
A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system.
A primary school.
* 2001 , David Woods, Martyn Cribb, Effective LEAs and school improvement
(ornithology) Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
A primary colour.
* 2003 , Julie A Jacko, Andrew Sears, The human-computer interaction handbook
(electronics) A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary
(US) To take part in a primary election.
(US, politics) To challenge an incumbent sitting politician for their political party's endorsement to run for re-election, through running a challenger campaign in a primary election
Primary is a synonym of main.
As adjectives the difference between main and primary
is that main is great in size or degree; vast; strong; powerful; important while primary is the first in a group or series.As nouns the difference between main and primary
is that main is strength; power; force; violent effort while primary is a primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party.As an adverb main
is very; very much; greatly; mightily; extremely; exceedingly.As a proper noun Main
is a river in southern Germany, flowing from Bavaria to the Rhine.As a verb primary is
to take part in a primary election.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 ----primary
English
(wikipedia primary)Adjective
(en adjective)- Children attend primary school, and teenagers attend secondary school.
- the church of Christ, in its primary institution
- These I call original, or primary , qualities of body.
- Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.
Derived terms
* primarily * primary care * primary color, primary colour * primary producer * primary research * primary school * primary sourceSee also
* first * primus inter pares * secondary (2) * tertiary (3) * quaternary (4)Noun
(primaries)- Excellence in Cities offers a further development of this approach, whereby secondary schools operate with small clusters of primaries as mini-EAZs.
- By adding and subtracting the three primaries , cyan, yellow, and magenta are produced. These are called subtractive primaries.