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Retain vs Main - What's the difference?

retain | main |

As a verb retain

is to keep in possession or use.

As a noun main is

.

retain

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To keep in possession or use.
  • * Milton
    • Be obedient, and retain / Unalterably firm his love entire.
  • * 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
    • A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually thinking of Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desperate as he felt this image fading from his memory in spite of all efforts to retain it. Yet every night he dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. He drew near her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell into decay in his arms.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}
  • To keep in one's pay or service.
  • * Addison
    • A Benedictine convent has now retained the most learned father of their order to write in its defence.
  • To employ by paying a retainer.
  • To hold secure.
  • (obsolete) To restrain; to prevent.
  • (obsolete) To belong; to pertain.
  • * Boyle
    • A somewhat languid relish, retaining to bitterness.

    Synonyms

    * keep

    Related terms

    * retainer, retention

    Anagrams

    * *

    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.
    • 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)
  • 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

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    Anagrams

    *

    External links

    * 1000 English basic words ----