What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Main vs Trough - What's the difference?

main | trough | Related terms |

Main is a related term of trough.


As nouns the difference between main and trough

is that main is while trough is a long, narrow container, open on top, for feeding or watering animals.

As a verb trough is

to eat in a vulgar style, as if eating from a trough.

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

    *

    Anagrams

    *

    External links

    * 1000 English basic words ----

    trough

    English

    (wikipedia trough)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A long, narrow container, open on top, for feeding or watering animals.
    • One of Hank's chores was to slop the pigs' trough each morning and evening.
  • Any similarly shaped container.
  • # (Australia, New Zealand) A rectangular container used for washing or rinsing clothes.
  • Ernest threw his paint brushes into a kind of trough he had fashioned from sheet metal that he kept in the sink.
  • A short, narrow canal designed to hold water until it drains or evaporates.
    • There was a small trough that the sump pump emptied into; it was filled with mosquito larvae.
  • (Canada) A gutter under the eaves of a building; an eaves trough.
    • The troughs were filled with leaves and needed clearing.
  • (agriculture, Australia, New Zealand) A channel for conveying water or other farm liquids (such as milk) from place to place by gravity; any ‘U’ or ‘V’ cross-sectioned irrigation channel.
  • A long, narrow depression between waves or ridges; the low portion of a wave cycle.
    • The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.
    The neurologist pointed to a troubling trough in the pattern of his brain-waves.
  • (meteorology) A linear atmospheric depression associated with a weather front.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To eat in a vulgar style, as if eating from a trough
    • he troughed his way through 3 meat pies.

    References

    * Oxford English Dictionary Online

    See also

    * crib * ditch * trench