main
part of speech
adjective (main); noun (a main, mains)
meaning for a pupil
1) Main means the most important or the biggest one, like the main road or the main idea. tree →
2) A main is a large pipe or cable that carries water, gas or electricity to buildings. tree →
3) The mains is the electricity supply from the wall sockets. tree →
4) In British English, a main or main course is the biggest part of a meal. tree →
5) Long ago, main could mean very or greatly, as in "I would main like to go." tree →
sense in the lessons
In reading and writing lessons, the main idea is what a text is mostly about, and the main character is the most important person in a story. In maths, the main question in a word problem is what you must find. In safety, mains electricity is strong enough to kill, so never poke things into sockets; a burst water main floods streets. Phrases: main idea, main character, main road, main course, mainly, the main thing, in the main.
examples
- Moreover, if the y was originally a vowel only and had no sound of g, as main- tained by Jerome, it can have only one vowel sound. (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
- What is the main idea of this paragraph? tree →
- Harry is the main character in the book. tree →
- Turn left onto the main road. tree →
- The main thing is that nobody got hurt. tree →
- For my main course I'll have fish. tree →
- A water main burst and flooded the street. tree →
- Never touch mains electricity. tree →
- The main entrance is at the front of the school. tree →
- Yet its main incidents occur with frequency in Continental folk-tales. tree →
note
As an adjective, main always goes before the noun: «the main door», never «the door is main». Adverb: mainly (mostly). Do not confuse with «mane», the long hair on a horse or lion (same sound). The Main is also a river in Germany.
In the corpora
- Long extra explanations can hide mistakes, even when the main answer is right.
- Jumping spiders hunt by sight with two big front eyes; many see colour, and their main eyes can swivel inside the head.
- Rabies is a virus carried in the spit of infected animals, and in many countries street dogs are the main source.
- Sousliks are a main food for steppe eagles, imperial eagles and steppe polecats, so when souslik colonies disappear these hunters disappear too.
- A summary tells the main events in a few words, not every detail.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «main» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.