| 释义 |
mainland|ˈmeɪnlənd, -lænd|
Forms: see main a. and land n.1; also 4–5 Sc. manland.
[See main a. 4. Cf. ON. megenland.]
1. a. That continuous body of land which includes the greater part of a country or territory, in contradistinction to the portions outlying as islands or peninsulas. † Formerly occas. = land as opposed to sea, terra firma; also in ME. poetry, great extent of country, wide territory.
1375Barbour Bruce iii. 389 And then he thocht, but mar delay, In-to the manland till arywe. a1400Morte Arth. 427 And merke sythene over the mounttez in-to his mayne londez. Ibid. 4071 This was a mache vn-mete,..To melle with that multitude in thase man londis. c1470Henry Wallace x. 1015 Na man was left all this mayn land [= Scotland] within. a1490Botoner Itin. (Nasmith 1778) 153 Insula Prestholm..distat a le mayn lond circa spacium duarum arcuum. 1511Sir R. Guylforde Pilgr. (1851) 11 There be ij. stronge castelles stondynge upon two rokkes..and the Turkes mayne lande lyeth within .ij. or .iij. myle of theym. 1527R. Thorne in Hakluyt Voy. (1589) 253 It appeareth the said land that we found and the Indies to be all one maine land. 1530Palsgr. 242/1 Mayne⁓land, terre ferme. 1535Stewart Cron. Scot. (1858) I. 100 Befoir wes medow and mane land, Quhair now is nocht bot salt water and sand. 1600E. Blount tr. Conestaggio 2 It contains in circuit 850 miles, whereof 400 run along the Sea shore, the rest is maine land. 1604E. G[rimstone] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies i. vi. 20 The Isles of Acores, Cape Verd and others,..are not above three hundred leagues or five hundred from the Mayne land. 1719De Foe Crusoe i. xv, Friday, the weather being very serene, looks very earnestly towards the main land. 1838Thirlwall Greece II. xii. 83 The ancient æolian cities on the main-land..amounted to eleven. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 168 Pillars of chalk have thus been separated from the mainland.
b. Applied to the largest island of the Shetlands and to the largest island of the Orkneys (Pomona).
1596Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. I. 63 Pomonia, quhilke is of sik a boundes that the inhabitouris calles it the mayne land. 1822Scott Pirate i, That long, narrow, and irregular island, usually called the Mainland of Zetland. 1846McCulloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) I. 315 There are about a dozen principal islands: Pomona, or the mainland, being decidedly the largest.
c. Canad. That part of British Columbia on the mainland of Canada, as opposed to Vancouver Island.
1921Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 26 Mar. 5/4 Vancouver Island has done a great deal to support the Mainland in the past, and is doing so at present. The Mainland is no good to us.
d. The continent of Australia, as opposed to Tasmania.
1934T. Wood Cobbers xiii. 164 They are tied to Australia—‘the mainland’, they call it... ‘The mainland’ is an object of suspicion, envy, and dislike. 1944Living off Land v. 102 So far as malaria is concerned, there's not much of it on the mainland. 1958C. Koch Boys in Island 15 He lived in an island. At six years old he knew about that. He heard it at school, and knew about it from Uncle Charlie's talk about the Mainland, Australia. 1968G. Dutton Andy 200 Soon as I blew from the boob, I headed down for the Old Tassy... I'll get over on the Mainland soon, or up the islands.
e. N.Z. colloq. The South Island.
1949Journeys XXXIV. 56 I'm sure South Islanders are right in claiming that they live on the ‘mainland’. 1965Weekly News (Auckland, N.Z.) 10 Feb. 3/1 Greater numbers of adventurous North Islanders than ever before have crossed the seas this summer to the ‘mainland’.
2. a. attrib.
1810Scott Lady of L. iii. xii, When it [sc. the boat] had neared the mainland hill. 1867Syme's Eng. Bot. (ed. 3) VII. 49 Extending east to Sussex and mainland Hants. 1895Westm. Gaz. 24 Oct. 4/2 The possible recognition by mainland Powers of the Cubans as belligerents.
b. Special combs., as mainland China, the People's Republic of China, as opposed to Taiwan; hence mainland Chinese.
1967Guardian 14 July 5/3 She lived in Hongkong and..visited Japan, Korea, and what is known as ‘Mainland China’. 1972Korea Herald 17 Nov. 2/2 (caption) Chiao Kuanhua, first vice foreign minister of mainland China is greeted Tuesday by David Scotfox on behalf of Alec Douglas-Home at London airport. 1973J. Goodfield Courier to Peking iii. 42 Teh Chang..went to mainland China... He was from Hong Kong. 1975Times 3 Mar. 14/5 Mainland China is about to fight back against..the degenerate Hong Kong cult of violence, Kung fu.
1966C. E. Israel Hostages 38 World War III won't begin..until everyone has a chance to see what happens when the Mainland Chinese take their seat in the General Assembly. 1972W. Garner Ditto, Brother Rat! xxi. 159 Chinese, right? Mainland Chinese, too, I'd say.
†3. (See quot.) Obs.
1686Plot Staffordsh. ix. 341 A mixt sort of land, either of Clay and Gravel, or Clay and Sand..this..they call in the Moorelands their Main-land, which is indeed the best they have.
Hence ˈmainlander, a dweller on the mainland.
1860Palfrey Hist. New Eng. II. 359 The mainlanders and the islanders. 1882A. J. Evans in Archæologia XLVIII. 17 We find a self-governing community, waging war with the Illyrian mainlanders. 1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 56 A thing that differentiates them more than any other characteristic from the mainlanders. 1941Baker Dict. Austral. Slang 45 Mainlander, a person living on the Aust. continent, in contrast to one living in Tasmania or an island dependency. 1966Tribune (Palmerston North, N.Z.) 1 Apr. 8/7 It's great what a pause in the wrong place does to the meaning of a phrase. Judging by a news announcer on Tv. the other night we can now lay claim to being Mainlanders. The news item doesn't matter but in the script were the words ‘Palmerston, North Otago’. 1969Times (Taiwan Suppl.) 9 Dec. p. iii/2 Taiwan's population today is 13.6m.—10.1m. native-born Taiwanese and 3.5m. mainlanders. 1971Guardian 5 Nov. 21/3 If the mainlanders do not deliver on the current promises, the Taiwanese will be further disillusioned. |