main streetn.
/ˈmeɪn ˌstriːt/, U.S. /ˈmeɪn ˌstrit/ 1. The principal street of a town, esp. in North America. Frequently without article, and as a proper name.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > means of travel > route or way > way, path, or track > street > [noun] > main
master streetc1385
high street1548
town-gate1570
main street1598
master way1726
the main drag1851
main drag1851
main stem1900
1598 J. Florio Worlde of Wordes Rióne, a maine streete, a high way.
1687 S. Sewall Diary (1878) I. 183 At night a great Uproar and Lewd rout in the Main Street.
1698 Rec. East Hampton, N.Y. (1887) II. 434 Ten Acres of Land..[bound] on the west with the Maine Street of the said Town.
1717 in Narragansett Hist. Reg. (1885) Apr. 279 In or through the Main street, called Hope street, in this town [sc. Bristol, R.I.].
1741–3 J. Wesley Extract of Jrnl. (1749) 117 They made no more stop 'till they had carried me thro' the main-street, from one end of the town to the other.
1810 F. Cuming Sketches Tour Western Country 194 Main street, parallel to Water street, is one hundred feet wide.
1855 Knickerbocker 46 328 Louisville is an imposing, wealthy city. Main~street, in its entire extent would do honor to any metropolis in America.
1888 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms II. iii. 54 Go on down Main Street (the first street in a diggings is always called Main Street).
a1911 D. G. Phillips Susan Lenox (1917) I. v. 70 After breakfast she went down Main Street.
1942 W. Faulkner Go down, Moses & Other Stories 234 Twenty years ago his father had ridden into Memphis.., up Main street and..into the lobby of the Gayoso hotel.
1968 Michelin Guide N.Y. City 78 Before the Revolution..Greenwich Street, which then bordered the Hudson and its warehouses, was ‘Main Street’.
1989 C. R. Wilson & W. Ferris Encycl. Southern Culture 55/1 New..community spaces are changing living patterns. An..example is the development of the shopping mall, which is replacing, or has replaced, main street.
2. figurative. The mediocrity, parochialism, or materialism regarded as typical of small-town life (esp. after Sinclair Lewis's novel Main Street, 1920).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > belief > expressed belief, opinion > bias, prejudice > narrow-mindedness > insularity, provincialism > [noun] > symbol of
main street1916
1855 N.Y. Tribune 31 Dec. 4/4 It has risen to its present position of bloated arrogance and swaggering insolence by the liberal and unstinting patronage it has received from the full purses and free hands of Eastern men in Main street and elsewhere.]
1916 ‘B. M. Bower’ Phantom Herd i. 5 You'll have to let me weed out some of these Main Street cowboys.
1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 9 Apr. 282/3 He dislikes uniformity, mass-control, Main-street and Rotarian ideals.
1972 B. Garfield Line of Succession (1974) 11. 126 The President..was an amalgam of liberal traditions..and the values of Main Street.
1992 Mother Jones Sept. 9/1 The Republican party..stretches from Main Street to Wall Street, encompassing complacent, small-town Babbits and corporate CEOs.
Derivatives
ˈMain Streeter n. a typical inhabitant of a small American town; a person who shares the values of Main Street (sense 2).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > belief > expressed belief, opinion > bias, prejudice > narrow-mindedness > insularity, provincialism > [noun] > person
localista1633
Podsnap1865
Main Streeter1934
1934 Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Main Streeter.
1945 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 6 Oct. 8/2 His books started some Americans laughing at others and made it possible for people to realize that somebody else was a Main Streeter.
1947 Time 27 Jan. 4/3 It has raised the hope of this Mainstreeter from Podunk to its highest ebb since the era of Wendell Willkie's ‘One World’.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2000; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1598