mainland
nouncommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//ˈmeɪnlænd//
- United States//ˈmeɪnlənd//
- United States//-lænd//
- Australia//mæɪnlænd//
The continent; the principal land, as distinguished from islands or a peninsula.
noun
- 1
The continent; the principal land, as distinguished from islands or a peninsula.
[…]I got to the mainland, where, to my great comfort, I clambered up the cliffs of the shore and sat me down upon the grass, free from danger and quite out of the reach of the water.
You may have not realised when I was using the term mainland Europe, I was excluding the British Isles.
Other examples of nonhuman self-domestication in the wild exist—for instance, the Zanzibar red colobus monkey diverged from the mainland African red colobus in similar ways during its island isolation—but bonobos are the closest and most relevant to us.
- 2
The principal island of a group.
- 3
Great Britain.
All of the people I interviewed were from Protestant backgrounds, with proud British traditions. Yet when they set foot on the mainland, they were met at times with jeering, derision and othering from the very people with whom they were raised to believe they had the most in common.
Etymology
From Middle English mayne londe; equivalent to main + land. Compare Scots mayn-land, magan-land, madin-land (“mainland”), Faroese meginland (“mainland”), Icelandic meginland (“mainland”).
Forms
- plural
- mainlands
mainland · The continent; the principal land, as distinguished from islands or a peninsula.
Mainland · The largest island in the Orkney Islands council area, to the…mainly · Of a person or thing being the driving force influencing the…mainstream · Used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of…