mainland

English

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”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪnlənd/, /-lænd/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪnlænd/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /mæɪnlænd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

mainland (plural mainlands)

1. The continent; the principal land, as distinguished from islands or a peninsula.
   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, , London: W Taylor , →OCLC:

     […] 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.

   • 2005, comment (not durably archived):

     You may have not realised when I was using the term mainland Europe, I was excluding the British Isles.

2. The principal island of a group.
3. (Northern Ireland) Great Britain.
   • 2024 February 10, Emma DeSouza, “The most effective cure for Northern Irish unionism? Attitudes in England”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     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.

Derived terms

• mainland China
• mainlander

Translations

Further reading

• mainland on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• almandin