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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

Main Street en · PROPN

Pronunciation

Etymology

The street name sense is by proprialization from main street. The everyday-people sense is by metonymy.

Meanings

  1. The proper name of the main street of any of many villages, towns, or small cities, especially in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and some parts of Scotland.
    • Near-synonym: High Street (esp. UK)
  2. (Canada, US, collective, idiomatic) Everyday working-class people and small business owners, especially with regard to their concerns, social views, etc.
    • Near-synonyms: High Street (UK); precariat, proletariat, working class, middle class
    • Thanks to a $700 billion TARP bailout and hundreds of billions of dollars in nearly free of charge loans by the Federal Reserve (a policy Soros himself told me was a "hidden gift" to the banks), Wall Street has surged back to pre-crisis levels of compensation even as Main Street continues to struggle. 2011 January–February, Chrystia Freeland, “The rise of the new global elite”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 20 Dec 2015:
    • Main Street will never accept such fashions.

Coordinates

Bay Street · Wall Street · Sand Hill Road

Deriveds

SoMa · South Main · Main · mainstreeting

Relateds

man on the street · word on the street · on the street

Synonyms

High Street · High Street · common man · everyman · precariat · working class · middle class · proletariat

Translations (10)

ru Центральная улица (generic name of a primary street) · kmr rêya serekî (generic name of a primary street) · fi valtakatu (generic name of a primary street) · fr rue principale (generic name of a primary street) · sv Storgatan (generic name of a primary street) · de Dorfstraße (generic name of a primary street) · bg Главна улица (generic name of a primary street) · pl główna ulica handlowa w mieście (generic name of a primary street) · de Hauptstraße (generic name of a primary street) · mi waharoa (generic name of a primary street)