mainline
Noun pluralmainlines
Verbmainlines, mainlining, mainlined
Pluralmainlines
Formsmainlines, mainlining, mainlined
- 1Being the usual, most important kind, not a side or minor one.
Like the main road that most cars use, not the small side streets.
Most mainline political parties rejected the proposal.
The company stuck to its mainline products instead of risky experiments.
Similarmainstream
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- 2The main railway track between big stations, used by most trains.
Like the main highway that most cars take between cities.
The mainline runs straight through the center of the city.
Trains on the mainline were delayed by the storm.
- 3Belonging to the main railway track between big stations.
Like things that belong to the big main road, not the small side streets.
The mainline station was crowded with commuters.
They built a new mainline platform last year.
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- 4
- 5The main part of an airline that flies its own planes, not its small partner airlines.
Like the main store of a company, not its smaller helper shops.
The mainline flies the big jets between major cities.
Pilots hoped to move from the small partner airline up to the mainline.
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- 6
- 7The main copy of a software project's code, which other versions are made from.
Like the original recipe book that everyone else copies from.
Everyone copies their code from the mainline.
The fix was added to the mainline yesterday.
Similartrunk
- 8A large vein that drugs can be injected into.
He couldn't find a good mainline after years of injecting.
The nurse warned that his mainline was badly scarred.
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- 9
- 10Belonging to a normal ground-level railway, not an underground, raised, or light rail one.
Like a normal big train compared with a small city train.
The mainline trains are bigger than the subway cars.
She caught a mainline train instead of the light rail.
- 11Being part of the standard, most-trusted set of chess opening moves.
Like the most popular path up a mountain that most climbers take.
She studied the mainline moves of the opening for weeks.
His coach told him to learn the mainline reply first.
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- 12To put a prisoner in with the main group of inmates.
Like letting a new student join the main class instead of studying alone.
The warden decided to mainline the new inmate.
They mainlined him after a week in isolation.
- 13The main group of ordinary prisoners in a jail.
Like the main group of students at a school, not the few kept separate.
He was moved into the mainline after a month alone.
Life in the mainline is very different from solitary.
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- 14The main pipe that carries dirty water from a building to the public drains or a septic tank.
Like the big pipe that all the small pipes empty into.
The plumber found a blockage in the mainline.
Tree roots had cracked the mainline under the yard.
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- 15The long central fishing line that the smaller baited lines hang from.
Like a clothesline with lots of small hooks hanging off it.
The crew hauled in the mainline full of fish.
They attached hundreds of hooks to the mainline.
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- 16Alternative form of main line. It means the standard, best-play set of chess opening moves.
She memorized the mainline of the opening before the tournament.
His opponent deviated from the mainline early.
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Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From the words "main" and "line" joined together.