mainstream

Pluralmainstreams (some meanings)

Formsmainstreams, mainstreaming, mainstreamed

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The common ideas, tastes, or trends shared by most people; the accepted norm.

   Once a fringe belief, the practice has moved firmly into the mainstream.

   Independent films rarely reach the mainstream without a major distributor behind them.

   Oppositefringe

   Note

   The noun usually comes with the. Ideas sit outside of the mainstream, and companies move into the mainstream. An of-phrase narrows the norm to one field or place: the mainstream of contemporary architecture, the mainstream of America. George H. W. Bush used that second phrase in a 1988 presidential debate when he claimed to be "in touch with the mainstream of America."

2. 2
   adjective

   Accepted or used broadly by most people, rather than by only small groups, markets, or communities.

   Streaming services are now the mainstream way to watch television.

   Ideas once dismissed as radical have entered mainstream political debate.

   Similarconventional, popular, standard, orthodox

   Oppositefringe, alternative, niche, marginal

   Note

   A river lies behind this adjective. It comes from main plus stream, the principal current of the literal flow, and has a cognate in Icelandic meginstraumur. It compares regularly (more mainstream, most mainstream) and pairs naturally with nouns like media and science. Rim-Sarah Alouane sets it beside the noun for the norm in a 2022 sentence: if Le Pen looks more mainstream, the mainstream looks more like her.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To make an idea, product, or practice widely popular and accepted.

   Television advertising helped mainstream once-niche fitness trends.

   Activists worked for years to mainstream the recycling habit.

   Similarpopularize, normalize

   Oppositemarginalize

   Note

   The causative verb draws something in from the margins. It takes a direct object, often with into marking the destination: to mainstream hardcore bangers into civic society. The object need not be admirable, and Charlie Warzel writes in The Atlantic of X "mainstreaming the worst constituencies." When the verb takes no object and the thing itself becomes common, it belongs to its intransitive partner.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To become widely popular and accepted by the general public.

   Once mocked, the style slowly mainstreamed over a single decade.

   Plant-based diets continue to mainstream across the country.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   The principal current in a moving body of water or air, such as a river or wind.

   The barge stayed in the mainstream where the water ran deepest and fastest.

   Warm air rises through the mainstream of the updraft at the storm's core.

6. 6
   verbUStransitive

   To educate a student with disabilities alongside students without disabilities in regular classes.

   The district chose to mainstream children with mild learning disabilities into regular classrooms.

   Specialists helped mainstream the student after months of careful preparation.

   Similarintegrate, include

   Oppositesegregate

   Note

   An American schoolroom term, used of placement and policy. The student is the object and the family or school is the one acting, so the participles carry much of the load. Barbara Gerbasi, writing in The New York Times in 1985 under the title "Mainstreaming My Son," knew of no child as disabled as hers "who had been mainstreamed." The -ing form also names the practice itself.

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