Chief, most important, or principal in extent, size, or strength; consisting of the largest part.
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main timbers
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_:vb7015330
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main branch of a river
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main body of an army
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Not uninvented that, which thou aright / Beleivſt ſo main to our ſucceſs, I bring; […]
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1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 470–471:
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The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. […] It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.
dcterms:bibliographicCitation
2013 August 3, “The Future of Oil: Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist[1], volume 408, number 8847, archived from the original on 1 August 2013: