| 释义 |
Main Street, main street
[main a. 8 b.]
a. The principal street of a town, esp. in the U.S.; freq. used as a proper name.
In quots. 1598–1743 preceded by an article and not a special collocation.
[1598Florio Worlde of Wordes 327/2 Rióne, a maine streete, a high way. 1687S. Sewall Diary (1878) I. 183 At night a great Uproar and Lewd rout in the Main Street. 1698Rec. East Hampton, N.Y. (1887) II. 434 Ten Acres of Land..[bound] on the west with the Maine Street of the said Town. 1717in Narragansett Hist. Reg. (1884–5) III. 279 In or through the Main street, called Hope street, in this town [sc. Bristol, R.I.]. 1741–3Wesley Extract of Jrnl. (1749) 117 They made no more stop 'till they had carried me thro' the main-street, from one end of the town to the other. ]1810F. Cuming Sk. Tour Western Country 194 Main street, parallel to Water street, is one hundred feet wide. 1817S. Brown Western Gazetteer 92 Main street presents to the traveller as much wealth, and more beauty than can be found in most of the Atlantic cities. 1855Knickerbocker XLVI. 328 Louisville is an imposing, wealthy city. Main⁓street, in its entire extent would do honor to any metropolis in America. 1888‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms II. iii. 54 Go on down Main Street (the first street in a diggings is always called Main Street). 1889W. D. Howells Hazard of New Fortunes I. i. xi. 106 You know the kind of street Main Street always used to be in our section—half plank-road..and the rest mud-hole. 1892Kipling Lett. of Travel (1920) 8 Every..thing, is reported, digested, discussed, and rediscussed up and down Main Street [in Vermont]. 1961L. Mumford City in Hist. iii. 74 It was rather a Broad Ways..it served as the classic ‘Main Street’. 1968Michelin Guide N.Y. City 78 Before the Revolution..Greenwich Street, which then bordered the Hudson and its warehouses, was ‘Main Street’. Ibid. 82 Mulberry Street is the Italian ‘Main Street’: colorful shops offer national specialities. 1973A. Broinowski Take One Ambassador vii. 86 You should see this station in rush hour. It's like Main Street Christmas Eve.
b. Used allusively, esp. since the publication in 1920 of Sinclair Lewis's novel Main Street, as a symbol of mediocrity, parochialism, or materialism in small-town life. Also attrib.
[1855N.Y. Tribune 31 Dec. 4/4 It has risen to its present position of bloated arrogance and swaggering insolence by the liberal and unstinting patronage it has received from the full purses and free hands of Eastern men in Main street and elsewhere.] 1916‘B. M. Bower’ Phantom Herd i. 5 You'll have to let me weed out some of these Main Street cowboys. 1920S. Lewis (title) Main Street. 1931Times Lit. Suppl. 9 Apr. 282/3 He dislikes uniformity, mass-control, Main-street and Rotarian ideals. 1948Time 6 Dec. 20/3 Harry Truman has never lost his great respect for Marshall, nor is he unmindful of the prestige and authority Marshall carries on Main Street as well as in Moscow. 1972B. Garfield Line of Succession (1974) 11. 126 The President..was an amalgam of liberal traditions..and the values of Main Street. 1973T. H. White Making of President 1972 (1974) ix. 231 From faculty club to student union, from bar to parlor, from Wall Street to Main Street, all wanted out of Vietnam.
Hence Main Streeter, ˈMainstreeter, a typical inhabitant of a small American town; one who shares the values of Main Street (sense b). Also main-street (N. Amer.) v. intr., to campaign in main streets during an electoral campaign; hence main-streeting vbl. n.
1934Webster, Main Streeter. 1945Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 6 Oct. 8/2 His books started some Americans laughing at others and made it possible for people to realize that somebody else was a Main Streeter. 1947Time 27 Jan. 4/3 It has raised the hope of this Mainstreeter from Podunk to its highest ebb since the era of Wendell Willkie's ‘One World’. 1966Maclean's Mag. 1 Jan. 31 Though she [sc. Olive Diefenbaker] refuses to speak in public she mainstreets better than The Chief [sc. John Diefenbaker]. 1967Canad. Ann. Rev. 1966 133 Duff Roblin, whose rural main⁓streeting, recorded bagpipe accompaniment, and unflagging oratory had won him his fourth personal victory in a row. 1971Time 14 June 20 Boston has witnessed a merry binge of mainstreeting, leafletting and parties with some of the excitement of a mayoral election. 1974Globe & Mail (Toronto) 5 June 8/3 New Democratic Party Leader David Lewis traded polemics with Parti Quebecois supporters in Montreal's working-class St. Jacques district yesterday before doing some mainstreeting not far from the area where he lived as a young immigrant half a century ago. |