main street | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

432 entries found.

French for "street," from Vulgar Latin *ruga (source also of Old Italian ruga, Spanish rua "street in a village"), from Latin ruga, properly "a furrow," then in Medieval Latin "a path, street," (see rugae).

mainsail (n.)

also main-sail, in a square-rigged vessel, the sail bent to the main-yard, mid-15c., see main (adj.) + sail (n.).

Broadway

common street name, c. 1300 as "a wide road or street," from broad (adj.) + way (n.); the allusive use for "New York theater district" is first recorded 1881.

tough (n.)

"street ruffian," 1866, American English, from tough (adj.).

guttersnipe (n.)

also gutter-snipe, 1857, from gutter (n.) + snipe (n.); originally Wall Street slang for "streetcorner broker," attested later (1869) as "street urchin," also "one who gathers rags and paper from gutters." As a name for the common snipe, it dates from 1874 but is perhaps earlier.

TriBeCa

1983, area in Manhattan between Broadway and the Hudson, south of Greenwich Village, from "triangle below Canal (Street)."

backstreet (n.)

mid-15c., from back (adj.), here perhaps with a sense "inferior, mean, obscure" + street.

larrikin (n.)

"street tough, rowdy," 1868, Australia and New Zealand, of unknown origin; perhaps somehow from the masc. proper name Larry.

mainstream (n.)

also main-stream, main stream, "principal current of a river," 1660s, from main (adj.) + stream (n.); hence, "prevailing direction in opinion, popular taste, etc.," a figurative use first attested in Carlyle (1831). Mainstream media attested by 1980 in language of U.S. leftists critical of coverage of national affairs.

mainline (v.)

also main-line, "inject (drugs) intravenously," 1934, from main line in American English slang sense "principal vein into which drugs can be injected" (1933).

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