Definition of 'mainstream'
Word forms: plural, 3rd person singular present tense mainstreams
, present participle mainstreaming, past tense, past participle mainstreamed
1. countable noun [usually singular]
People, activities, or ideas that are part of the mainstream are regarded as the most typical, normal, and conventional because they belong to the same group or system as most others of their kind.
2. verb
3. verb
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
British English pronunciation
American English pronunciation
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Word Frequency
mainstream in British English
noun
adjective
2.
verb
3.
to bring or come into the mainstream
Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
Word Frequency
mainstream in American English
noun
2.
the mainstream of life
3.
Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition. Copyright © 2010 by
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
Word Frequency
mainstream in American English
(ˈmeinˌstrim)
noun
2.
a river having tributaries
adjective
3.
belonging to or characteristic of a principal, dominant, or widely accepted group, movement, style, etc
mainstream Republicans
a mainstream artist
4.
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of jazz falling historically between Dixieland and modern jazz; specifically, swing music
Compare traditional (sense 4) transitive verb
5.
to send into the mainstream; cause to join the main force, group, etc
to mainstream young people into the labor force
6.
intransitive verb
7.
to join or be placed in the mainstream
Most material © 2005, 1997, 1991 by Penguin Random House LLC. Modified entries © 2019
by Penguin Random House LLC and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Word origin
[1660–70; main1 + stream]Examples of 'mainstream' in a sentence
mainstream
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In other languages
mainstream
British English: mainstream
NOUN /ˈmeɪnstriːm/
People, activities, or ideas that are part of the mainstream are regarded as the most typical, or normal.
...people outside the economic mainstream.
- American English: mainstream /ˈmeɪnstrim/
- Brazilian Portuguese: mainstream
- Chinese: 主流
- European Spanish: corriente principal
- French: tendance dominante
- German: Hauptrichtung
- Italian: corrente principale
- Japanese: 主流
- Korean: 주류
- European Portuguese: mainstream
- Latin American Spanish: corriente principal
- Thai: กระแสหลัก
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Definition of mainstream from the Collins English Dictionary
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