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Definition 2024


mainful

mainful

English

Alternative forms

Adjective

mainful (comparative more mainful, superlative most mainful)

  1. (obsolete or archaic) powerful; mighty
    • 1844, The wars of Jehovah, in Heaven, earth and ****:
      [...] And others, the rebellious cast down / Upon them : thus the mainful main was isled / From the disruption'd heaven ; but the Lord / Present commands his saints [...]
    • 1866, Thomas Oswald Cockayne, Seinte Marherete the meiden ant martyr, in Old English:
      I Sorrow and leiks (bodys) sore I is health of souls. I But believe ye, I rode (advise) you, I on the loving God, I mighty and mainful I and full of every good, I who heareth them that to him clepe I and openeth heavens gates.
    • 1906, Clarkson College of Technology, Clarkson College of Technology Bulletin - Volume 3:
      [...] to make some nook of God's creation a little more fruitful, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, more manful, happier, more blessed, less accursed.
    • 2016, David C. Fowler, The Bible in Middle English Literature:
      Right as the mainful [mighty] moon doth rise / Ere thence the day-gleam drive all down, [...]