English

Alternative forms

• for the main

Prepositional phrase

in the main

1. Principally; on the whole; for the most part.
   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. 1:

     "I entirely agree with you in the main as to the propriety of doing everything one could by way of providing for a child one had in a manner taken into one's own hands."

   • 1869 August, Charles Dickens, "On Mr. Fechter's Acting", The Atlantic Monthly:

     Mr. Fechter has been in the main more accustomed to speak French than to speak English.

   • 1914, James Joyce, "The Dead" in Dubliners:

     "A new generation is growing up in our midst . . . and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere."

   • 2011 Feb. 28, John Cloud, "Sex Addiction: A Disease or a Convenient Excuse?," Time (retrieved 13 August 2013):

     Bill Clinton's philandering was regarded as a moral failing or a joke — but not, in the main, as an illness.

Synonyms

• all in all, mainly, mostly, usually

References

• in the main at OneLook Dictionary Search