main stream
Also mainstream, main-stream.
[main a. 8 b.]
The principal stream or current (of a river, etc.). Also transf. and fig., the prevailing direction of opinion, fashion, society, etc.; spec. of jazz: see quot. 19602. Also attrib. Hence ˈmainstreamer, a musician, etc., who is in the ‘main stream’ of his profession.
| 1667 Milton P.L. iv. 233 The neather Flood,..now divided into four main Streames. 1831 Carlyle in Foreign Q. Rev. viii. 355 But after Luther's day, the Didactic Tendency again sinks to a lower level; mingles with manifold other tendencies; among which, admitting that it still forms the main stream, it is no longer so pre-eminent, positive, and universal, as properly to characterize the whole. 1865 M. Arnold Ess. in Crit. 171 Byron and Shelley will be long remembered..for their..Titanic effort to flow in the main stream of modern literature. 1938 F. M. Ford Let. Oct. (1965) 302 The very considerable influence that Mr. Pound..exercised on literary mainstreams. 1952 New World Writing Apr. 33 Negro artists, in moving out into the mainstream of American culture, should gain a sense of solidarity with both the national and the general world of art. 1957 S. Dance in S. Traill Concerning Jazz 55 Mainstream jazz, typified by musicians like Basie, Ellington..Armstrong. 1957 Jazz News Apr. 2/3 Rising like a Pheonix [sic] from the dying embers of the British modern jazz world is a musical form that has been tagged ‘Mainstream’. 1958 ‘E. Crispin’ Best SF Three 9 Main⁓stream fiction..has been almost uniformly catatonic in its withdrawal from environment. 1960 W. Naylor Silver Birch Anthol. 7 Ask him a question on a comparatively minor issue and time and time again he will use it as a tributary through which to return to the mainstream of his philosophy. 1960 Sunday Times 11 Sept. 37/1 Very broadly you can break up jazz asymmetrically into the big, simple, driving noise of the traditionalists and the smaller, sophisticated, elegiac sound of modern jazz. In between, there is a discernible third group of ‘mainstream’ enthusiasts. 1961 New Left Rev. July–Aug. 42/2 Humph is authentic mainstreamer: he's been influenced by everything in jazz up to the moment. 1966 R. Ellison in A. Chapman New Black Voices (1972) 407 The main stream of American literature is in me, even though I am a Negro, because I possess more of Mark Twain than many white writers do. 1969 Listener 26 June 904/3 Gesualdo..belongs less to the mainstream of music than to one of its smaller and more wayward canals. 1973 C. Bonington Next Horizon xxii. 297 A climber who had always been on the outside of the mainstream British climbing scene. 1974 Listener 10 Jan. 54/2 Dick Taverne..possesses a rigid habit of mind, so far quite alien to mainstream British politics. |
______________________________
▸ The stream of mainstream smoke from a cigarette, cigar, or pipe; cf. sense B. 1. Contrasted with side-stream n. at side n.1 Additions.
| 1945 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 31 390 The smoker who gets the main stream through the cigarette or pipe stem has a more acid material thereby receiving his nicotine (alkaloid) as salts which are less irritating. 2001 Biol. Chem. 382 1613 The generation of nitric oxide (NO), a gaseous free radical, was observed in NO spin trapping solution bubbled with the filtered main-stream of cigarette smoke. |
______________________________
▸ Designating smoke produced by a cigarette, cigar, or pipe that is directly inhaled by the smoker. Freq. in mainstream smoke. Cf. sidestream smoke n. at side n.1 Additions.
| 1943 Science 19 Feb. 187/1 Cigarettes weighing one gram each were made..and the main stream smoke analyzed. 1956 Science 10 Feb. 226/2 There was no change in main-stream cigarette smoke temperatures until after 5 cm of the cigarette had been consumed. 1973 New Scientist 9 Aug. 313/3 The gases which a smoker draws into his mouth are called mainstream smoke. 1983 Jrnl. Toxicol. & Environmental Health 12 385 Cigarettes prepared from tobacco grown in pots..were smoked, and the mainstream and gaseous fractions were analyzed. 2005 Nicotine & Tobacco Res. 7 761 Internal studies observed changes in mainstream and sidestream smoke composition that may present increased health risks. |