mainstream

English Online Dictionary. What means mainstream‎? What does mainstream mean?

English

Etymology

From main +‎ stream. Cognate with Icelandic meginstraumur (“a main current, mainstream”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

mainstream (comparative more mainstream, superlative most mainstream)

1. Used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of population, market, scientific community, etc.

Usage notes

• Nouns often used with "mainstream": media, music, art, press, news, society, culture, economics, school, party, politics, religion, education, theory, science, philosophy, views

Synonyms

• (used or accepted broadly): common, usual, widespread, conventional

Antonyms

• fringe, nonmainstream, alternative

Derived terms

• blackstream
• fakestream
• lamestream
• malestream
• whitestream

Translations

Noun

mainstream (plural mainstreams)

1. The principal current in a flow, such as a river or flow of air
2. (usually with the) That which is common; the norm.

Translations

Verb

mainstream (third-person singular simple present mainstreams, present participle mainstreaming, simple past and past participle mainstreamed)

1. (transitive) To popularize, to normalize, to render mainstream.
2. (intransitive) To become mainstream.
3. (transitive, education, chiefly US) To educate (a disabled student) together with non-disabled students.

Derived terms

References

• “mainstream”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “mainstream media”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English mainstream.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛjn.strim/
• Rhymes: -ɛjnstrim
• Syllabification: main‧stream

Noun

mainstream m inan (related adjective mainstreamowy)

1. mainstream (dominant way of thinking or the most popular form of action)
2. (jazz) mainstream jazz (term coined in the 1950s by music journalist Stanley Dance, who considered anything within the popular jazz of the Swing Era "mainstream", and did not include the bebop style)

Declension

Further reading

• mainstream in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• mainstream in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• mainstream in PWN's encyclopedia

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English mainstream.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmeinstɾim/ [ˈmẽĩns.t̪ɾĩm]
• Rhymes: -einstɾim
• Syllabification: mains‧tream

Noun

mainstream m (plural mainstreams)

1. mainstream

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.