mainstream

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of population, market, scientific…

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

   • They often carry stories you won't find in the mainstream media.
   • As unsubstantiated claims receive significant backing, skeptics and defenders of mainstream science enter the fray.
   • The mainstream media hones in on bad news stories where UK railways are concerned, yet gives scant attention to the many items of good news emerging from the network.
2. 2

   The principal current in a flow, such as a river or flow of air

3. 3

   That which is common

   That which is common; the norm.

   • ideas outside of the mainstream
   • George Herbert Walker Bush of Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University proclaimed in the first Presidential candidates' debate that he was “in touch with the mainstream of America.”
   • Long content with being the BMW of the computer industry, suppying finely crafted machines to a relatively small number of fanatic customers, Apple now wants to become a Ford or Toyota, to move into the mainstream.
4. ›+ 3 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      To popularize, to normalize, to render mainstream.

      • Just as the gang peace movement desired to mainstream hardcore bangers into civic society, The Chronic wanted to drive hardcore rap into the popstream.
      • Acknowledging the role X plays in mainstreaming the worst constituencies makes for awkward conversations with those who continue to use it.
   2. 5

      To become mainstream.

      • In a nonchurch context, we can look more explicitly at formerly New Age practices to see if and how they have mainstreamed.
   3. 6

      To educate (a disabled student) together with non-disabled students.

      • Despite these beliefs, the decision to send my son to a regular school was not made easily. I didn't know of any child as disabled as he who had been mainstreamed.

The neighborhood

• antonymfringe
• antonymnonmainstream
• antonymalternative