might and main

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   With all one's strength

   With all one's strength; as hard as one can.

   • […] I found myself hanging on the skysail-yard, holding on might and main to the mast; and curling my feet round the rigging, as if they were another pair of hands.
   • c.1890s, Giovanni Boccaccio, James McMullen Rigg (translator), The Decameron, Novel 1, 6, […] he strove might and main to pass himself off as a holy man […]
   • When the sunlight threads the pine-gloom he is fighting might and main / To clinch the rivets of an Empire down.
2. 2

   All one's strength.

   • with might and main
   • Mr. Winkle, catching sight of a lady's face at the window of the sedan, turned hastily round, plied the knocker with all his might and main, and called frantically upon the chairman to take the chair away again.
   • Thinking that we were about to be taken up under the act for the suppression of vagrancy, we flew out of the house, sprang into a canoe before the door, and paddled with might and main over to the opposite side of the lake.

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