the.com/mainland
The land that gets to skip the word 'island' and still feel superior.
means The large principal landmass of a country or continent, as distinguished from its islands and outlying territories.
from A straightforward compound from 'main' (meaning chief or principal, as in 'main road') plus 'land' — entering English around the 1500s-1600s. That 'main' is the same one in 'main course' and 'main event,' not related to the sea sense of 'the main' (open ocean), though the two senses have long kept company in sailors' vocabulary, since mainland was so often defined by what you sailed away from.
- relative term
- only exists because somewhere else is smaller
- china usage
- political shorthand excluding hong kong, macau, taiwan
- europe vs uk
- brits say it to sound continental, literally
- no fixed size
- australia counts, so does connecticut technically