mainland

Definition

The continent; the principal land, as distinguished from islands or a peninsula.

Etymology

From Middle English mayne londe; equivalent to main + land. Compare Scots mayn-land, magan-land, madin-land (“mainland”), Faroese meginland (“mainland”), Icelandic meginland (“mainland”).

Example Sentences

• "[…]I got to the mainland, where, to my great comfort, I clambered up the cliffs of the shore and sat me down upon the grass, free from danger and quite out of the reach of the water."
• "You may have not realised when I was using the term mainland Europe, I was excluding the British Isles."
• "Other examples of nonhuman self-domestication in the wild exist—for instance, the Zanzibar red colobus monkey diverged from the mainland African red colobus in similar ways during its island isolation—but bonobos are the closest and most relevant to us."