Improve your vocabulary by Quiz

Use mainstay in a sentence

Definition of mainstay:

  • (noun) a prominent supporter;
  • (noun) a central cohesive source of support and stability;
  • (noun) the forestay that braces the mainmast

Sentence Examples:

"Whatever you do, Jack, don't lose the fine courage that has been your mainstay through other troubles," Nellie said, as she laid a hand on his arm and looked steadfastly into the young air-pilot's face.

It was the same with the shorthorns, with the hay, and indeed with everything except sheep, which had been a mainstay and support to him.

Two or three times the expedition was thus brought to a halt; and as the buffalo were so plentiful, and so easy to kill, and as their flesh was very good, they were the mainstay for the explorers' table.

It is possible, I suppose, to draw certain broad distinctions, though even these are subject to change; but the habit of generalizing from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public mind.

From the landing of the Pilgrims down to the present hour the wild game has been the mainstay and the resource against starvation of the pathfinder, the settler, the prospector, and at times even the railroad-builder.

We have seen him the life and mainstay of the village music, the instructor of young clerics, the upholder of ancient customs and old-established usages.

Derrick, the impulsive and headstrong, became the mainstay as well as the undismayed protector of the women during that night scare of the Frontier.

The governments of both these great peoples had long been the mainstays of monarchic tradition, military discipline, and the principle of authority.

Many of the guns were dismounted, and the Long Tom, which had been the mainstay of the defense, was capsized.

This and the development and equipment of the new mines are a few examples among others where it is desirable that the Government shall take an active part, especially when the fact is taken into consideration that up till now the mining industry must be held as the financial basis, support, and mainstay of the State.

It has now spread until it covers considerable area with forests, and information from the Hawaiian Experiment Station is to the effect that it is now the mainstay of the dairy industry of the island.

Sometimes I believe that they were the real mainstay of the German organization.

Her son Philip, who is her mainstay, was sick all the summer and fall, and is sick now; so the woman got nothing from her little patch of land, and is now absolutely reduced to beggary, with herself and sick son to support.

Horses, mules, asses, goats, cattle and pigs are bred in considerable numbers, but the mainstay of the peasantry is sheep-farming.

I will now relate a tale somewhat resembling those already given, but in this latter case, the supposed changeling became the mainstay of his family.

Simple arsenic and fast-acting strychnine continued to be the mainstays of the poison trade.

Accordingly, as the jurymen were protecting me as the mainstay of the country, it was by their voices that the defendant was overwhelmed, and with him all his advocates suffered a crushing blow.

It was, however, this up-country which had been the mainstay of the Jeffersonian party.

The trenches are in apple-pie order and the men are in good heart, but the stomach has always been held to be the mainstay of the fighting man, and theirs are in the grip of enteritis.

On more than one occasion President Lincoln officially declared that he would save the Union with slavery if he could, and not until it became manifest that slavery was the mainstay of the Confederacy, and the prosecution of the war to a successful close would be difficult without its destruction, did he dare touch it.

She would be very angry with you if you were to charge her with entertaining the doctrine of "justification by works," but I seriously incline to believe she imagines that seat of hers in that cushioned pew one of the mainstays to her hope of heaven.

It was too large, and was too tightly wedged in among others to admit of my moving it unaided, but with the assistance of a strop on the mainstay, and the watch tackle, I soon broke it out and triumphantly landed it on deck.

It was during these busy months that he brought into practical shape a league which was destined to be the mainstay of the Parliamentary force.

The tall-growing hardy phlox is a garden mainstay through August, September and October.

The mainstay is double, setting up at deck, near rail, and forward of the foremost shrouds of the foremast to clear the stack and foremast.

How long, without the mainstay of religion, will the Japanese cling to this outworn but beautiful relic of his old life?

And so, with labor and difficulty, they concluded the partition, for, besides the trouble they had with the captives, the plain was full of people, as well of the place as of the villages and neighborhood around, who in that day gave rest to their hands, the mainstay of their livelihood, only to see this novelty.

Those who pinned their faith to the Dreadnought as the mainstay of naval power were not likely to be eager to improve a weapon which, more than any other, seemed likely to make the Dreadnought belie its name.

The first leader of the opposition which developed in the Assembly after the War of 1812 was James Stuart, the son of the leading Anglican clergyman of his day, but he soon fell away and became a mainstay of the bureaucracy.

A rope made fast to a mainstay and furnished with a hook at its end was slipped into a loop of rope at one end of the dory.

The very men who profited by them were the mainstays of churches, and not only that, but they were the very same men who formed the various self-constituted committees which demanded severe laws against paupers and petty criminals.

Although at first the other boys had the advantage over Fred of having played a long time together, and of knowing just what to expect from one another in any crisis of the game, his quick mind and keen ambition soon put him on a level with them in that respect, and he had developed into one of the mainstays of the team.

With all his sturdy mental and moral fiber he could not withstand the torrential current of skepticism and revaluation that swept through the intellectual world and uprooted its spiritual mainstays.

She has corrupted the German soul; she has been the mainstay of reaction and militarism in Central Europe.

In it were many prosperous settlements, inhabited by a vigorous yeomanry, who were the mainstay of the patriot cause in this quarter.

Most prominent among these indications is the fact that the ruling empress, but recently a mainstay of the conservative party, has entered the ranks of reform and given her imperial assent to radical changes in Chinese methods and conditions.

The mainstay of every farmer, aside from his cornfield, was his litter of razorback hogs.

He had the bearing of a Roman legionary and displayed all the characteristics of that proudly servile race, who, ever since men first took to building cities, have been the mainstay of Empires and the support of ruling houses.

The family chorus on the subject of matrimony is the mainstay of parental soloists, its note brings the recalcitrant or frisking lamb to "mark time," and subsequently dictates the pace of a quick march to the impending sacrifice.

A factitious gaiety animated her, even though the death of her mainstay had crushed her into invalidism.

The mainstay of the city is the glorious Cathedral, and the quaintness of some of its houses and streets is unique.

These aquatic plants are the mainstay of the muskrat's food supply; they also represent the material of which they construct their houses.

Hope and pride in the purpose of the Ridge had been restored by Michael's vindication and by reaffirmation of the principle he and all staunch men of the Ridge stood for as the mainstay of their life in common.

No lack of strength there, no nervousness; the artery had the firm beat of health, the tendons felt like rods of iron beneath the finger, and his biceps stood out hard and round as the mainstay of an old seventy-four.

Nothing but a trained subconsciousness had carried her through that, and she looked for the same mainstay of the self to come to her aid again.

It is evident from the above that the order of the prophets was the very mainstay of the Theocratic fabric.

The capitalist employer had superseded the landowner as the mainstay of the resources and revenue of the realm, and insisted that the prosperity of manufactures was the primary interest of the community as a whole.

The omnipotence of the Imperial Parliament, the mainstay of the Empire, would be gone; so would the omnipotence of the Imperial Executive Government, the best security for justice and for equal liberties.

According to this theory, one of the mainstays of the doctrine of Americanism, of which Jefferson made himself the advocate, is the right of conquest.

The corrupt nature of the Spanish courts is a mainstay to such people.

We find a strong offset to the horror of Aztec cruelty in the very Bible, which we regard as the mainstay of our religious world.

They were, in effect, the mainstay of the establishment, and the falling off of their emoluments was being watched by the postmasters-general, hardly less than by those who were more immediately interested, with the gravest concern.

The luck was all one way, for Armstrong was on the sick list, and Armstrong is the mainstay of Victorian cricket.

How could he, just because he was so full of comprehending sympathy, be the one to carry the news to the wife that their bark had foundered in dark, treacherous waters, and that he who should have been the mainstay was lost in the whirlpool?

A Russian youth, stalwart and strong, is separated from his household which came together to settle in Dakota; but now he, the mainstay of the family, is gone, and they are perplexed and distracted.

England, the mainstay in the great struggle, was in deadly peril, for, just about this time, the ruthless Submarine campaign was at its height and our shipping losses were appalling.

Many friends came to visit him, and on Sundays he was driven to the meetinghouse, where he would sometimes speak briefly, always proclaiming his faith in the religion that had been the guide and mainstay of his eventful life.

Here in Birmingham, amongst your fathers and forefathers, those men found their home, their mainstay, and their trusting friends.

We gave them hashed and warmed tinned Serbian meats, of which we still had a few, with white beans, and a second course of boiled rice, which was one of our mainstays.

At the present day the great fundamental ideas which were the mainstay of our fathers are tottering more and more.

It is as nonsensical as one could expect a dream to be and this absurdity of dreams is the mainstay of the view which denies to the dream the character of a valid psychic act, and has it proceed from a desultory stimulus of the psychic elements.

Besides this, his mainstay in the science of artillery attack, Jansen, had basely failed him; he had no one competent to take his place.

Home-spun, heavy tanned duck, corduroy or moleskin, and flannel underclothing should be the mainstays of a miner's wardrobe.

It was very seldom that any satisfaction could be got out of the meat course, which was almost always pork in some shape or form, and the mainstay of every repast was provided from our private stores of cream, cheese, honey, and brown bread.

Meat, hides, wool, wheat, and maize are likely to continue to be the mainstay of the country's prosperity; and as only about one-eighth of the surface is at present under tillage, there is room for great expansion.

The mainstay of this region is the grape, but, in seeking for a more diversified agriculture, Sour Cherry culture was introduced some twenty years ago and has become a thriving industry with prospects of continued growth.

One of these ran from the top of the mainmast to the prow, corresponding to the modern mainstay.

Her mainstay is loose in the partners, and the cross-trestles both of her foremast, and also of her mainmast are broken.

I believe firmly that the air navigator of the future will rely upon the Wireless Direction Finder as his mainstay, while using astronomical observation and the system of "Dead Reckoning" as checks upon the wireless bearings given him, and as second and third strings to his bow, in case the wireless receiving apparatus breaks down.

There was always a more or less assorted cargo, but the mainstay was wheat.

Roads and railways had to be built to develop the nascent agricultural industry which has been the mainstay of Bulgarian national life.

Lazy men, athletic men, and men lacking the mental momentum to carry them through college are the mainstay of numbers of impecunious students.

A portion of them gave in to his entreaties, but the rest rode away to effect a junction with the Swedish army, and he was therefore deprived of a considerable portion of the force that had been the mainstay of his little army.

Every access of strength on the part of the Swiss, and especially the prestige which their triumph over Charles the Bold had won them, tended to weaken the Hapsburg influence in Swabia, the cradle of their race, and their mainstay in the Empire.

Advertising is the material mainstay, and the merchants and magnates who have largesse to distribute must be humored.

These two articles will form the canoeist's mainstay in the vegetable line, and can be prepared in several appetizing ways.

The mainstay still held, and the mainmast was strong enough; but there was nothing forward at all above them.

It had treated woman as a monster of lewdness, from whom it was the duty of the Saints to flee; yet now it caressed her, loaded her with flattery, made her the ornament and mainstay of the sanctuary, having resolved to exploit her power over man.

Vacant fields were divided into small patches and given to the poor to till and plant; potatoes especially were grown, for during the preceding winter there had been a great dearth of this mainstay of the poorer classes.

For is it not to those Irish horses that we owe our mainstay over here, that so soon learn to jump our flying fences as easily as their native banks?

The animals comprising the team were but four in all, surely much too inadequate a number to be the mainstay of the nine strangely garbed figures who accompanied them; yet, judging by the light packs on their backs, it was very apparent that the outfit of the returning expedition did not greatly impede their movements.

On Sundays his boots had "tongues," and his trade was the mainstay of a German shoemaker who kept a shop behind his house, and whom, twice a year, he literally terrified into a fit.

Good or bad, it is their mainstay through the severe winter; if it should mildew, they would eat it all the same, with the fear of the dreadful pellagra in their hearts.

These four artists became subsequently the mainstay of the German opera and in America developed to greater and greater power and fame.

The races with a turn for sectarianism, like the Scotch, are still working in our blood while others are the mainstay of the Cathedral.

This species also formed the mainstay of the far southern sealers.

In my weakness and grief my hands went forth and groped in the darkness, seeking the hands of those who had also suffered, seeking for the little familiar, common-place things, that twine themselves round our being and are the mainstays of life.

With his increasing strength he has gradually assumed the duties that my failing powers have caused me to relinquish, until now he is our mainstay and dependence, as well as the delight of our declining years.

They fairly fought their way to the edge of the navigating deck, which was swaying in a sickening fashion, and clung to one of the stout mainstays of the stressed and storm-driven gas bag above them.

Her love, courage, and cheerfulness have been the mainstays which supported me when I would have fallen by the wayside, and her sweet companionship and keen appreciation of refined pleasures have added immeasurably to my enjoyment and happiness.

No doubt in the last resort the white soldier is the mainstay of the Government against sedition and revolt; but if sedition and revolt were ever more than partial they would need a much larger garrison to suppress them.

War, moreover, required extra supplies in unprecedented amounts, and they took the form of national taxes, voted by the House of Commons, which supplemented and then supplanted the feudal aids as the mainstay of royal finance.

He hears the rustle of the grass and the next thing he knows, a tight mainstay and a tall foremast is reflected in the water of the pond beside the lily pads.

When a conspirator made a pretext of vindicating the rights of the people, the people laughed at him, and the motive which in all other countries has been the mainstay of revolutionaries was found not to exist.

Peary again, as in his previous expeditions, decided to engage the hardy Eskimos from Whale Sound, with their dogs, for the mainstay of his party, and to take with him as few white men as possible.

Even when the loss was discovered and the fact reported that the raiders were still in sight, going over a low bluff down the valley, no attention was paid, and no attempt made to pursue and regain the mainstay of Indian hostility.

Under a terror regime, only the military circles are in a position to carry out a Putsch; to this extent it is true to say that these few generals who participated were the mainstay of the Putsch.

This surprised me a little as I would have thought that such a practice would have made the League unpopular, but on the contrary, it was considered the mainstay of the organization, for the recipient of the complaint, if a non-member, very often joined the League immediately, hoping thereby to gain sweet revenge.