Sentence Examples:
They were the mainstay of the force behind which, as behind a shield, the founders of the commonwealths did their work.
It might even be that something had happened him, but she put the thought aside and would not dwell on it, preferring to view things on their brighter side and finding in hope her safest mainstay and reliance.
"Why, with yonder big rope that goes from masthead to bows." and he pointed to the great mainstay of our ship.
Panto was indeed the mainstay of his business; it was even the warp and woof of his life.
It is the mainstay of Arctic expeditions, whether on water, by sledge, or on foot.
At ten o'clock, we up mainsail and set mainstay-sail.
Adults were seized and, regardless of their being the only mainstay of their families, were taken captive, and children of eight were captured and presented to the recruiting authorities as being of the obligatory age of twelve.
It was he who had always been the mainstay, the dependable one.
We are thinking also of the mothers who must give up their sons, of the women and children robbed of their mainstay and support, of those whom, to the anxiety of their loved ones, the pangs of hunger threaten.
The seals were the mainstay of their living and to lose the hunt might mean privation.
The band of foreign adventurers, the mainstay of John's power, was still unbroken.
The last-mentioned argument is as old as Engineering; it is the "practical man's" mainstay, his "unanswerable argument."
The earthen pot of his own manufacture is his mainstay.
The leader of the village band he was its mainstay in the wars with boys of rival hamlets thereabouts.
Foreign importations had destroyed this the very mainstay.
The seed of the common thistle is apparently its mainstay.
Through all that dreary and dreadful first winter, when half their number died, Captain Standish was their mainstay, as one whose word was ever reassuring and whose arm was as ready for protection as was his brain for planning methods of defense.
His venerable figure, though shrouded from view, was a chief mainstay of the monarchy.
It seemed to me that nowadays, when civilization has become the mainstay of our lives, it is only with such beings as these that it is possible to realize the closeness of the tie between mankind and nature.
He found the rich quite willing to respond in a handsome way when his needs became known; but while the work has often been stimulated by large gifts, the more numerous small gifts of commonplace people have from the first been its mainstay.
On overhauling the fore-shrouds and mainstay, we found them too much worn to be trustworthy.
Jeff was a person of little importance by the side of his wife, though, like all "lords of creation," he considered himself the legal and proper head of the family, as well as one of the mainstays of society.
Lastly, one coat of mortar covers everything, including the twig itself, which provides a firm mainstay for the whole.
A thrifty grape-vine should yield, let us say, fifteen pounds of grapes, a fair average for the mainstay varieties.
Code, racked and embarrassed, looked around for his mother, but that mainstay was nowhere in sight.
Now, a state of this nature and form must of necessity be small, and as government expanded and its functions increased, the representative principle should have been introduced as a mainstay to the public system.
The mainstay of the nation had fallen with the disappearance of the sterling middle class.
Because of the depletion of her forests, which constituted perhaps the most important of her natural resources, she could no longer look for prosperity from the old industries that for centuries had been her mainstay.
Anson grumbled his disdain of this comrade who had once been his mainstay.
Didn't it seem almost as if he himself wished to be the mainstay so sorely lacking in her floundering young life?
It was, indeed, nothing new to her, for the Queen had met with the same sympathy when just ten years ago a similar illness removed from her side the mainstay of her life, the best, wisest, and kindest of husbands.
Since you have returned to me, and you are the mainstay of my life, I promise to renounce the crown in your favor, and to complete our wedding vows with you as emperor since my father, being advanced in years, wants me to rule in his stead.
The Corn Laws, the support of the country, the mainstay, as so many thought, of the Constitution, were in danger; and behind closed doors, while England listened without, the doctors were met to decide their fate.
In this guerrilla the archer, though he kept his place, soon ceased to be the mainstay of battle.
The greater part of Argentina has been won from the Indians by their efforts; they have borne the burden and heat of the day in making the nation, and they will still be the mainstay of their country when she encounters trouble.
A well-trained old horse, the mainstay of the establishment, jogs round in the mill and supplies the motive power.
As the horse is the mainstay of the Indian, let the saddle-gear take precedence.
She consented and so did Le Beau, although he was rather rueful at the thought of losing his mainstay.
She turned from the bed a moment to her niece, the English-speaking girl, who had been a teacher in Johannesburg, but had come to her aunt for refuge at the beginning of the war, and remained as mainstay of the farm.
Throughout the season, I have been its supporter, its mainstay, its benefactor.
It is very possible that Governor Herod is afraid to enforce the law against this man, for fear he should lose the support of that ignorant and vicious class which itself is the mainstay of his political power.
Tortillas, or corn cake, sometimes eaten hot, sometimes cold, and at times toasted, are the Indian's chief mainstay in the way of food, as they appear at every meal, and at a pinch he can exist on them alone for a very long period.
He also attacks the theory, as often urged in our own as in those days, that those who do not believe in the dogmas of religion should hold their peace and not deprive others of the mainstay of their lives.
It has been one of the mainstays of the American home, the American family.
Here as nowhere else is exemplified the great faith the Germans had in the soil as a mainstay of success.
The records of the Council show that for the space of one year their business was pursued with considerable vigor by the few members who were interested. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, of course, was the mainstay of the enterprise.
I staggered forwards under the blow and grasped at one of the mainstays.
They had depended wholly upon Mack to make this expedition successful, and to conduct them safely back to the coast, and now that he was gone it seemed as if their mainstay was gone, and that there was nothing left for them but to give up entirely.
They are light eaters; bread, wine and cheese are their mainstays.
Impudent personalities are generally amusing for the moment, and they were the mainstay of old comedy.
The fruit of the cactus (tuna or prickly pear) furnished a food mainstay in midsummer.
We have been the mainstay of unbelief through our timidity.
It was not difficult for the doctor's keen eyes to see that Honor, young as she was, was the guide and mainstay of the whole household, nothing, not even the merest trifle being ever settled or arranged without consultation with her first.
Another kite follows, then another, and again one more, threaded on the same cable, till with the combined pull it is stretched as taut as a piano wire, and hums in the breeze like the weather mainstay of a racing yacht.
Now Gardiner was the mainstay of the Scholastic doctrines and the most inflexible opponent of the Reformation.
Oil has supplanted forestry as the mainstay of the economy, providing a major share of government revenues and exports.
His mother became an invalid, and as his brother was considered almost an imbecile, Sam was the mainstay of the family.
On this account he represented a mainstay of the Government, which in other ways was not too scrupulous.
Alternately give bones, with the milk and crumbled bread, which is the mainstay of their diet.
The mainstay of the defense of Canada was, however, the disciplined strength of the French regulars.
From his home among the hills, he had sent the fiery cross to the three northern tribes, who had been the mainstay of Deborah's victory, and who now rallied around Gideon to the number of thirty-two thousand.
Thomas Paine was not rich, he was poor, and his father before him was poor, and he was raised a sailmaker, a very lowly profession, and yet that man became one of the mainstays of liberty in this world.
He had scarcely flown three hundred paces on his way to a certain point when the mainstay of the left wing gave way, and, being unable to support himself with the right alone, he fell on a roof and was injured in consequence.
How necessary, then, that every detail of this delightful and elaborate culture should be taught the people, whose mainstay it is, a large proportion being as entirely dependent upon flowers as the honey bee!