main street

plural main streets

1. The principal street, or one of the several principal streets, of a town.

   Invercargill in New Zealand has two main streets, Dee Street and Tay Street.

   2 more examples

   "The Chengtu revolutionaries were fantastically colourful in the Szechwanese manner—they costumed themselves as heroes of the stage and their energies were chiefly occupied in tying ropes across the main streets so that when Imperial officials rode by in their litters they would have to get down and crawl under, losing face.

   1942 March, “Notes and News: Monument to a Stillborn Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 88

   An almost 19th-century atmosphere has returned to Beetham since the M6 motorway drew away the traffic which used to roar along its main street.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd., page 53

1. The proper name of the main street of any of many villages, towns, or small cities, especially in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and some parts of Scotland.

   Near-synonym: High Street (esp. UK)

   Synonyms: High Street

2. CanadaUScollectiveidiomaticEveryday working-class people and small business owners, especially with regard to their concerns, social views, etc.

   Main Street will never accept such fashions.

   2 more examples

   Near-synonyms: High Street (UK); precariat, proletariat, working class, middle class

   Thanks to a $700 billion TARP bailout and hundreds of billions of dollars in nearly free of charge loans by the Federal Reserve (a policy Soros himself told me was a "hidden gift" to the banks), Wall Street has surged back to pre-crisis levels of compensation even as Main Street continues to struggle.

   2011 January–February, Chrystia Freeland, “The rise of the new global elite”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 20 Dec 2015

   Synonyms: common man, everyman, High Street, precariat, proletariat, working class, middle class