mainly

From Middle English maynly; equivalent to main +‎ -ly.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪnli/

mainly (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Forcefully, vigorously. [13th-17th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book III, canto I:

     Mainly they all attonce vpon him laid, / And sore beset on euery side around […]

2. (obsolete) Of the production of a sound: loudly, powerfully. [14th-19th c.]
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 31, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     But in the end, mainly crying out, he fell to raling and wringing his master, upbraiding him that he was not a true Philosopher […].

3. (obsolete) To a great degree; very much. [15th-19th c.]
4. Chiefly; for the most part. [from 17th c.]
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 12, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     She had Lord James' collar in one big fist and she pounded the table with the other and talked a blue streak. Nobody could make out plain what she said, for she was mainly jabbering Swede lingo, but there was English enough, of a kind, to give us some idee.

• (forcefully): energetically, powerfully, strongly
• (loudly): earsplittingly, lustily, raucously, thunderously
• (to a great degree): a lot, extremely
• (for the most part): in the main, principally; see also Thesaurus:mostly

• amain

• Milyan, aminyl, amylin

mainly

1. Alternative form of maynly