Mainland

Definitions

1. The largest island in the Orkney Islands council area, to the north of Scotland.
2. The continent; the principal land, as distinguished from islands or a peninsula.
3. The largest island in the Shetland Islands council area, to the north of both Orkney and Scotland.
4. The principal island of a group.
5. A historical region of British Columbia, British North America, British Empire.
   historical
6. Great Britain.
   Northern-Ireland

Equivalents

Examples

“[…]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.”

“All of the people I interviewed were from Protestant backgrounds, with proud British traditions. Yet when they set⟳ foot on the mainland, they were met at times with jeering, derision and othering from the very people with whom they were raised to believe⟳ they had the most in common.”

CEFR level