Word.ws English Dictionary

might and main

might and main adverb: with all one's strength; as hard as one can.

Adverb

might and main (not comparable)

  1. With all one's strength; as hard as one can.
    • […] I found myself hanging on the skysail-yard, holding on might and main to the mast; and curling my feet round the rigging, as if they were another pair of hands.1849, Herman Melville, “Chapter XVI”, in Redburn: His First Voyage. […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC
    • c.1890s, Giovanni Boccaccio, James McMullen Rigg (translator), The Decameron, Novel 1, 6,
      […] he strove might and main to pass himself off as a holy man […]

Noun

might and main (uncountable)

  1. All one's strength.
    • with might and main
    • Mr. Winkle, catching sight of a lady's face at the window of the sedan, turned hastily round, plied the knocker with all his might and main, and called frantically upon the chairman to take the chair away again.1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC

Examples of might and main in a sentence

  • When the sunlight threads the pine-gloom he is fighting might and main / To clinch the rivets of an Empire down.1907, Robert W[illiam] Service, “The Younger Son”, in Songs of a Sourdough, Toronto, Ont.: William Briggs, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 61:
  • "I feel just like studying with might and main," she declared as she brought her books down from the attic.1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, chapter XXXI, in Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, →OCLC:
  • Gardaí are doing their job with might and main.2023 August 15, Senan Molony, “Give McEntee an accountability holiday on street crime–for now”, in Irish Independent, page 8:

Origin of might and main

A reduplication of two words meaning strength.

Questions about might and main

What does might and main mean?
Might and main means with all one's strength; as hard as one can.
How do you use might and main in a sentence?
When the sunlight threads the pine-gloom he is fighting might and main / To clinch the rivets of an Empire down.
What part of speech is might and main?
Might and main can be an adverb or a noun.

Words near might and main in the dictionary

  1. migger
  2. Miggies
  3. Miggins
  4. Miggy
  5. might
  6. might and main
  7. might as well
  8. might can
  9. might could
  10. might is right
  11. might makes right

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: might and main (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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