Literary notes about Mainly (AI summary)
In literature, "mainly" is frequently used as a qualifying adverb to signal that one aspect or element predominates among several possibilities. It serves to narrow the focus to what is considered the primary point—whether noting geography, as when the Danes are described as residing mainly in specific regions ([1]), emphasizing a particular factor like the bayonet as the mainly used weapon ([2]), or attributing outcomes and personal motivations chiefly to one element as seen in various narratives ([3], [4], [5]). This usage allows authors to subtly direct readers' attention to the dominant component of a scene or argument, effectively balancing nuance and emphasis in both historical accounts ([6], [7]) and fictional storytelling ([8], [9]).
- The Danes were mainly in Jutland, Fünen, and the extreme south of Scandinavia.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Saint the Venerable Bede - The weapon mainly used was the bayonet, the fighting was desperate.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain - This was partly through his winning and gentle ways, but mainly through the amazing familiarity with my books which his conversation showed.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain - His nomination and first election were mainly accidents, experiments.
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me—or at him—or at both of us.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - These are the two ingredients on which the fertility of our farms mainly depend.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - It is mainly due to these artificial water-tunnels that the plain of Kasvin, otherwise arid and oppressively hot, has been rendered extremely fertile.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - I was boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - But mainly they don’t do nothing.”
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
