Maine

//mɛn// adj, name, noun

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Obsolete form of main. alt-of, not-comparable, obsolete
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A former province of Pays de la Loire, France. Capital: Le Mans.
  2. 2
    A river in Maine-et-Loire department, Pays de la Loire, France, a tributary of the Loire, flowing 12 km through the city of Angers from the confluence of the Mayenne and Sarthe into the Loire.
  3. 3
    A Scottish and English surname from Old French, a variant of Main.
  4. 4
    A river in County Kerry, Ireland, flowing 43 km from Tobermaing into the Atlantic at Castlemaine.
  5. 5
    A male given name from Old Irish, of historical usage, notably borne by Irish kings Maine mac Cerbaill and Maine mac Néill.
Show 7 more definitions
  1. 6
    Alternative form of Main: A river in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. alt-of, alternative
  2. 7
    A state of the United States; probably named for the province in France. Capital: Augusta. Largest city: Portland.

    "These first English migrants to Jamestown endured terrible disease and arrived during a period of drought and colder-than-normal winters. The migrants to Roanoke on the outer banks of Carolina, where the English had gone in the 1580s, disappeared. And a brief effort to settle the coast of Maine in 1607 and 1608 failed because of an unusually bitter winter."

  3. 8
    A village in Marathon County, Wisconsin; named for county sheriff Uriah E. Maine.
  4. 9
    A town in New York.
  5. 10
    A town in Outagamie County, Wisconsin; named for the state.
  6. 11
    A river in Maine, United States, flowing 5.5 miles from Pocomoonshine Lake in Princeton into Crawford Lake in Crawford.
  7. 12
    University of Maine.
Noun
  1. 1
    Obsolete form of main. alt-of, obsolete

    "No man is an Iland, intire of it ſelfe; euery man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; […]"

Etymology

Etymology 1

The US state is from French Maine, named by its French explorers after the province in France with the same name; unrelated to the name of the river that flows through it. From Old French Cemaine, from Latin *Cenomania, from the name of the Gaulish Cenomani tribe of Gallia Celtica. The word was rebracketed as ce (“this”) + Maine, and the ce- was lost by the 12th century.

Etymology 2

From French Maine, from earlier Maienne, from Latin Meduāna, of uncertain origin. Doublet of Mayenne. Unrelated to the French province of the same name.

Etymology 3

From Irish An Mhaing

Etymology 4

From Old Irish Maine.

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