What's the difference between maim and main?

Maim


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deprive of the use of a limb, so as to render a person on fighting less able either to defend himself or to annoy his adversary.
  • (v. t.) To mutilate; to cripple; to injure; to disable; to impair.
  • (v.) The privation of the use of a limb or member of the body, by which one is rendered less able to defend himself or to annoy his adversary.
  • (v.) The privation of any necessary part; a crippling; mutilation; injury; deprivation of something essential. See Mayhem.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) That the BBC has probably not been as vulnerable since the 1980s is also true – not least because the enemies of impartiality are more powerful, and the BBC's competitors (maimed after a year's exposure of their own behaviour in the Leveson inquiry ) are keen to wreck it.
  • (2) The violence has maimed a further 172 children, and injured a total of 1,185 civilians.
  • (3) India’s caste system is alive and kicking – and maiming and killing | Mari Marcel Thekaekara Read more India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi , belongs to a party that is explicitly Hindu in character, while other parties exist to further the interests of, among others, India’s Muslims population as well as members of socially disempowered Dalit caste.
  • (4) Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s most senior humanitarian official, said he was horrified by the total disrespect for civilian life in the conflict, which has killed at least 250,000 people and maimed up to four times that number.
  • (5) It is a blow to the heart: an atrocity whose purpose was to kill and maim as many children and teenagers as possible.
  • (6) Countless veterans survived the war but paid the price by leaving it maimed, mutilated and disfigured.
  • (7) The maim beam wil be directed in the axis of the condyle for sagittal tomography and perpendicularly for frontal tomography.
  • (8) The images coming in to the Guardian's picture desk have reflected the last few days' carnage in an even more graphic way than usual: dead and maimed children in bombed-out Gaza or bodies of victims lying in Ukrainian cornfields.
  • (9) One of the cluster bombs we saw in northern Yemen was made in the UK Villagers told us about how people have been killed or maimed by the unexploded, but still live, bomblets.
  • (10) The aptly-named doctrine of "heroic restraint", imposed on Nato troops in Afghanistan by General Petraeus, forces our soldiers to accept personal risk at an unprecedented level – greater even than the horrific dangers they already face in this lethal conflict, where so many of our brave men have been killed and maimed."
  • (11) They removed dictators, they gave ordinary men and women a voice, and perhaps most important of all, they put the problems of an oppressed, forsaken people on the global political agenda – people just like those who, before Wednesday's ceasefire, were being killed and maimed by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
  • (12) "Cardiovascular disease maims and kills people through coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease and stroke.
  • (13) Then, the movement to legalize abortion rested on the following: 1) illegal abortions were killing and maiming women; 2) women should have a backup to ineffective contraception; 3) the number of unwanted pregnancies should be reduced; only wanted children should be born, as a matter of child welfare; 4) women should have the right to make the abortion decision; 5) everything possible should be done to change the economic and domestic circumstances forcing women into unwanted pregnancies.
  • (14) We passively accept that scores of young men in our country will inevitably die each year after being circumcised and that many more will be permanently maimed.
  • (15) Logical, yes, but politically it's a no-brainer: why risk the wrath of the Daily Mail for being soft on drugs, even if it does mean passing up the chance to ensure these concoctions – produced and marketed by manufacturers who work one step ahead of the law – are better controlled, dosed and labelled, and therefore less likely to maim or kill.
  • (16) Egyptians, and much of the world, watched in horror as the military and police stormed into the camps , torched tents while people were still sleeping inside them, and killed and maimed indiscriminately.
  • (17) He recalled taking on able-bodied runners in Mozambique to give confidence to people maimed by landmines.
  • (18) "Cardiovascular disease [CVD] maims and kills people through coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease and stroke.
  • (19) Iran, of all nations, with full understanding of their horrific effects, could now ensure that they are never again allowed to maim and kill across the region.
  • (20) After all, the evidence of what mechanisation was doing to people (rather than what they were doing with it) was all around him in 1891 in the form of maimed bodies and minds imprisoned by repetitive tasks.

Main


Definition:

  • (n.) A hand or match at dice.
  • (n.) A stake played for at dice.
  • (n.) The largest throw in a match at dice; a throw at dice within given limits, as in the game of hazard.
  • (n.) A match at cockfighting.
  • (n.) A main-hamper.
  • (v.) Strength; force; might; violent effort.
  • (v.) The chief or principal part; the main or most important thing.
  • (v.) The great sea, as distinguished from an arm, bay, etc. ; the high sea; the ocean.
  • (v.) The continent, as distinguished from an island; the mainland.
  • (v.) principal duct or pipe, as distinguished from lesser ones; esp. (Engin.), a principal pipe leading to or from a reservoir; as, a fire main.
  • (a.) Very or extremely strong.
  • (a.) Vast; huge.
  • (a.) Unqualified; absolute; entire; sheer.
  • (a.) Principal; chief; first in size, rank, importance, etc.
  • (a.) Important; necessary.
  • (a.) Very; extremely; as, main heavy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In conclusion, the efficacy of free tissue transfer in the treatment of osteomyelitis is geared mainly at enabling the surgeon to perform a wide radical debridement of infected and nonviable soft tissue and bone.
  • (2) Aggregation was more frequent in low-osmolal media: mainly rouleaux were formed in ioxaglate but irregular aggregates in non-ionic media.
  • (3) The main clinical features pertaining to the concept of the "psycho-organic syndrome" (POS) were investigated in a sample of children who suffered from severe craniocerebral trauma.
  • (4) Squadron Leader Kevin Harris, commander of the Merlins at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand, praised the crews, adding: "The Merlins will undergo an extensive programme of maintenance and cleaning before being packed up, ensuring they return to the UK in good order."
  • (5) The main finding of this study is that diabetic adolescents with a high erythrocyte Na,Li countertransport rate have an arterial pressure significantly higher than patients with normal Na,Li countertransport fluxes.
  • (6) We also show that the gene of the main capsid protein is expressed from its own promoter in an Escherichia coli strain.
  • (7) In schizophrenic patients the density of dopamine uptake sites in the basal ganglia was slightly reduced, mainly in the middle third of putamen.
  • (8) One of the main users is coastal planning organizations and conservation organizations that are working on coral reefs.
  • (9) Immunofluorescence analysis of Pr-28 antigen showed that the antigen was localized mainly in perinuclear cytoplasm.
  • (10) The main result of the correspondence analysis is a geometric map of this relationship showing how the relative frequencies of headache types change with age.
  • (11) Myocardial ischaemia was induced in perfused rabbit hearts by ligating the left main coronary artery.
  • (12) Thus, human bronchial epithelial cells can express the IL-8 gene, with expression in response to the inflammatory mediator TNF regulated mainly at the transcriptional level, and with elements within the 5'-flanking region of the gene that are directly or indirectly modulated by the TNF signal.
  • (13) Statistically significant differences were found mainly in the randomized trial, where during the first and second years, respectively, adenoidectomy subjects had 47% and 37% less time with otitis media than control subjects and 28% and 35% fewer suppurative (acute) episodes than control subjects.
  • (14) One of the main components was confirmed to be caffeic acid which had inhibitory effect on renal failure in mice by Ac1-P.
  • (15) In four main regions the conservation varied from 83-91% while in the remaining regions the homology dropped to between 56-62%.
  • (16) In the caudal spinal trigeminal nucleus (Vc), the collaterals of one half of the periodontium afferent fibers terminated mainly in lamina V at the rostral and middle levels of Vc.
  • (17) Loratadine has one main metabolite, descarbethoxyloratadine, which is four times more active than the parent drug.
  • (18) The structures of 1 and 2 were established mainly on the basis of nmr spectroscopic data.
  • (19) The main clinical symptom was pain, usually sciatica, while neurological symptoms were less common than they are in adults.
  • (20) Possibilities to achieve this both in the curative and the preventive field are restricted mainly due to the insufficient knowledge of their etiopathogenesis.