Main Street is the metonym for a generic street name (and often the official name) of the primary retail street of a village, town or small city in many parts of the world. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in the central business district, and is most often used in reference to retailing and socializing.
The term is commonly used in the United States, less often in Canada, Australia, Ireland and extremely rarely in the United Kingdom where the common description is High Street. In Jamaica the term is Front Street. In some parts of South West of England the equivalent used is Fore Street.
In some larger cities, there may be several Main Streets, each relating to a specific neighborhood or formerly separate city, rather than the city as a whole. In many larger U.S. cities "Main Street" is a U.S. Highway, as the streets that helped develop the cities around were converted to highways.
Read more about Main Street: American Cultural Usage, International Use and Equivalents
Famous quotes containing the words main and/or street:
“The main question raised by the thriller is not what kind of world we live in, or what reality is like, but what it has done to us.”
—Ralph Harper (b. 1915)
“And men left down their work and came,
And women with petticoats coloured like flame.
And little bare feet that were blue with cold,
Went dancing back to the age of gold,
And all the world went gay, went gay,
For half an hour in the street to-day.”
—“Seumas” “O’Sullivan” (1879–1958)