mainstay

Other forms of mainstay

plural

mainstays·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about mainstay

What does mainstay mean?

mainstay means "a prominent supporter". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in mainstay?

mainstay has 2 syllables: main-stay. The stress falls on "main". In IPA it is /ˈmeɪnˌsteɪ/.

What is another word for mainstay?

Close synonyms include pillar, anchor, keystone, backbone, linchpin. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is mainstay a common word?

mainstay is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with mainstay?

2 words rhyme with mainstay. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.