mainspring
noun
main·spring
| \ ˈmān-ˌspriŋ
\
\
Definition of mainspring
1
: the chief spring in a mechanism especially of a watch or clock
2
: the chief or most powerful motive, agent, or cause
Examples of mainspring in a Sentence
Agriculture is the mainspring of their economy.
Recent Examples on the Web
Hatidze’s solitude is one of the film’s prime subjects and also its dramatic mainspring, and its details and practicalities are merely hinted at, and utterly unexplored, throughout. — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, "“Honeyland,” Reviewed: A Gripping, Frustrating Documentary About a Beekeeper’s Fragile Isolation," 1 Aug. 2019 In the Type 390, the movement is arranged so that the gear trains lie in layers, from right to left, with the mainspring at one end and the tourbillon at the other. — Bloomberg.com, "A $300,000 Watch for Your $3.26 Million Sports Car," 3 Apr. 2018 In a conventional watch gear train, gears downstream in the power flow from the mainspring barrel turn more quickly than the gears that drive them. — Bloomberg.com, "A $300,000 Watch for Your $3.26 Million Sports Car," 3 Apr. 2018 The show’s mainspring and title song amounts to little more than a kvetch. — Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle, "Not much of a ‘Saturday Night’ except for Sondheim devotees," 2 Apr. 2018 This paranoia was the mainspring for Nixon’s attack on the constitutional order. — Jeet Heer, New Republic, "Trump’s Cult of Personality Takes Paranoia to the Next Level," 26 Jan. 2018 At the end of the day, the headline is going to be what Jane Fleming Kleeb, the chairman of the Nebraska Democratic Party and the mainspring of the opposition to the project, said after the hearings adjourned on Thursday afternoon. — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, "Why the Keystone Battle, and Others Like It, Will Never End," 10 Aug. 2017 The mainspring of this imagined future clash is not race and slavery, but science and the environment. — The Washington Post, OregonLive.com, "Omar El Akkad's 'American War' blends 19th-century hatreds, 21st-century weapons," 30 May 2017 To build the Reference, Patek adapted self-winding technology from its rival, Rolex: a new mechanism that spun around the mainspring instead of swinging back and forth. — Jonathon Keats, WIRED, "Design: Evolution of the Self-Winding Wristwatch," 11 Nov. 2009These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'mainspring.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Keep scrolling for more
Keep scrolling for more
More Definitions for mainspring
mainspring
noun
English Language Learners Definition of mainspring
: the most important spring in a watch or clock
: the most important or powerful cause or part of something
See the full definition for mainspring in the English Language Learners Dictionary
mainspring
noun
main·spring
| \ ˈmān-ˌspriŋ
\
\
Kids Definition of mainspring
: the principal spring in a mechanical device (as a watch or clock)