main drag
7
5.1
- noun
- Informal
:
calle principal
- Pete and Stanton walk along Commerce Street, the main drag through the center of the small town.
Examples
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As he made his way down the main drag slowly, cautious men and women came out of the woodwork.
Blog text (28) -
On arriving in each new town, the Caravan sent its performers and equipment down the main drag to advertise that night's show.
Fiction book (1990) -
- We need to get off the main drag.
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So this must be the main drag.
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The main drag is around here somewhere.
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That's where you go on the main drag in town.
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My grandfather, who started out as a milliner, had a dress shop on the main drag downtown.
Blog text (28) -
We shuffled along the main drag until we reached my car, its interior light clicking on when I opened the door.
Fiction book (1998) -
Midway down the island's main drag, Via Roma.
Academic text (2012) -
Most of the other businesses along this main drag were closed for the night.
Synonyms
74
2.3
A town's main road where most shops, restaurants, and businesses are located
19
5.1
A main road that people use to travel between places
8
3.3
The main street in a town where most shops and banks are
Surface Forms
Morphology
main + drag
While 'main' clearly indicates something primary, the constituent 'drag' does not transparently mean 'street' for most learners — its literal senses (to pull; something tedious) do not yield 'principal thoroughfare', and the "street" sense is colloquial/dialectal. Because the critical sense of 'drag' is unpredictable without prior exposure, a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The noun main drag comes from a simple picture: the main street and drag, an old word for a road people would 'slowly move' along in cars or on foot to see and be seen. So main drag now means the town's busiest street where shops and people go.