Main or mane?
main is an adjective meaning “Of chief or leading importance; prime, principal”; mane is a noun meaning “Longer hair growth on back of neck of an animal, especially a horse or lion”. Use main as an adjective and mane as a noun (main is also a noun: “That which is chief or principal; the chief or main…”). They sound the same (/meɪn/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) main is about 81 times as common as mane.
What is the difference between main and mane?
| main | mane | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, adverb, verb, noun | noun, suffix |
| Meaning | Of chief or leading importance; prime, principal Chief, most important, or principal in extent, size, or strength; consisting of the largest part UKExceedingly, extremely, greatly, mightily, very, very much | Longer hair growth on back of neck of an animal, especially a horse or lion Long or thick hair of a person's head Forming compound nouns with the sense of person who has a mania for |
| Example | The main office is actually one of the smaller rooms | none recorded |
| Forms | none | manes |
| Pronunciation | /meɪn/ | /meɪn/ |
| In writing | 174 times per million words | 2.1 times per million words |
Sources: main and mane in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of main and mane
main
- 1
Of chief or leading importance; prime, principal
The main office is actually one of the smaller rooms
- 2
UKExceedingly, extremely, greatly, mightily, very, very much
- 3
slangEllipsis of mainline (“to inject (a drug) directly into a vein”)
- 4
That which is chief or principal; the chief or main portion; the bulk, the greater part, gross
- 5
A banker's shovel for coins
- 6
Ellipsis of Main Street (“main street”), a central street of a community
- 7
Chief, most important, or principal in extent, size, or strength; consisting of the largest part
main timbers
- 8
To mainly play a specific character or side, or with specific equipment, during a game
He mains the same character as me in that game
mane
- 1
Longer hair growth on back of neck of an animal, especially a horse or lion
- 2
slangEye dialect spelling of man
- 3
Forming compound nouns with the sense of person who has a mania for
- 4
Long or thick hair of a person's head
- 5
Part of a naval sword between the tang button and the quillon
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, main or mane?
main appears 174 times per million words; mane 2.1 times per million words.
main 174 times per million wordsmane 2.1 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search main vs mane?
“main vs mane” is searched about 50 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“mane vs main”, “main or mane”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.