mainstream

Etymology

main + stream

adj

1. Used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of a population or market.
   They often carry stories you won't find in the mainstream media.
   As unsubstantiated claims receive significant backing, skeptics and defenders of mainstream science enter the fray. 2011, Taner Edis, Science and Nonbelief, Greenwood Publishing Group, page 153
   The mainstream media hones in on bad news stories where UK railways are concerned, yet gives scant attention to the many items of good news emerging from the network. December 29 2021, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Aylesbury (2009)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 61
   If Ms. Le Pen looks more mainstream now, it’s because the mainstream looks more like her. 2022-04-20, Rim-Sarah Alouane, “Marine Le Pen Is as Dangerous as Ever”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

noun

1. The principal current in a flow, such as a river or flow of air
2. (usually with the) That which is common; the norm.
   ideas outside of the mainstream
   George Herbert Walker Bush of Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University proclaimed in the first Presidential candidates' debate that he was “in touch with the mainstream of America.” 1988-09-30, Tom Wicker, quoting George H. W. Bush, “Ol' Man Mainstream”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   Long content with being the BMW of the computer industry, suppying finely crafted machines to a relatively small number of fanatic customers, Apple now wants to become a Ford or Toyota, to move into the mainstream. 1991-07-14, Andrew Pollack, “A Quirky Loner Goes Mainstream”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   "Railways seldom slavishly followed styles to be seen in the mainstream of contemporary architecture," HE [Historic England] explains. October 20 2021, Dr Joseph Brennan, “A key part of our diverse railway heritage”, in RAIL, number 942, page 55

verb

1. (transitive) To popularize, to normalize, to render mainstream.
   Just as the gang peace movement desired to mainstream hardcore bangers into civic society, The Chronic wanted to drive hardcore rap into the popstream. 2011, Jeff Change, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, page 420
2. (intransitive) To become mainstream.
   In a nonchurch context, we can look more explicitly at formerly New Age practices to see if and how they have mainstreamed. 2013, Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion, 5th edition, Boston: Cengage Learning, page 262
3. (transitive, education, chiefly US) To educate (a disabled student) together with non-disabled students.
   Despite these beliefs, the decision to send my son to a regular school was not made easily. I didn't know of any child as disabled as he who had been mainstreamed. 1985-04-14, Barbara Gerbasi, “Mainstreaming My Son”, in The New York Times, →ISSN