Definition of Mainspring

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Mainspring

The principal or most important spring in a piece of mechanism, especially the moving spring of a watch or clock or the spring in a gunlock which impels the hammer. Hence: The chief or most powerful motive; the efficient cause of action.

Related Definitions:

Action, Cause, Chief, Clock, Efficient, Especially, Gunlock, Hammer, Hence, Important, In, Mechanism, Most, Motive, Moving, Of, Or, Piece, Powerful, Principal, Spring, The, Watch, Which

Mainspring Quotations

The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?
Marquis de Sade

Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.
Max Beerbohm

Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity enjoy the accumulating of facts far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts.
Clarence Day

Mainspring Translations

mainspring in German is Uhrfeder, treibende Kraft
mainspring in Spanish is causa principal

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