TO HAVE AN EYE TO THE MAIN CHANCE, phr. (colloquial).—To keep in view that which will result in advantage, interest or gain. [Thought to have originated in the phraseology of the game of hazard.] Murray, quoting from A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, says that ‘to have an eye to the main chance’ was a cant phrase in 1699, and that the expression still partakes of the character. All the quotations given in the N.E.D. prior to 1699 illustrate a simpler form of the colloquialism, such as to ‘stand to the main chance,’ but it will be seen that TO HAVE AN EYE TO THE MAIN CHANCE is more than a hundred years older.
1609. JONSON, The Case is Altered, iv. 4. Juniper, to the door; AN EYE TO THE MAIN CHANCE. [Removes the dung, and shews him the gold.]
1693. DRYDEN, Persius, Satire VI., 159.
| Be careful still of the MAIN CHANCE, my Son; | |
| Put out the Principal, in trusty hands. |
1711. Spectator, No. 196. I am very young, and yet no one in the world, dear sir, has the MAIN CHANCE more in HER HEAD than myself.
1844. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xviii., p. 190. ‘Was it politics? Or was it the price of stock?’ ‘The MAIN CHANCE, Mr. Jonas, the MAIN CHANCE, I suspect.’
