"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!"
secondary or subsidiary object, course, undertaking, issue, etcedit
by
1567, Tu[...]. Ovid's Epist. 13b,
Refuseth me and all the wealth, and barres me by and maine.
1610, Folkingham, Art of Survey, II. v. 55,
Extend from some fewe Maine Angls Base lines for Boundaries . . and from conuenient distances in the same, distantiate euery By.
a1734, North, Lives, II, 188,
Neither was the main let fall, nor [...] loss, upon the by.
1791-1804, D'Israeli, Cur. Lit. (1806), 433/r,
This critic was right in the main, but not by the by; in the general, not in the particular.