core
cores; cored; coring
If you're looking for the most essential part or the very center of something, you're looking for its core. Like the inedible middle of an apple or your inner circle of core friends.
In the late 14th century, the noun core came about from the Old French coeur, meaning “core of fruit” and more literally, “heart.” So the core of something is its very heart, whether you're talking about the seed-containing center of a fruit, the central meaning of a book, or the core courses you need to take in order to graduate.
Definitions of core
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the center of an object
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the central part of the Earth
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a cylindrical sample of soil or rock obtained with a hollow drill
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type of:
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sample
all or part of a natural object that is collected and preserved as an example of its class
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sample
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remove the core or center from“core an apple”
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type of:
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core out, hollow, hollow out
remove the interior of
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core out, hollow, hollow out
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the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
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synonyms:
center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, kernel, marrow, meat, nitty-gritty, nub, pith, substance, sum
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types:
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bare bones
(plural) the most basic facts or elements
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hypostasis
(metaphysics) essential nature or underlying reality
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haecceity, quiddity
the essence that makes something the kind of thing it is and makes it different from any other
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distillation, quintessence
the purest and most concentrated essence of something
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stuff
a critically important or characteristic component
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type of:
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cognitive content, content, mental object
the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned
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a small group of indispensable persons or things“five periodicals make up the core of their publishing program”
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synonyms:
core group, nucleus
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the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work
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type of:
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import, meaning, significance, signification
the message that is intended or expressed or signified
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import, meaning, significance, signification
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a bar of magnetic material (as soft iron) that passes through a coil and serves to increase the inductance of the coil
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type of:
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bar
a rigid piece of metal or wood; usually used as a fastening or obstruction or weapon
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bar
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(computer science) a tiny ferrite toroid formerly used in a random access memory to store one bit of data; now superseded by semiconductor memories“each core has three wires passing through it, providing the means to select and detect the contents of each bit”
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synonyms:
magnetic core
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the chamber of a nuclear reactor containing the fissile material where the reaction takes place
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type of:
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chamber
a natural or artificial enclosed space
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chamber
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘core'.
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors.
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