core

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See also: Core, CORE, Coré, côre, córę, çore, -core, and co-r.e.

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has articles on:
Wikipedia Wikipedia

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English core, kore, coor (“apple-core, pith”), of uncertain origin. Possibly of native English origin (compare Old English corn (“seed", also "grain”), or perhaps from Old French cuer (“heart”), from Latin cor (“heart”); or from Old French cors (“body”), from Latin corpus (“body”). Compare also Middle English colk, coke, coll (“the heart or centre of an apple or onion, core”), Dutch kern (“core”), German Kern (“core”). See also heart, corpse.

Noun[edit]

core (countable and uncountable, plural cores)

  1. In general usage, an essential part of a thing surrounded by other essential things.
    1. The central part of a fruit, containing the kernels or seeds.
      the core of an apple or quince
    2. The heart or inner part of a physical thing.
      • 2013 March 1, Nancy Langston, “Mining the Boreal North”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 2, page 98:
        Reindeer are well suited to the taiga’s frigid winters. They can maintain a thermogradient between body core and the environment of up to 100 degrees, in part because of insulation provided by their fur, and in part because of counter-current vascular heat exchange systems in their legs and nasal passages.
    3. The anatomical core, muscles which bridge abdomen and thorax.
    4. The center or inner part of a space or area.
  2. The most important part of a thing or aggregate of things wherever located and whether of any determinate location at all; the essence.
    • 2012 May 24, Nathan Rabin, “Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3”, in The Onion AV Club:
      Jones’ sad eyes betray a pervasive pain his purposefully spare dialogue only hints at, while the perfectly cast Brolin conveys hints of playfulness and warmth while staying true to the craggy stoicism at the character’s core.
    • 2018, Clarence Green; James Lambert, “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects”, in Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 35, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.07.004, page 107:
      General vocabulary is often defined as a common core of English words and operationalized as the most frequent words in a balanced and representative corpus of English.
    the core of a subject
    1. A technical term for classification of things denoting those parts of a category that are most easily or most likely understood as within it.
      1. (botany) Used to designate the main and most diverse monophyletic group within a clade or taxonomic group.
      2. (game theory) The set of feasible allocations that cannot be improved upon by a subset (a coalition) of the economy's agents.
  3. particular parts of technical instruments or machines essential in function:
    1. (engineering) The portion of a mold that creates an internal cavity within a casting or that makes a hole in or through a casting.
    2. (computing, informal, historical) Ellipsis of core memory.; magnetic data storage.
    3. (computer hardware) An individual computer processor, in the sense when several processors (called cores or CPU cores) are plugged together in one single integrated circuit to work as one (called a multi-core processor).
      I wanted to play a particular computer game, which required I buy a new computer, so while the game said it needed at least a dual-core processor, I wanted my computer to be a bit ahead of the curve, so I bought a quad-core.
    4. (engineering) The material between surface materials in a structured composite sandwich material.
      a floor panel with a Nomex honeycomb core
    5. (engineering, nuclear physics) The inner part of a nuclear reactor, in which the nuclear reaction takes place.
    6. (military) The central fissile portion of a fission weapon.
      In a hollow-core design, neutrons escape from the core more readily, allowing more fissile material to be used (and thus allowing for a greater yield) while still keeping the core subcritical prior to detonation.
    7. A piece of ferromagnetic material (e.g., soft iron), inside the windings of an electromagnet, that channels the magnetic field.
    8. (printing) A hollow cylindrical piece of cardboard around which a web of paper or plastic is wound.
  4. Hence particular parts of a subject studied or examined by technical operations, likened by position and practical or structural robustness to kernels, cores in the most vulgar sense above.
    1. (medicine) A tiny sample of organic material obtained by means of a fine-needle biopsy.
    2. The bony process which forms the central axis of the horns in many animals.
    3. A disorder of sheep caused by worms in the liver.
      • 1750, William Ellis, Modern Husbandry or Practice of Farming:
        [the skin of the sheep] is clear from cores and jogs under the jaws.
    4. (biochemistry) The central part of a protein's structure, consisting mostly of hydrophobic amino acids.
    5. A cylindrical sample of rock or other materials obtained by core drilling.
    6. (physics) An atomic nucleus plus inner electrons (i.e., an atom, except for its valence electrons).
Synonyms[edit]
Hyponyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from core (noun)
Descendants[edit]
  • Translingual: core eudicots, core Malvales
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective[edit]

core (not comparable)

  1. Forming the most important or essential part.
    • 2009, Greg Hayes, A Practical Guide to Business Valuations for SMEs, page 68:
      Privately held businesses may hold assets or have charges to their financial statements which are not core to their main business activity.
    • 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:
      Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.
    • 2018, Clarence Green; James Lambert, “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects”, in Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 35, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.07.004, page 106:
      These lists cover important vocabulary from eight core subjects that students need to master during secondary education: Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, Geology, History, Mathematics, and Physics.

Verb[edit]

core (third-person singular simple present cores, present participle coring, simple past and past participle cored)

  1. To remove the core of an apple or other fruit.
  2. To cut or drill through the core of (something).
    • 2020 April 1, Drachinifel, HMS Thunderchild - A bad day to be a Tripod‎[1], archived from the original on 24 September 2022, retrieved 26 September 2022, 6:52 from the start:
      But the other thing to take into account is, when you look at the Katahdin and the Polyphemus, they both have their boiler plants pretty much amidships or slightly forward of amidships, which means that, in the event of a heat-lance strike on the boiler room, not only is that gonna core through the ship right at the center of mass, which is obviously bad for its continued structural stability, but the boilers going up is gonna incinerate pretty much anybody on the bridge, which is gonna leave it completely out of control, and is probably gonna break the ship clean in half right there and then, none of which really speaks to the ship's being able to continue onwards with enough momentum to take down a Martian tripod.
  3. To extract a sample with a drill.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

See corps

Noun[edit]

core (plural cores)

  1. (obsolete) A body of individuals; an assemblage.
Translations[edit]
assemblage — see assemblage

Etymology 3[edit]

See chore

Noun[edit]

core (plural cores)

  1. A miner's underground working time or shift.[1]
Translations[edit]

Etymology 4[edit]

From Hebrew כֹּר‎.

Noun[edit]

core (plural cores)

  1. (historical units of measure) Alternative form of cor: a former Hebrew and Phoenician unit of volume.

Etymology 5[edit]

Possibly an acronym for cash on return

Noun[edit]

core (plural cores)

  1. (automotive, machinery, aviation, marine) A deposit paid by the purchaser of a rebuilt part, to be refunded on return of a used, rebuildable part, or the returned rebuildable part itself.

References[edit]

  1. ^ 1881, Rossiter W. Raymond, A Glossary of Mining and Metallurgical Terms

Anagrams[edit]

Istriot[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin cor. Compare Italian cuore.

Noun[edit]

core

  1. heart
    • Ti son la manduleîna del mio core;
      You are the almond of my heart;

Italian[edit]

Noun[edit]

core

  1. (archaic) Alternative form of cuore

Anagrams[edit]

Latin[edit]

Noun[edit]

core

  1. ablative singular of coris

Middle English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Unknown; derivation from either Old French cuer (“heart”) or cors (“body”) has been suggested, though both possibilities pose serious problems.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

core (plural cores)

  1. core (centre of a fruit)
  2. (rare, by extension) The middle of something.

Descendants[edit]

References[edit]

Neapolitan[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin cor. Compare Italian cuore.

Noun[edit]

core m (plural cuore)

  1. heart
    T'alluntane da stu core ― You are walking away from this heart

Portuguese[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowed from English core.

Pronunciation[edit]

 

Noun[edit]

core m (plural cores)

  1. (computer architecture) core (independent unit in a processor with several such units)
    Synonym: núcleo

Etymology 2[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

 

Verb[edit]

core

  1. inflection of corar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative

Yola[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English core.

Noun[edit]

core

  1. heart
    • 1867, CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, line 6:
      wi vengem o' core t'gie oure zense o' ye gradès whilke be ee-dighte wi yer name;
      to pour forth from the strength of our hearts, our sense of the qualities which characterise your name,
    Synonym: hearth

References[edit]

  • Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 114
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