Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Chiefly British Variant of center.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
- n. UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand Alternative form of center.
- v. UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand Alternative form of center.
GNU Webster's 1913
- chiefly British See center.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a place where some particular activity is concentrated
- n. a cluster of nerve cells governing a specific bodily process
- n. the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
- n. an area that is approximately central within some larger region
- n. a building dedicated to a particular activity
- v. move into the center
- n. the sweet central portion of a piece of candy that is enclosed in chocolate or some other covering
- n. the object upon which interest and attention focuses
- n. a low-lying region in central France
- n. a point equidistant from the ends of a line or the extremities of a figure
- v. direct one's attention on something
Examples
“This method is that of grouping parts around centres, and several of such groups around larger centres, upward and onward indefinitely; while in living beings, according to their complexity, each individual part, and each individual group of parts with its centre, _is left free to move within its own sphere, yet at the same time is harmonized with the movements of its neighbors through the medium of the common centre_.”
The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 Devoted to Literature and National Policy
“At the lower part of the area which controls the muscles of the different parts of the body, above and a little in front of the tip of the ear, lies a very important centre, which controls the movements of the tongue and lips, and is known as the _speech centre_.”
“He therefore ordered his heaviest ship, the _Cornwall_, 74, to go there from the centre, exchanging places with the _Centurion_, 50, and at the same time signalled the fleet to close _to the centre_, -- a detail worth remembering in view of Rodney's frustrated manoeuvre of April 17th,”
The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence
“In Milton's MS. it is 'bestud the centre with their star-light,' _centre_ being the 'centre of the earth.”
“... with their trunks (the beams carefully supported at their centre of gravity, the logs carefully supported at their centre of gravity, the elephants without a smile at_ their _centre of gravity)”
“The point to which we wish particularly to direct attention in connexion with this exposition of the phænomena attending the transmission of a storm is this: -- If the observer so place himself at the commencement that the wind passes _from his left hand towards his right_, his face will be directed towards the centre of the storm; and the wind undergoing no change in direction, but only in force, will acquaint him with this important fact that the _centre_ is not only gradually but surely approaching him: in other words, in the case before us, when he finds the wind from the S.E., and he places himself with his face to the”
“To give an idea of scale, the large pink bead in centre is about 1.5 "in diameter and about 3/4" thick.”
“In the centre is an enormous circular counter … We ascend a broad staircase, which leads to ‘The Lounging Rooms’, and to the first of a series of circular galleries, lighted from the lantern of the dome, which also lights the ground floor.”
“At the centre is a much venerated image of Our Lady from ca. 1250:”
“Dark stars have a finite radius, a Schwarzschild black hole does not (the centre is a singularity).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘centre’.
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UK Usage - Find US Equivalent
All these terms have a (different) American English equivalent. Wonder if you can identify them?
abridgement (abri..., accoutrement, accoutre, acknowledgement (..., opposite, advert, adaptor, adapter, sticking plaster, advertise, adviser (advisor ..., adze, aesthete and 1196 more...
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fix
set, anchor, mend, rivet, moor, clinch, emend, circumfix, fixated, cefixime, fixed cost, confix and 87 more...
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be-tween the wings
monoplane, wheatear, synallaxine, fritillary, nightjar, morning-a-jar, evening-jarred, fieldfare, centre, accipiter, motmot, geometrid and 43 more...
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English British pronunciation
Differences betwen brithish and American english spelling or pronunciation.
centre, center, fibre, fiber, litre, liter, theatre, theater, colour, color, flavour, flavor and 18 more...
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American vs British
Every word that is unique in either American or British English or used differently in both
anymore, alright, trapezium, trapezoid, centre, center, flyer, flier, diarrhoea, diarrhea, hobnob, nappy and 4 more...
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Dimélion's "Best of"
words i absolutely love!
affinity, bittersweet, deft, catharsis, rook, elysium, yggdrasil, virtue, indefinitely, slake, archaic, arcane and 81 more...
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centrist
Centres of things; maxima and minima; converging to something.
centre, point, node, nexus, hub, pole, apex, peak, apogee, nadir, zenith, tip and 7 more...
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words I added first
oscular, monozygotic, xiphisternum, lightbox, tympanic, snowshed, riverbed, newborn, stillbirth, whiteness, unkindness, richness and 28 more...
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Confusion
Tweets
Looking for tweets for centre.
yarb I think so. Apr 19, 2011
ruzuzu Is that the same for all those extra U's in colour and flavour, etc.? Apr 19, 2011
yarb My guess is it was one of the spellings regularized by Webster - it would have come into English from French, presumably, hence originally "-re". Apr 19, 2011
PossibleUnderscore Does anyone know why Brits use -re while Americans use -er? Surely it's not arbitrary. And similarly, how about -ise and -ize? Apr 19, 2011