core

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The hard or fibrous central part of certain fruits, such as the apple or pear, containing the seeds.
2. n. The central or innermost part: the hard elastic core of a baseball; a rod with a hollow core.
3. n. The basic or most important part; the essence: a small core of dedicated supporters; the core of the problem. See Synonyms at substance.
4. n. A set of subjects or courses that make up a required portion of a curriculum.
5. n. Electricity A soft iron rod in a coil or transformer that provides a path for and intensifies the magnetic field produced by the windings.
6. n. Computer Science A memory, especially one consisting of a series of tiny doughnut-shaped masses of magnetic material. Also called core memory.
7. n. One of the magnetic doughnut-shaped masses that make up such a memory. Also called magnetic core.
8. n. The central portion of the earth below the mantle, beginning at a depth of about 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) and probably consisting of iron and nickel. It is made up of a liquid outer core and a solid inner core.
9. n. A mass of dry sand placed within a mold to provide openings or shape to a casting.
10. n. A reactor core.
11. n. A cylindrical sample of rock, ice, or other material obtained from the center of a mass by drilling or cutting.
12. n. The base, usually of soft or inferior wood, to which veneer woods are glued.
13. n. Archaeology A stone from which one or more flakes have been removed, serving as a source for such flakes or as a tool itself.
14. v. To remove the core from: core apples.
15. v. To remove (a cylindrical sample) from something, such as a glacier.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The heart or innermost part of anything; hence, the nucleus or central or most essential part, literally or figuratively: as, the core of a question.
2. n. Specifically— The central part of a fleshy fruit, containing the seeds or kernels: as, the core of an apple or a quince.
3. n. In architecture, the inner part or filling of a wall or column.
4. n. In medicine, the fibrous innermost part of a boil.
5. n. In molding, the internal mold of a casting, which fills the space intended to be left hollow. Cores are made of molding-sand, mixed with other ingredients to give strength and porosity, and are usually baked before being used.
6. n. In telegraphy, the central cord of insulated conducting wires in a submarine or subterranean cable.
7. n. The iron nucleus of an electromagnet.
8. n. In rope-making, a central strand around which other strands are twisted, as in a wire rope; or a cable.
9. n. In hydraulic engineering, an impervious wall or structure, as of concrete, in an embankment or dike of porous material, to prevent the passage of water by percolation.
10. n. The cylindrical piece of rock obtained in boring by means of the diamond drill or any other boring-machine which makes an annular cut. Also called carrot.
11. n. The bony central part of the horn of a ruminant; a horn-core, or process of the frontal bone.
12. n. In prehistoric archæol., a piece of flint, obsidian, or similar material, from which knives and other stone implements have been chipped.
13. n. The center or innermost part of any open space.
14. n. A disorder in sheep caused by worms in the liver.
15. n. An internal induration in the udder of a cow.
16. To make, mold, or cast on a core.
17. To remove the core of, as of an apple or other fruit.
18. To roll in salt and prepare for drying: applied to herrings.
19. n. In mining, the number of hours, generally from six to eight, during which each party of miners works before being relieved. The miner's day is thus usually divided into three or four cores or shifts.
20. n. A body.
21. n. A body of persons; a party; a crew; a corps.
22. n. Chosen; directed.

Wiktionary

1. n. A Hebrew dry measure; a cor or homer.
2. n. A miner's underground working time or shift.
3. n. obsolete A body of individuals; an assemblage.
4. n. The central part of fruit, containing the kernels or seeds.
5. n. The heart or inner part of a thing, as of a column, wall, rope, of a boil, etc.
6. n. The center or inner part, as of an open space.
7. n. The most important part of a thing; the essence.
8. n. engineering The portion of a mold that creates an internal cavity within a casting or that makes a hole in or through a casting.
9. n. The bony process which forms the central axis of the horns in many animals.
10. n. computing magnetic memory.
11. n. computing An individual computer processor, in the sense when several processors are plugged together in one single integrated circuit to work as one.
12. n. engineering The material between surface materials in a structured composite sandwich material.
13. n. The inner part of a nuclear reactor in which the nuclear reaction takes place
14. n. A piece of soft iron, inside the windings of an electromagnet, that channels the magnetic field
15. v. To remove the core of an apple or other fruit.
16. v. To extract a sample with a drill.
17. n. automotive, machinery, aviation 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.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A body of individuals; an assemblage.
2. n. (Mining.) A miner's underground working time or shift.
3. n. A Hebrew dry measure; a cor or homer.
4. n. The heart or inner part of a thing, as of a column, wall, rope, of a boil, etc.; especially, the central part of fruit, containing the kernels or seeds.
5. n. obsolete The center or inner part, as of an open space.
6. n. The most important part of a thing; the essence; ; -- also used attributively, .
7. n. (Founding) The portion of a mold which shapes the interior of a cylinder, tube, or other hollow casting, or which makes a hole in or through a casting; a part of the mold, made separate from and inserted in it, for shaping some part of the casting, the form of which is not determined by that of the pattern.
8. n. Prov. Eng. A disorder of sheep occasioned by worms in the liver.
9. n. (Anat.) The bony process which forms the central axis of the horns in many animals.
10. n. (Elec.) A mass of iron or other ferrous metal, forming the central part of an electromagnet, such as those upon which the conductor of an armature, a transformer, or an induction coil is wound.
11. n. (mining) a sample of earth or rock extracted from underground by a drilling device in such a manner that the layers of rock are preserved in the same order as they exist underground. The sample is typically removed with a rotating drill bit having a hollow center, and is thus shaped like a cylinder.
12. n. (Computers) The main working memory of a digital computer system, which typically retains the program code being executed as well as the data structures that are manipulated by the program. Contrasted to ROM and data storage device.
13. n. (Geol.) the central part of the earth, believed to be a sphere with a radius of about 2100 miles, and composed primarily of molten iron with some nickel. It is distinguished from the crust and mantle.
14. n. (Engineering) the central part of a nuclear reactor, containing the fissionable fuel.
15. v. To take out the core or inward parts of.
16. v. To form by means of a core, as a hole in a casting.
17. v. To extract a cylindrical sample from, with a boring device. See core{8}.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work
2. n. the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
3. n. the central part of the Earth
4. n. a bar of magnetic material (as soft iron) that passes through a coil and serves to increase the inductance of the coil
5. n. a cylindrical sample of soil or rock obtained with a hollow drill
6. n. (computer science) a tiny ferrite toroid formerly used in a random access memory to store one bit of data; now superseded by semiconductor memories
7. n. an organization founded by James Leonard Farmer in 1942 to work for racial equality
8. n. a small group of indispensable persons or things
9. v. remove the core or center from
10. n. the center of an object
11. n. the chamber of a nuclear reactor containing the fissile material where the reaction takes place