1. The centre of an object
   "the ball has a titanium core"
    
2. The choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
   "the core of the prosecutor's argument";
   - kernel, substance, center [US], centre [Brit, Cdn], essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty [informal]
    
3. The central part of the Earth
   "Scientists believe the Earth's core is primarily composed of iron and nickel"; "The intense pressure at the core creates extreme temperatures"
    
4. The central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work
   "The core of his argument was that climate change requires immediate action";
   - effect, essence, burden, gist
    
5. A small group of indispensable persons or things
   "five periodicals make up the core of their publishing program";
   - nucleus, core group
    
6. A cylindrical sample of soil or rock obtained with a hollow drill
   "Geologists analysed the ice core to study ancient climate patterns"; "The core sample revealed layers of sediment from different geological periods"
    
7. (computing) a tiny ferrite toroid formerly used in a random access memory to store one bit of data; now superseded by semiconductor memories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";
   - magnetic core
    
8. The chamber of a nuclear reactor containing the fissile material where the reaction takes place
   "Sensors constantly monitored the temperature of the reactor core"
    
9. A bar of magnetic material (as soft iron) that passes through a coil and serves to increase the inductance of the coil
   "The transformer's efficiency was improved by using a high-quality iron core"

1. Remove the core or centre from
   "core an apple"

1. An organization founded by James Leonard Farmer in 1942 to work for racial equality
   - Congress of Racial Equality

Sounds like: caw, cor, corps, kor

Derived forms: cores, coring, cored

Type of: bar, center [US], centre [Brit, Cdn], chamber, cognitive content, content, core out, hollow, hollow out, import, meaning, mental object, midpoint, NGO, nongovernmental organisation [Brit], nongovernmental organization, sample, set, significance, signification, toroid, torus

Part of: core memory, magnet, magnetic core memory, nuclear reactor, RAM, random access memory, random memory, random-access memory, reactor, read/write memory

Encyclopedia: Core, San Diego, California