| 释义 |
▪ I. core, n.1|kɔə(r)|
Forms: 4– core; also 4–5 coore, 5–7 coare, (7 chore, choare, kore, quore), 7–8 coar.
[Appears c 1400, in senses 1, 2; core has been the prevailing spelling from the first. Etymology uncertain.
Minsheu conjectured ‘perhaps it hath its name from L. cor the heart, because it lieth in the middle of the fruit’. Skinner pronounced it ‘from F. cœur, It. cuore, L. cor’, which has been repeated by most etymologists since. But the original meaning does not agree with any sense of the L. cor or Fr. cœur, and it was not app. till late in the 16th c. that any one thought of associating it with the notion of ‘heart’. Moreover the OF. word was cuer, which in the end of 14th c. gave place to cueur, latinized after the Renascence to coeur, cœur. Other conjectures are that it represents F. corps (OF. also cors) body, or cor horn. Some support is given to the last by sense 3 (see esp. quot. 1580); but the persistent final e of the Eng. word is a great obstacle to any such derivation. The primary sense of core had formerly been expressed by colk.]
I. Original literal senses.
1. a. The dry horny capsule imbedded in the centre of the pulp and containing the seeds or pips of the apple, pear, quince, etc. (= colk).
1398Trevisa Barth. de P.R. xvii. lxxxi. (Tollem. MS.), Som greynes beþ ordeynid in harde cores [ed. 1495 coares, L. in substantia callosa] within þe frute, as it fareþ in apples and in peres. c1420Pallad. on Husb. xi. 506 Take quynces ripe, and pare hem..but kest away the core. Ibid. iii. 968. c 1440 Douce MS. 55. fo. 31 Pare hem & take oute the coore. 1481Caxton Myrr. ii. i. 61 An Apple, whiche shal be parted by the myddle in foure parties right..by the core [par le moilon]. 1578Lyte Dodoens vi. xlii. 712 In the middle of the fruite [Pear] there is a Coare with kernels or peppins. 1601Bp. W. Barlow Defence 138 The spottes of an apple about the quore. 1616Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 423 Take your Quinces and pare them, and cut them in slices from the chore. 1671Grew Anat. Plants i. vi. §2 The Coar is originated from the Pith; for the Sap..quits the Pith, which thereby hardens into a Coar. 1678Bunyan Pilgr. i. Concl., None throws away the apple for the core. 1747Wesley Prim. Physic (1762) 41 Take a mellow Apple, take out the Core. 1887F. H. Burnett Fauntleroy xi. 216 He'd set there, an' eat..apples out of a barrel, an' pitch his cores into the street.
†b. fig. Something that sticks in one's throat, that one cannot swallow or get over; also, in allusion to Adam's apple (sense 2), said of part of the original corrupt nature still remaining. Obs.
c1460Play Sacram. 757 Lord I haue offendyd the in many a sundry vyse That styckyth at my hart as hard as a core. a1569A. Kingsmill Man's Est. vi. (1580) 33 We are all choked with the core of carnall concupiscence. 1611Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. ix. iv. (1632) 468 This scruple was such a core in Anselm his mouth that he would not pronounce the words of Contract vntill, etc. c1630Donne Serm. lxiii. 631 The coare of Adams apple is still in their throat, which the blood of the Messias hath washt away in the righteous. a1640W. Fenner Sacr. Faithfull (1648) 157 This will be a core to his conscience another day. 1652Benlowes Theoph. ii. xvii. 25.
2. An unburnt part in the centre of a coal, piece of limestone, etc. (= dial. cowk: see coke, colk.)
c1420Pallad. on Husb. xi. 387 Askes of sarment Wherof the flaume hath lefte a core exile, The body so, not alle the bones, brent. 1840–56S. C. Brees Gloss. Civil Eng. 253 Lime core is unfit for making cement and mortar, but it is very serviceable as a dry filling at the backs of walls, etc. 1876Gwilt Encycl. Archit. Gloss., Core..is also the interior part of a lump of lime, which has not been sufficiently burnt. In slaking lump lime these ‘cores’ will not disintegrate.
3. a. The more or less hard mass of dead tissue in the centre of a boil. Formerly also app. a callosity or corn in the feet.
1532More Confut. Tindale Wks. 351/2 So harde is [a] carbuncle, catching ones a core, to bee..cured. 1580Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Vn Cor, a core in the feete. 1599T. M[oufet] Silkwormes 6 Healing bloudy wounds and festred coares. 1624Quarles Job Milit. E ij b, With Potsheards to scrape off those rip'ned cores..from out his sores. 1640–4Sir B. Rudyard in Rushw. Hist. Coll. (1692) iii. I. 25 Now we see what the Sores are..let us be very careful to draw out the Cores of them. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 692. 1710 Lond. Gaz. No. 4772/4 His off Footlock before..troubled with Coars. 1807–26S. Cooper First Lines Surg. (ed. 5) 65 (Boils) Under which is a mass of destroyed cellular membrane, called a core. 1856R. Druitt Surg. Vade M. 195 The discharge of a flake of softened lymph, and a small sloughy shred of areolar tissue..what is called a core.
†b. fig. of inward evil, ill feeling, etc. Obs.
1602Marston Ant. & Mel. iii. Wks. 1856 I. 34 He would..drawe the core forth of impostum'd sin. 1619W. Whately God's Husb. i. (1622) 66 He hath a sensible edge, and a kind of kore against those that stand betwixt him and this reputation. 1670Cotton Espernon iii. x. 525 They would never again be so fully reconcil'd, that there would not still remain a Core in the bosom of the one or the other. 1680Otway Caius Marius v. ii, The Core and Bottom of my Torment's found. a1734North Exam. iii. vi. §7 (1740) 428 The Canker, or Coar, of the late Rebellion was torn out by this loyal Acknowledgment.
c. A disease of sheep, or a tumour characteristic of the disease. Also a disease in pigeons.
1750W. Ellis Mod. Husbandman IV. i. 127 [Observe if the skin of the sheep] is clear from cores and jogs under the jaws. 1792Osbaldiston Brit. Sportsman 121/1 Core, in pigeons, a malady so called from its likeness to the core of an apple. 1818Todd, Core..6. A disorder incident to sheep, occasioned by worms in their livers. Chambers. 1847–78Halliwell, Core, a disease in sheep.
II. transf. A central portion that is cut out, or that remains after using the surrounding parts.[App. the notion is taken from the core of fruit, which is cut out, or left uneaten.] 4. A central portion cut out and removed; esp. the cylindrical mass of rock extracted in the process of boring. Also, a portion extracted from the bed of an ocean or lake. So core-sampler (see 15).
1649W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653) 98 Ant-hills..are best destroyed this way, being opened, the Soard taken up, and the Coar taken out, and scattered before the Plough. 1703Moxon Mech. Exerc. 223 Then with a Semi-circular Tool loosen the whole Core, or middle of the Ball, and pitch the Core with the point opposite to the Center. 1810Specif. Murdock's Patent No. 3292. 2 The cores cut out of the larger sorts of pipes I use as columns or..form them into smaller pipes. 1882Standard No. 17946. 2 The Diamond Rock-boring apparatus..brings up solid cores of rock full of their characteristic fossils. 1938C. S. Piggot in Sci. Monthly Mar. 201 (heading) Core samples of the ocean bottom. 1939Piggot & Urry in Jrnl. Washington Acad. Sci. XXIX. 405 (heading) The radium content of an ocean-bottom core. 1950Ann. Reg. 1949 428 A continuous record of the bottom profile..registered by..200 long cores taken from depths between 2,000 and more than 4,000 fathoms, the integral core-length exceeding one statute mile. 1956Nature 10 Mar. 451/1 Dr. B. Kullenberg, during the Second World War, developed a piston core-sampler capable of taking cores 60 ft. in length. 1959J. Clegg Freshwater Life xviii. 309 Deeper samples of the mud are obtained by an apparatus called a core-sampler. This will raise an undisturbed core of bottom-deposit many feet in length. 1970Nature 6 June 934/2 Palaeomagnetic measurements of deep sea sediment cores could yield additional information about the past motions of the sea floor.
5. The remaining central portion of a mass from which the superficial parts have been cut or chipped away; e.g. of a hay-rick, and in Prehist. Archæol. of a flint nodule, whence flakes have been chipped for flint knives, etc. Also attrib., applied to implements consisting of a trimmed core of flint or to cultures characterized by this type of implement.
1800J. Hurdis Fav. Village 120 The sweet remnant of the hoarded rick Sliced to a core. 1862Fairholt Up Nile 308 The square columns..have been in some places literally chipped to pieces and a rude irregular core only remains. 1863Lyell Antiq. Man x. (ed. 3) 184 One of those siliceous cores or nuclei with numerous facets from which flint flakes or knives had been struck off. 1926Guide Antiqu. Stone Age Brit. Mus. 14 The change from a core-industry to a flake-industry. Ibid. 26 Flints were required for..scraping, planing, sawing, and boring, but for these processes flakes would be more useful than core-implements. 1927Peake & Fleure Hunters & Artists iv. 42 The earliest palaeolithic implements..were mostly core implements, fashioned from a block of flint by removing flakes from its surface until the desired form had been achieved. 1935Proc. Prehist. Soc. I. i. 4 Already in 1916 the Bavarian, Obermaier,..had distinguished core-cultures and flake-cultures in lower palaeolithic industries. 1937Garrod & Bate Stone Age Mt. Carmel I. i. iii. 32 Cores and core-scrapers..were extremely abundant... They are for the most part roughly pyramidal and rather small. 1947J. & C. Hawkes Prehist. Brit. i. 9 The core-tool will have both faces rounded and trimmed. Ibid. 12 The core-culture folk at the height of the cold phases seem..to have retreated southward towards Africa, returning again with the milder weather.
III. transf. A central part of different character from that which surrounds it: chiefly technical.
6. generally.
1784Johnson in Boswell Life (1816) IV. 353 This is a mere excuse to save their crackers..The core of the fireworks cannot be injured. 1843Rep. Brit. Association 112 The patent substitute for corks and bungs is obtained by employing an elastic core of fibrous materials..and covering it with a thin sheet of India rubber. 1855Bain Senses & Int. i. ii. §8 The spinal cord..a rod or column of white matter..enclosing a slender core of grey substance. 1863Tyndall Heat ii. §48 (1870) 46 Within the flame we have a core of gas as yet unburnt.
7. spec.
a. Arch. The interior part of a wall or column (in this sense formerly often choar).
b. Hydraulic Engin. A wall or structure impervious to water, placed in an embankment or dike of porous material.
c. The central portion of a window-lead or came connecting the leaf or part overlapping the edges of the glass.
1663Gerbier Counsel 53 To fill the Choare of a wall..Several cracks in walls, whereof the Choares are hollow. 1823P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 309 The core of the rubble-work of the Grecian walls is impenetrable to a tool. 1876Gwilt Encycl. Archit. Gloss. s.v., The core of a column is a strong post of some material inserted in its central cavity when of wood. Ibid. §2229 a, An ancient lead of the usual width consisting of the leaf..and the core. 1884Law Times Rep. LI. 229/2 The stuff of which the core of the wall was composed.
d. hard core: see quots.
1851Mayhew Lond. Labour II. 317 (Hoppe) The phrase ‘hard-core’ seems strictly to mean all such refuse matter as will admit of being used as the foundation of roads, buildings, etc. 1880S. M. Palmer in Macm. Mag. XLI. 252 Rough bits of all kinds of material, which goes by the name of ‘Hard Core’.
e. That part of a nuclear reactor which contains fissile material.
1949Nucleonics Dec. 43/1 The core or active section of the pile, in its simplest form, may consist merely of a mass of fissionable material or nuclear fuel. 1954Sci. Amer. Dec. 36/2 The high pressure core will be contained in a carbon-steel vessel nine feet in diameter, coated with stainless steel. 1955Sci. News Let. 20 Aug. 115/3 Radiation from the core appears as a bluish-green glow. 1971Daily Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 30 Apr. 17/4 One species [of alga] lives in the cooling water that circulates round the cores of nuclear reactors.
f. All the electrons of an atom (together with its nucleus) other than the valency electrons.
1926Proc. R. Soc. A. CXI. 86 When one electron is much more easily removed than any other, it is reasonable to think of it as a ‘series electron’ and the rest of the atom as a ‘core’. 1927J. W. Fisher tr. M. Born's Mech. Atom iii. 130 This one electron is in an orbit..far removed from the rest of the atom, or ‘core’. [Note] German, Rumpf. The English equivalent of this word is not completely standardised: the alternatives ‘body’, ‘trunk’, ‘kernel’ have been used by different writers. 1937J. W. T. Spinks tr. Herzberg's Atomic Spectra & Atomic Struct. i. 70 There are only two electrons outside the atomic core of the alkaline earths. 1965Phillips & Williams Inorg. Chem. I. ii. 37 Sodium..has a core of completed K- and L-electron shells. 1970G. K. Woodgate Elem. Atomic Struct. v. 90 The argon core effectively screens the nuclear charge from a 3d electron.
8. Founding. An internal mould filling the space intended to be left hollow in a hollow casting.
false core: a loose piece in the mould, used for producing a surface of hollowed or complicated form in the casting; called also a drawback.
1727–51Chambers s.v. Foundery, The inner mould, or core..The use of the core in statues is to lessen the weight, and save metal. 1756Dict. Arts & Sc. s.v. Foundery of Bells, The core..is made of bricks, breaking the corners without to give the masonry its exact rotundity. 1819Reveley Let. to Shelley 12 Nov., The melted metal..may run..into them, and fill up the vacant space left between the core and the shell. 1857W. C. Lukis Acc. Ch. Bells 21 The inner mould or core..the shape of the inside of the bell. 1875Ure Dict. Arts II. 472 The drawbacks, or false cores, made of sand pressed hard (and admitting of taking to pieces by joints).
9. The central bony part of the horn of quadrupeds (a process of the frontal bone); = colk1 b.
1842S. C. Hall Ireland II. 395 The slug or core on which the horn is moulded. 1859Todd Cycl. Anat. V. 516/2 Horns..having a position analogous..to that of the osseous cores of the Stags. 1880Haughton Phys. Geog. vi. 281 The skull was armed with two or three pairs of horn cores.
10. Electr.
a. The bar or cylinder of soft iron forming the central part of an electro-magnet, or of an induction coil.
1849M. Somerville Connex. Phys. Sc. xxxv. 377 The deep-seated magnetic contents of the globe..are just in the condition to act as a soft iron core to the currents round them. 1870Tyndall Lect. Electricity 4 note, The attraction exerted by electro-magnetic cores or bars of iron. 1881Maxwell Electr. & Magn. II. 287 An induction machine without an iron core.
b. A unit of magnetic material in a computer; esp. one in which two directions of magnetization represent 0 and 1 and the magnetization remains unchanged until reversed by currents in wires passing through or round the core. So core memory, core store, etc.
1950Jrnl. Appl. Physics XXI. 49 Magnetic cores with a rectangular hysteresis loop are used in a storage system which requires no mechanical motion and is permanent. 1953R. D. Kodis et al. in Convention Record of IRE 38 (heading) Magnetic shift register using one core per bit. 1955Sci. Amer. June 95/1 The units in the system are tiny rings of magnetic material, called ‘cores’. 1959Oxf. Univ. Gaz. 9 Mar. 743/1 The computing equipment consists of: One Ferranti Mercury computer, with four blocks of core store. 1962Gloss. Terms Automatic Data Processing (B.S.I.) 76 Core store, an array of storage cores used as a magnetic store. 1964R. F. Ficchi Electr. Interference vii. 114 The computer..has 23 instructions designed to operate with two overlapping core-storage units. 1965Math. in Biol. & Med. (Med. Res. Council) iv. 192 The core memory size (32000 words of 36 bits each). 1969P. B. Jordain Condensed Computer Encycl. 303 The individual magnetic cores are strung on fine insulated wires and assembled into flat planes (or arrays) containing 16 to 10,000 cores apiece.
11. The central strand around which the other strands are twisted in a hawser-laid rope (also called heart). Also, the central cord of insulated conducting wires, around which the protecting wire sheathing is twisted, in a telegraph cable.
1849Specif. A. Smith's Patent No. 12620. 2 A reel or bobbin from which the heart or core for the rope..is supplied. 1852Mech. Mag. LVII. 392 R. S. Newall was the inventor of wire ropes containing a core of hemp..the application of this invention to electric telegraph rope is most obvious, for it is simply the substitution for the core of hemp of the core of gutta percha containing the electric wires. 1892Sat. Rev. 27 Feb. 253 (Subm. Teleg.) It was for twenty-five knots of what electricians now call core—namely, copper wire insulated by a covering of gutta percha. In modern cables the core is always protected first by a serving of hemp or jute, and then by an outer sheath of soft steel wires.
IV. The central or innermost part, the ‘heart’ of anything.
In some of these uses ‘heart’ is of much earlier occurrence; e.g. in heovene hert c 1300; the herte of Fraunce, Palsgr. 1530; hert of Oke, Fitzherbert 1525. The employment of core in similar senses appears to have come from the etymological notion of identifying it with L. cor, and thus with heart.
12. Geol. and Astr. The differentiated central part of a planet; spec. that of the earth, differing from the mantle and the crust in composition, density, and temperature and believed to be divided into a liquid inner and a solid outer core.
1882A. Geikie Text-bk. Geol. 50 He found that the precessional and nutational movements could not possibly be as they are if the planet consisted of a central core of molten rock surrounded with a crust of twenty or thirty miles in thickness. 1940, etc. [see mantle n. 11]. 1978Pasachoff & Kutner University Astron. xiv. 396 Most scientists believe that the Moon's core is molten. 1984A. C. & A. Duxbury Introd. World's Oceans iii. 71 At the planet's center is a core; its radius is 1070 km. This inner core is solid, very dense, magnetized, rich in iron and nickel, and very hot (5000° C).
13. Applied to the heart of timber, etc., and in expressions thence derived.
1604T. Wright Passions i. vii. 30 The rhinde and leaves, which shew the nature and goodnesse of both the roote and the kore. 1728Thomson Spring 122 Insect armies..wasteful eat Thro' buds and bark, into the blackened core Their eager way. 1818Scott Battle of Sempach x, The stalwart men of fair Lucerne..The pith and core of manhood stern. 1824W. Irving T. Trav. II. 259 One of the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the core. 1882Garden 16 Sept. 251/3 One very large Abele tree, rotten at the core.
14. The innermost part, very centre, or ‘heart’:
a. of a superficial area or thing material.
1614Raleigh Hist. World i. 183 In the Core of the Square, she raised a Tower of a furlong high. 1857C. Brontë Professor II. xviii. 17 The little plot of ground in the very core of a capital. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. xxiii. 163 Masses of ice..disintegrated to the core.
b. of things immaterial; often with fig. reference to the core of a fruit or tree (as in sound or rotten at the core), or to a central nucleus as the seat of strength and resistance, or to the heart: cf. next.
1556J. Heywood Spider & F. lxxviii. 73 Of my tale the verie carnell or core Must stand on two points. 1656Bp. Hall Rem. Wks. (1660) 419 But the core of all, is, that it sets too great a distance between us. 1675Baxter Cath. Theol. i. ii. 62 This seemth the very core of their error. 1804Wellington in Gurw. Disp. III. 585 Till that is effected, our system is rotten to the core. 1850Tennyson In Mem. cvii, Bring in great logs and let them lie, To make a solid core of heat. 1865B. Gould Werewolves iv. 52 There is a solid core of fact. 1874Green Short Hist. v. 215 The genius of Chaucer was..English to the core.
15. a. Used, with more or less conscious etymological reference, for ‘heart’.
[1570Levins 174 Y⊇ Core of an aple, cor, cordis. Ibid. 217 Ye Couk of an opple, cor, cordis.] 1611T. Momford Pref. Verses in Coryat Crudities, Well may his name be called Coryate..of the heart or very Cor of wit. c1611Chapman Iliad vi. 214 He..fed upon the core Of his sad bosom. 1816L. Hunt Rimini iv. 219 Strike me to the core. 1840Lytton Pilgr. Rhine iv, The desertion of his dog had touched him to the core.
b. heart's core: a Shaksperian expression, perh. orig. a play on core and Latin cor.
1602Shakes. Ham. iii. ii. 78, I will weare him In my hearts Core: I, in my Heart of heart. 1820Keats Lamia i. 190 In the lore Of love deep learned to the red heart's core. 1835Marryat Jac. Faithf. ii, Each sob coming from the very core of my heart. 1883S. C. Hall Retrospect I. 361 He was a genuine antiquary to the heart's core.
16. Comb. (chiefly in branch III), as core-bar, core drying, core-iron, core-lifter, core-maker, core-peg, core-tube; core-barrel (Gunnery), a long cylindrical iron tube through which cold water is run, used in casting guns to cool them from the interior; core-box, a box in which a core is made in founding; core-casting, casting with a core to make a cavity in metal; core-drilling vbl. n., a method of drilling in which an annular hole is made in the ground and a core extracted; core-sampling; core-loss, the loss of energy due to hysteresis and to eddy-currents in the core of electric machinery; core-piece, a piece forming a core; core-print, a projecting piece on a pattern to form a recess in the mould, into which the end of the core is inserted; core-sampler, a device for extracting a core of material from the ocean floor; core-sampling vbl. n., core-drilling in order to obtain a core as a sample of the strata pierced; core-wall, a wall of solid masonry forming the core of a dike or dam consisting mostly of earth or sand.
1848Specif. of Wilson's Patent No. 12397. 12, I also claim the making of said cores by ramming vertically into *core boxes, around collapsing *core bars. 1857Scoffern, etc. Useful Metals 208 Cores for pipes..are built around a hollow cylindrical core-bar. 1874Knight Dict. Mech. s.v., The core is made in a core-box, and has projecting portions, known as core-prints, which rest in the prints of the mold. 1881Mechanic §629 The use of this core-box..is to enable the iron founder to mould the core.
1928Childe Most Anc. East v. 133 The process of *core-casting and the invention of the shaft-hole axe.
1903Sci. Amer. 18 July 44/1 *Core drilling is indispensable in a great variety of engineering and mining enterprises, affording, as it does, a means for drilling out a sample core or column of rock. 1955Oxf. Jun. Encycl. VIII. 342/1 Further exploration is usually necessary in order to assess the commercial value of the deposit. This information may be obtained by core-drilling.
1901Daily Chron. 3 Dec. 2/1 For making steel, heating iron, *core-drying.
1888Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin. 89 *Core Irons, or Core Rods, rods of wrought iron from 1/8 inch or 1/4 to ½ inch in diameter, according to the size of core. 1960R. Lister Decorative Cast Ironwork 225 Core Irons, bars of iron built into cores to reinforce them.
1902Encycl. Brit. XXXIII. 418/1 Of the power..imparted to the primary circuit one portion is dissipated by the heat generated in the primary and secondary circuits..and another portion by the iron *core losses. 1917Standard. Rules Amer. Inst. Electr. Eng. 44 Increased core losses due to increased excitation for compensating internal drop under load. 1962M. G. Say Newnes Conc. Encycl. Electr. Engin. 171/2 Core loss, the loss developed as heat in the ferromagnetic core of a magnetic circuit subjected to alternating magnetization. It comprises two components quite different in their origin, namely hysteresis loss and eddy-current loss.
1884Birmingham Daily Post 24 Jan. 3/4 Wanted..*Coremaker, for Foundry.
1881Greener Gun 181 The segments are then tied together, placed on a thin *core-peg, put into a larger mould.
Ibid. 189 The *core-plug required to form the bullet.
1857Scoffern, etc. Useful Metals 499 *Core-prints corresponding to the apertures of the connecting links [of a chain].
1938C. S. Piggot in Sci. Monthly Mar. 202 (caption) Comparison of snapper with *core sampler. 1956,1959Core-sampler [see sense 4].
1927R. Peele Mining Engineers' Handbk. (ed. 2) ix. 347 The need for more accurate samples has caused rapid improvement in *core sampling.
1899E. Wegmann Design & Constr. Dams (ed. 4) ii. i. 115 Masonry *Core-walls are doubtless the best means of insuring water-tightness in an earthen dam. Ibid., Core-walls for high dams are usually given a stronger section than those for lower ones... The thickness of the core-wall at the natural surface should be about 1/6 to 1/7 of the ‘head’ in the reservoir. 1909H. M. Wilson Irrigation Engin. (ed. 6) xvi. 366 The foundations for a masonry core-wall should always rest only on firm, homogeneous rock.
b. attrib. passing into adj. That forms (a part of) the core or central area of study, etc.; essential, central, basic, fundamental; core area, a central geographical area in which characteristic elements are concentrated; core curriculum, that part of a curriculum which is essential or compulsory as opp. to that which is optional; core time, in a flexitime working arrangement, a period or portion of the day during which it is compulsory for an employee to be at work.
1935Calif. Jrnl. Secondary Educ. Feb. 137 (heading) ‘Shall there be a core curriculum in secondary schools?’: a symposium. 1953School Sci. Rev. Mar. 300 According to the views of some scientists, the professional educator is entirely too profligate in his coinage of high-flung phrases, such as ‘core curriculum’ and ‘societally significant’. 1956I. S. Maxwell in D. L. Linton Sheffield 128 Characteristically there is a ‘core area’ with wholly Scandinavian names surrounded by a peripheral area containing Scandinavianized or hybrid names. 1962Y. Malkiel in Householder & Saporta Probl. Lexicogr. 10 In certain lines of practical work..the need has arisen for precisely circumscribed core vocabularies. 1969Cultural News from India Nov. 8 Publication of core books... These books..will be of such standard and authority that..all universities will accept them as textbooks or reference literature. 1970Toronto Daily Star 24 Sept. 27/1 Almost twice as many children run afoul of the law in certain core areas of the city as in more affluent regions. 1971World Archaeol. III. 189 The new ruling minority assimilate rapidly into the core population. 1972Daily Tel. 1 June 7/4 An employee can have his day split into two periods. These would be ‘core time’, when he..must be present, and ‘flextime’, usually at the beginning and end of the working day. 1977M. Cohen Sensible Words i. 29 Only with Locke..does this problematic aspect of language emerge as a natural consequence of grammatical description in English texts and therefore as a new core idea in linguistics. 1984Utah Desert News 15 Jan. (Suppl.) 5/1 A core staff and a seemingly endless supply of volunteers. 1986Daily Tel. 7 June 16/5 The new core-curriculum currently under discussion has no place for RE.
Add:[16.] core dump Computing [so called orig. because the main memory was a core memory: see sense 10 b above], a dump of the contents of main memory at the time of a crash, usu. as an aid to debugging.
1967D. H. Stabley System 360 Assembler Lang. (ed. 2) 107 Hexadecimal *core dumps may appear to be an unwieldy means of program debugging and analysis. 1978J. McNeil Consultant xxi. 188 It was bad enough getting the bank's permission to bring a core dump out of the Data Centre. 1988Byte June 176/2 Another bug resulted in several aborts with core dumps when I pressed PageUp.
▪ II. core, n.2|kɔə(r)|
Also cor, 9 dial. coor.
[app. an anglicized spelling of F. corps body: see corps. Cf. also E.Fris. kôr a body of men, from F. corps.]
1. A body of people, a company. (Chiefly Sc.) in core: ‘in company, together’ (Jam.).
1622Bacon Hen. VII, 17 That hee was in a Core of People, whose affections he suspected. 1722W. Hamilton Wallace 340 (Jam.) Clement..With a brave company of gallant men..in the house of Nairn with that brave core. 1786Burns To Unco Guid ii, Hear me, ye venerable Core, As counsel for poor mortals. 1813D. Anderson Poems 81 (Jam.) The lave in core poor Robie blam'd. 1866W. Gregor Gloss. Dial. Banffsh. (Philol. Soc. 1866), In core, on friendly terms; as ‘They're in core wee ane anither’.
b. The company of players in a curling match.
1787Burns Tam Samson's Elegy v, He was the king o' a' the Core, To guard, or draw, or wick a bore, Or up the rink like Jehu roar. 1890J. Kerr Hist. Curling i. 49 A ‘core’ of matchless weight and power. Ibid. ii. 95 He must have heard the roar of the curling core, as they played on the Nor' Loch beneath.
2. A company or gang of miners working together in one shift.
1778W. Pryce Min. Cornub. 318 Core (i.e. Corps body, company, society). Corps..with the Tinners..has also a respect to time, such as their proper change or turn of working. 1857Scoffern, etc. Useful Metals 92 In pairs or cores of from two to eight or ten men and boys. 1866Greatheart III. 6 We'll go and see the forenoon core come up to grass. 1880M. A. Courtney W. Cornw. Gloss. s.v., A gang of miners is also called a coor. ‘I belong to the night coor’.
3. A turn of work in a (Cornish) mine; a shift.
1778[see sense 2]. 1858Simmonds Dict. Trade s.v., The twenty-four hours are..divided into four cores, commencing with the ‘forenoon core’, at 6 a.m., and ending with the ‘last core by night’, which commences at midnight. 1865R. Hunt Pop. Rom. W. Eng. Ser. i. 99 It was Jan's last core by day. 1880M. A. Courtney W. Cornw. Gloss., Coor, the time a miner works; eight hours. There are two day and one night coor.
▪ III. core, v.|kɔə(r)|
Also 7 chore.
[f. core n.1]
1. a. trans. To take out the core of (fruit).
15972nd Pt. Gd. Hus-wives Jewell E viij b, Take twelve Quinces, and core them. 1616Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 424 Chore such as are to be chored. 1769Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 59 Pare, core, and slice your apples. 1890New York Herald 19 Jan., A dish of apples..pared, cored and baked with sugar and cinnamon.
†b. To cut out (the core or seed). Obs. rare.
1741Compl. Fam. Piece i. ii. 117 First pare them and core out the Seed.
†c. To extract the ‘core’ or inner part of (a corn or other swelling). Obs. (Cf. core n.1 3.)
a1634Marston (Webster), He's like a corn upon my great toe..he must be cored out.
d. Building. Also core out. (See quot. 1881.)
1876Gwilt Arch. §2282 b, Turn, parget, and core the chimney flues. 1881Oxfordsh. Suppl. Gloss., Core out, to clean out [newly-built] chimneys, etc., by removing pieces of brick and mortar. Mod., The chimney would not smoke if it had been properly cored.
2. To enclose in the centre, enshrine. (in pass.)
1816L. Hunt Rimini iii. 73 So much knowledge of one's self there lies cored..in our complacencies. 1839Bailey Festus xxi. (1848) 273 In all things animate is therefore cored An elemental sameness of existence.
3. Founding. To mould or cast with a core. to core out: to hollow out by using a core.
1865[see cored 3]. 1889Hasluck Model Engin. Handybk. ix. 108 The barrel of the pump may be cored out in the casting. 1902Westm. Gaz. 4 June 5/1 Its bottom is cored out to fit over the nose of the projectile itself.
▪ IV. core
(in to core herrings): see corved.
▪ V. † core, coren, pa. pple.
Obs. form of chosen.
For quots. see choose v. A. 6.
▪ VI. core
var. cor, Hebrew measure. |