| noun | a small group of indispensable persons or things “five periodicals make up the core of their publishing program” |
| noun | the center of an object “the ball has a titanium core” |
| noun | the central part of the Earth |
| noun | the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience “the gist of the prosecutor's argument” |
| noun | a cylindrical sample of soil or rock obtained with a hollow drill |
| noun | an organization founded by James Leonard Farmer in 1942 to work for racial equality |
| noun | the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work |
| noun | (computer science) a tiny ferrite toroid formerly used in a random access memory to store one bit of data; now superseded by semiconductor memories “each core has three wires passing through it, providing the means to select and detect the contents of each bit” |
| noun | the chamber of a nuclear reactor containing the fissile material where the reaction takes place |
| noun | a bar of magnetic material (as soft iron) that passes through a coil and serves to increase the inductance of the coil |
| verb | remove the core or center from “core an apple” |
| core | verb | remove the core or center from |
| central | adjective | serving as an essential component |
| essential | adjective | of the greatest importance |
| meaty | adjective | being on topic and prompting thought |
| pithy | adjective | concise and full of meaning; ; - Hervey Allen |
| summate | verb | form or constitute a cumulative effect |
| core | noun | the center of an object |