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pith

Pronunciation: /pɪθ/

The English word “pith” has 17 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The soft, spongy substance inside plant parts; specifically, the parenchyma in the centre of the roots and stems of many plants and trees.
  2. The albedo (“whitish inner portion of the rind”) of a citrus fruit.
  3. The soft tissue inside a human or animal body or one of their organs; specifically, the spongy interior substance of a horn or the shaft of a feather.
  4. Chiefly of animals: the soft tissue inside a spinal cord; the spinal marrow; also, the spinal cord itself.
  5. Synonym of diploe (“the thin layer of soft, spongy, or cancellate tissue between the bone plates which constitute the skull”).
  6. The soft tissue of the brain.
  7. The soft inner portion of a loaf of bread.
  8. The central or innermost part of something; the core, the heart.
  9. The essential or vital part of something; the essence.
  10. Physical power or strength; force, might.
  11. A quality of courage and endurance; backbone, mettle, spine.
  12. The energy, force, or power of speech or writing; specifically, such force or power due to conciseness; punch, punchiness.
  13. Chiefly in of (great) pith and moment: gravity, importance, substance, weight.
  14. One divided by pi, that is, 1/π (approximately 0.31831…).

verb

  1. To render insensate or kill (an animal, especially cattle or a laboratory animal) by cutting, piercing, or otherwise destroying the spinal cord.
  2. To extract the pith from (something or (figurative) someone).

adjective

  1. The ordinal form of the number pi (π; approximately 3.14159…).

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English pith, pithe (“soft interior; pith, pulp”) [and other forms], from Old English piþa [and other forms], from Proto-Germanic *piþô, from earlier *piþō (oblique *pittan); further etymology unknown. Doublet of pit (“seed or stone inside a fruit”). The verb Middle English pethen (“to give courage or strength”), derived from pith (noun), did not survive into…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.