| Learning / English Dictionary |
CENTRAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A workplace that serves as a telecommunications facility where lines from telephones can be connected together to permit communication
Synonyms:
central; exchange; telephone exchange
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("central" is a kind of...):
work; workplace (a place where work is done)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "central"):
centrex ((CENTRal EXchange) a kind of telephone exchange)
patchboard; plugboard; switchboard (telephone central where circuits are completed with patchcords)
Holonyms ("central" is a part of...):
phone system; telephone system (a communication system that transmits sound between distant points)
Derivation:
central (in or near a center or constituting a center; the inner area)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
In or near a center or constituting a center; the inner area
Example:
a central position
Classified under:
Similar:
amidship (located in the middle part of a ship or aircraft)
bicentric (having two centers)
bifocal (having two foci)
center; halfway; middle; midway (equally distant from the extremes)
centered (being or placed in the center)
centric; centrical (having or situated at or near a center)
focal (having or localized centrally at a focus)
medial; median (relating to or situated in or extending toward the middle)
middlemost; midmost (being in the exact middle)
nuclear (constituting or like a nucleus)
Antonym:
peripheral (on or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary; the outer area)
Derivation:
center (a point equidistant from the ends of a line or the extremities of a figure)
center (an area that is approximately central within some larger region)
central (a workplace that serves as a telecommunications facility where lines from telephones can be connected together to permit communication)
centrality (the property of being central)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Serving as an essential component
Example:
computers are fundamental to modern industrial structure
Synonyms:
cardinal; central; fundamental; key; primal
Classified under:
Similar:
important; of import (of great significance or value)
Derivation:
center (the object upon which interest and attention focuses)
center (the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience)
Context examples:
A lymphoma (non-Hodgkin or Hodgkin) arising from the central nervous system and occurring in HIV-positive patients.
(AIDS-Related Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma, NCI Thesaurus)
The central region is the oldest, most evolved and likely formed first.
(SOFIA Reveals How the Swan Nebula Hatched, NASA)
Neurons—the primary brain cells of the central nervous system—evolve from neural stem cells and during development “commit” to becoming neurons.
(Cerebral organoid model provides clues about how to prevent virus-induced brain cell death, National Institutes of Health)
An amphetamine with central nervous system (CNS) stimulating activity.
(Methamphetamine, NCI Thesaurus)
With each flyby, the data reinforced the idea that five windstorms were swirling in a pentagonal pattern around a central storm at the south pole and that the system seemed stable.
(NASA's Juno Navigators Enable Jupiter Cyclone Discovery, NASA)
These are likely to play a central role in the increased likelihood of later-life heart problems and high blood pressure in males.
(Placenta changes could mean male offspring of older mums more likely to develop heart problems in later life, University of Cambridge)
MS is an unpredictable disease of the central nervous system that disrupts communication between the brain and other parts of the body.
(Vitamin D Levels Predict Multiple Sclerosis Progression, NIH)
But in the central part of England there was surely some security for the existence even of a wife not beloved, in the laws of the land, and the manners of the age.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Representative examples of tumor metastases from other organs to the central nervous system include lung and breast carcinoma.
(Adult Central Nervous System Neoplasm, NCI Thesaurus)
A germ cell tumor of the central nervous system occurring in adults.
(Adult Central Nervous System Germ Cell Tumor, NCI Thesaurus)
