core

n 1: a small group of indispensable persons or things; "five

periodicals make up the core of their publishing

program" [syn: {nucleus}, {core group}]

2: the center of an object; "do not eat the apple core"

3: the central part of the earth

4: the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some

idea or experience: "the gist of the prosecutor's

argument"; "the nub of the story" [syn: {kernel}, {substance},

{center}, {essence}, {gist}, {heart}, {inwardness}, {marrow},

{meat}, {nub}, {pith}, {sum}, {nitty-gritty}]

5: a cylindrical sample of soil or rock obtained with a hollow

drill

6: the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work

[syn: {effect}, {essence}, {burden}, {gist}]

7: the region of a nuclear reactor containing the fissile

material where the reaction takes place

8: a rod of magnetic material (as soft iron) that passes

through a coil and serves to increase the inductance of

the coil

v : remove the core or center from; "core an apple"

core

1. {Main memory} or {RAM}. This term dates from the

days of {ferrite core memory}; now archaic most places outside

{IBM}, but also still used in the {Unix} community and by

old-time {hackers} or those who would sound like them.

Some derived idioms are quite current; "in core", for example,

means "in memory" ({paged in}, as opposed to "on disk", {paged

out}), and both {core dump} and the "core image" or "core

file" produced by one are terms in favour. Some varieties of

Commonwealth hackish prefer {store}.

[{Jargon File}]

(1995-03-03)

2. An {integrated circuit} design, usually for a

{microprocessor}, which includes only the {CPU} and which is

intended to form part of a complete circuit design which

incorporates other circuits on the same chip such as {cache},

{memory management unit}, I/O ports and timers.

The {ARM6}, {ARM7} and {ARM8} are examples.

3. A varient on {kernel} as used to describe

features built into a language as opposed to those provided by

{libraries}.

(1995-03-03)