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Pith   /pɪθ/   Listen
noun
Pith  n.  
1.
(Bot.) The soft spongy substance in the center of the stems of many plants and trees, especially those of the dicotyledonous or exogenous classes. It consists of cellular tissue.
2.
(a)
(Zool.) The spongy interior substance of a feather.
(b)
(Anat.) The spinal cord; the marrow.
3.
Hence: The which contains the strength of life; the vital or essential part; concentrated force; vigor; strength; importance; as, the speech lacked pith. "Enterprises of great pith and moment."
Pith paper. Same as Rice paper, under Rice.



verb
Pith  v. t.  (Physiol.) To destroy the central nervous system of (an animal, as a frog), as by passing a stout wire or needle up and down the vertebral canal.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pith" Quotes from Famous Books



... pith, more force, into those words, Thomas. Speak out, man!" interjected the minister, who was ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... blowing fresh outside with a strong send of sea. The spray flew in the oarsmen's faces. They saw the Union Jack blow abroad from the Flying Scud, the men clustered at the rail, the cook in the galley-door, the captain on the quarter-deck with a pith helmet and binoculars. And the whole familiar business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship, heaving nearer at each stroke, maddened them ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... junction of the tender stalk with the tough, fibrous stem; then, sitting upright, he took it in his fore-paws, and with his incisor teeth—shaped perfectly like an adze for such a purpose—stripped it of its outer covering, beginning at the severed edge, and laying bare the white pith, on which ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... quality he has so little that the best clubs of which he is a member tolerate rather than accept him. In most cases he is deplorably curt of speech and brusque of deportment. Suavity, repose, that kindliness which is the very marrow and pith of high-breeding, shock you in his manners as acutely by their absence as if they were rents in his waistcoat or gapes in his boot-leather. The "bluff," impudence, and swagger of the Stock Exchange cling to him in society like burrs to the hair of horse or dog. He would be far more ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... opened his mouth, and gave the young man a scientific lecture on mining, the pith of ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume


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