central

adjective

1. 1

   Being in the centre.

   Egyption Thebes; / Tyre by the margin of the sounding waves; / Palmyra, central in the Desert, fell; / And the Arts died by which they had been raised.

   The plantoid[…]will have a central stem containing a reservoir of liquid plastic of a sort that can be frozen by ultraviolet light. Half a dozen cylindrical roots will branch off this stem, and the plastic will flow through these from the reservoir to the tip. As in a real root, the tip will be a specialised structure.

   The network had no central ownership or controller; and it did only one thing – transfer data packets from one edge of the network to their destination at another edge.

2. 2

   Having or containing the centre of something.

3. 3

   Being very important, or key to something.

   Cleverley was a central figure as England took the lead inside three minutes. He saw his shot handled by Moldovan defender Simion Bulgaru and Lampard drilled home the penalty in trademark fashion.

   Passengers crowd in the main concourse at London Euston on January 28 2017, before boarding West Coast Main Line services. The urgent need to relieve congestion and improve reliability on the WCML remains central in the recently published Full Business Case for HS2.

4. 4

   Exerting its action towards the peripheral organs.

5. 5

   Belong or relating to the center of an algebraic structure. Of an element of an algebraic structure: which commutes with all other elements under multiplication

6. 6

   Belong or relating to the center of an algebraic structure. Of a unital algebra over a field: whose center is exactly equal to the image of the base field

noun

1. 1

   center

Forms

plural

centrals

comparative

more central

superlative

most central, centralmost, centremost, centermost