Pith meaning

pĭth
The essential or central part; the heart or essence.

The pith of your argument is controversial.

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Strength; vigor; mettle.
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Significance; importance.

Matters of great pith.

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Pith is soft and spongy material in plant stems and the core of animal bones, or the white tissue lining the rind of an orange, lemon or other citrus fruit.

An example of pith is the spongy material found inside plant stems.

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The soft, spongy tissue in the center of the stems of most vascular plants, consisting mainly of parenchyma.
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To remove the pith from (a plant stem).
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To sever or destroy the spinal cord of, usually by inserting a needle into the vertebral canal.
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To kill (cattle) by cutting the spinal cord.
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The soft, spongy tissue in the center of certain plant stems.
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The soft core of various other things, as of a bone or feather.
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The spongy, fibrous tissue lining the rind and surrounding the sections of an orange, grapefruit, etc.
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The essential part; substance; gist.
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Importance.
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Strength; vigor; force.
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To remove the pith from (a plant stem)
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To pierce or sever the spinal cord of (an animal) in order to kill it or make it insensible for experimental purposes.
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The soft inner substance of a feather or hair.
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The spinal cord.
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To sever or destroy the spinal cord of, usually by inserting a needle into the vertebral canal.
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The soft, spongy tissue in the center of the stems of most flowering plants, gymnosperms, and ferns. Pith is composed of parenchyma cells. In plants that undergo secondary growth, such as angiosperms, the pith is surrounded by the vascular tissues and is gradually compressed by the inward growth of the vascular tissue known as xylem. In plants with woody stems, the pith dries out and often disintegrates as the plant grows older, leaving the stem hollow.
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To remove the pith from a plant stem.
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To sever or destroy the spinal cord of an animal for the purpose of dissecting it, usually by inserting a needle into the spinal canal.
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The soft spongy substance in the center of the stems of many plants and trees.
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The spongy interior substance of a feather.
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The spinal cord; the marrow.
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(figuratively) The essential or vital part.

The pith of my idea is truth.

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To extract the pith from (a plant stem or tree).
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To kill (especially cattle or laboratory animals) by cutting or piercing the spinal cord.
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Origin of pith

  • Middle English from Old English pitha
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • Old English piþa, from Proto-Germanic *piþan (compare West Frisian piid 'pulp, kernel', Dutch peen 'carrot', Low German Peddik 'pulp, core'), from earlier *piþō (oblique *pittan). Doublet of pit. The verb meaning "to kill by cutting or piercing the spinal cord" is attested 1805.
    From Wiktionary

Pith Sentence Examples

  • Henley's pith ball electrometer (Phil.

  • The secondary phloem contains numerous thick-walled fibres, parenchymatous cells, and large sieve-tubes with plates on the radial walls; swollen parenchymatous cells containing crystals are commonly met with in the cortex, pith and medullary-ray tissues.

  • The sudden termination of the secondary tracheids against the pith-cells may afford evidence of root-structure as distinct from stem-structure, in which the radial rows of secondary tracheids pass into the irregularly-arranged primary elements next the pith.

  • It is here, at the Heribert present epoch and for the next two centuries, that the and the pith and nerve of the Italian nation must be sought; Lombard and among the burghs of Lombardy, Milan, the eldest burghs.

  • In others a central parenchyma or primetive pith a new region of the primitive stelar conjunctiveappears in the centre of the xylem.

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Words near pith in the Dictionary