Pith
English Meaning
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.
- Botany The soft, spongelike, central cylinder of the stems of most flowering plants, composed mainly of parenchyma.
- Zoology The soft inner substance of a feather or hair.
- The essential or central part; the heart or essence. See Synonyms at substance.
- Strength; vigor; mettle.
- Significance; importance.
- Archaic Spinal cord or bone marrow.
- To remove the pith from (a plant stem).
- To sever or destroy the spinal cord of, usually by inserting a needle into the vertebral canal.
- To kill (cattle) by cutting the spinal cord.