central
adj
1 in, at, of, from, containing, or forming the centre of something
the central street in a city, the central material of a golf ball
2 main, principal, or chief; most important
the central cause of a problem
a of or relating to the central nervous system
b of or relating to the centrum of a vertebra
4 of, relating to, or denoting a vowel articulated with the tongue held in an intermediate position halfway between the positions for back and front vowels, as for the a of English soda
5 (of a force) directed from or towards a point ♦
centrally adv
Central African Federation
n another name for the →
Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland
Central African Republic
n a landlocked country of central Africa: joined with Chad as a territory of French Equatorial Africa in 1910; became an independent republic in 1960; a parliamentary monarchy (1976--79); consists of a huge plateau, mostly savanna, with dense forests in the south; drained chiefly by the Shari and Ubangi Rivers. Official language: French; Sango is the national language. Religion: Christian and animist. Currency: franc. Capital: Bangui. Pop.: 3376000 (1998 est.). Area: 622577 sq. km (240376 sq. miles), (Former names)
Ubangi-Shari until 1958
Central African Empire 1976--79, (French name)
République Centrafricaine
Central America
n an isthmus joining the continents of North and South America, extending from the S border of Mexico to the NW border of Colombia and consisting of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Area: about 518000 sq. km (200000 sq. miles)
♦
Central American adj
central angle
n an angle whose vertex is at the centre of a circle
central bank
n a national bank that does business mainly with a government and with other banks: it regulates the volume and cost of credit
Central Committee
n (in Communist parties) the body responsible for party policy between meetings of the party congress: in practice, it is in charge of day-to-day operations of the party bureaucracy
Central European Time
n the standard time adopted by Western European countries one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, corresponding to British Summer Time, (Abbrev.)
CET
central heating
n a system for heating the rooms of a building by means of radiators or air vents connected by pipes or ducts to a central source of heat
Central India Agency
n a former group of 89 states in India, under the supervision of a British political agent until 1947: most important were Indore, Bhopal, and Rewa
Central Intelligence Agency
n See →
CIA
Central Karoo
n an arid plateau of S central South Africa, in Cape Province, separated from the Little Karoo to the southwest by the Swartberg range. Average height: 750 m (2500 ft.)
central limit theorem
n (Statistics) the fundamental result that the sum (or mean) of independent identically distributed random variables with finite variance approaches a normally distributed random variable as their number increases, whence in particular if enough samples are repeatedly drawn from any population, the sum of the sample values can be thought of, approximately, as an outcome from a normally distributed random variable
central locking
n a system by which all the doors of a motor vehicle can be locked simultaneously when the driver's door is locked
central nervous system
n the mass of nerve tissue that controls and coordinates the activities of an animal. In vertebrates it consists of the brain and spinal cord, (Abbrev.)
CNS Compare →
autonomic nervous system
Central Powers
pl n (European history)
a (before World War I) Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary after they were linked by the Triple Alliance in 1882
b (during World War I) Germany and Austria-Hungary, together with their allies Turkey and Bulgaria
central processing unit
n the part of a computer that performs logical and arithmetical operations on the data as specified in the instructions, (Abbrev.)
CPU
Central Provinces and Berar
n a former province of central India: reorganized and renamed Madhya Pradesh in 1950
Central Region
n a former local government region in central Scotland, formed in 1975 from Clackmannanshire, most of Stirlingshire, and parts of Perthshire, West Lothian, Fife, and Kinross-shire; in 1996 it was replaced by the council areas of Stirling, Clackmannanshire, and Falkirk
central reserve , reservation
n (Brit) the strip, often covered with grass, that separates the two sides of a motorway or dual carriageway, (U.S. and Austral. name)
median strip (Canadian name)
median
Central Standard Time
n one of the standard times used in North America, based on the local time of the 90° meridian, six hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, (Abbrev.)
CST
central sulcus
n a deep cleft in each hemisphere of the brain separating the frontal lobe from the parietal lobe
central tendency
n (Statistics) the tendency of the values of a random variable to cluster around the mean, median, and mode
European Central Bank
n a European bank established in 1998 to oversee the Exchange Rate Mechanism that stabilizes the euro and other European Union currencies, (Abbrev.)
ECB
Massif Central (French)
n a mountainous plateau region of S central France, occupying about one sixth of the country: contains several extinct volcanic cones, notably Puy de Dôme, 1465 m (4806 ft.). Highest point: Puy de Sancy, 1886 m (6188 ft.). Area: about 85000 sq. km (33000 sq. miles)
Soviet Central Asia
n the region of the former Soviet Union now occupied by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, (Also called)
Russian Turkestan, West Turkestan