core n.

the center of a galaxy

Often as proper name the Core.

  • 1964 H. Harrison Final Encounter in Galaxy Magazine Apr. 150/2 page image Harry Harrison bibliography

    Hautamaki pointed at the sky above them, at the star-filled sweep of the Milky Way, burning with massed stars. ‘There, far out there on the other side of the core, roughly half way around the lens of the galaxy.’

  • 1966 L. Niven At the Core in Worlds of If Science Fiction Nov. 33/1 page image Larry Niven bibliography

    But the Core! Ignoring refueling and reprovisioning problems, my old ship could have reached the galaxy’s core in three hundred years. No known species had ever seen the Core! It hid behind layer on layer of tenuous gas and dust clouds.

  • 1985 B. Daley Requiem For a Ruler of Worlds viii. 117 Brian Daley bibliography

    I heard the Spicans are thinking about sending another expedition to the Core…. It'll take years and years.

  • 1994 E. Brown Engineman 66 Eric Brown bibliography

    The Keilor-Vincicoff Organization ran the ’faces in the more populated sectors of the Expansion, but in the Core and out on the Rim the operation was conducted by smaller companies.

  • 2003 F. Saberhagen Berserker’s Star xiv. 208 Fred Saberhagen bibliography

    Somehow, as if through a great magnifying lens, or a porthole looking into a wormhole, it provided a close but distorted look at the Core, the Galaxy’s great glowing heart, which through the normal paths of space, or even flight-space, would be thousands of light-years distant, a journey occupying standard months, if conditions obtaining along the route would allow it to be made at all.

  • 2005 J. Ringo & M. Z. Williamson The Hero i. 8 John Ringo Michael Z. Williamson bibliography

    There were indications from scouting ships that the Blobs were planning on attacking towards the Core worlds with a large fleet.

  • 2005 J. Ringo & M. Z. Williamson The Hero i. 9 John Ringo Michael Z. Williamson bibliography

    But the line of advance was the question. While Earth and the Core might not care, the Islendian Republic didn’t wish to be the route used.


Research requirements

antedating 1964

Earliest cite

Harry Harrison, "Final Encounter"

Research History
Suggested by Randy Hoffman.
Brian Denehy submitted a cite from a 1971 reprint of Larry Niven's "At The Core", which Mike Christie verified in its 1966 first publication.
Malcolm Farmer submitted a 1994 cite from Eric Brown's "Engineman".
Douglas Winston submitted a 2003 cite from Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker's Star"
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 2005 reprint ofJohn Ringo & Michael Z.Williamson's 2004 "The Hero".
Douglas Winston submitted a 2000 cite from Scott Westerfeld's "Evolution's Darling".
Douglas Winston submitted a 1985 cite from Brian Daley's "Requiem For a Ruler of Worlds".
Ben Ostrowski submitted a 1964 cite from Harry Harrison, in Galaxy.

Last modified 2023-01-03 16:46:07
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.