pith
the essential or central part of something; the most meaningful core
Pith in a sentence
Here are example sentences showing pith in a sentence.
The editor asked the writer to get to the pith of the argument rather than circling around it.
Stripping away the rhetoric, the editor identified the pith of the author's argument in a single sentence.
Using “pith” well
Pith names the essential core of a matter. It also literally means the spongy tissue inside a stem or citrus rind, the source of the figurative sense.
More GRE words starting with P
to calm or soothe someone who is angry or agitated
a song or expression of joyful praise or triumph
done with careful and thorough effort
agreeable to the taste or acceptable to the mind
resembling a palace in size or grandeur
rebirth, regeneration, or renewal into a new existence
to ease the severity of something without curing it
pale or lacking vitality and color
Questions about “pith”
See these words the way the GRE tests them.
Definitions in isolation do not stick. Sit a free, full-length GRE mock and meet this vocabulary inside real text completion and sentence equivalence questions, with your score and a worked solution for every answer.