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• n  soft spongelike central cylinder of the stems of most flowering plants
• n  the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
• v  remove the pith from (a plant)

• TV rarely critiques itself with such pith.
• But Perelman was essentially a miniaturist, distilling into lapidary prose a mood, a mode, an ode with as much pith as could be found in a whole rainforest of dicotyledenous plant .
• If you think Borneo is all pith helmets, knee socks and headhunters, think again.

• kernel
• substance
• core
• center
• centre
• essence
• gist
• heart
• heart and soul
• inwardness
• marrow
• meat
• nub
• sum
• nitty-gritty

News & Articles

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• What the Hell Went Down at The Family Wash?
  Across the street, Tennessean reporter and friend of Pith Joey Garrison reports on claims that a dozen law enforcement officials barged into The Family… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
  June 20, 2013 - Nashville Scene

Quotes

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• Max Boot in New Yorker
  As the military historian Max Boot wrote in The Weekly Standard, "Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets."
• William Shakespeare in ITBusiness.ca
  Enterprises of great pith and moment : with this regard, their currents turn awry and lose the name of action,said Hamlet about his indecision.
• Matt Taibbi in Harper's Magazine (blog)
  Taibbi wrote that Karen Kornbluh didn't get an administration job and "was rewarded for being the chief policy architect of Obama's meteoric rise by being outfitted with a pith helmet and booted across the ocean to Paris, where she now serves as...