Both Uses
nucleus
in
The Scarlet Letter
(Edited)
- Might it not, in the tedious lapse of official life that lay before me, finally be with me as it was with this venerable friend—to make the dinner-hour the nucleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old dog spends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade?
p. 39.1 *nucleus = the most important part
- In accordance with this rule it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the Vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King's Chapel.
p. 45.6nucleus = the center (or most important part)
Definitions:
-
(1)
(nucleus) the center (or most important part) of somethingsuch as:
- in physics: the center of an atom where protons & neutrons are found
- in biology: the center of a cell where DNA is found
- in sociology: the closest family (mother/father/children in contrast to the extended family)
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)