Pithed

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Takes out the hard stone or seed from fruits like cherries or olives ; removes the spinal cord or nerve tissue from animals, especially in dissection or butchery
2. Extracts the central seed or stone from fruit to leave it seedless ; eliminates the nerve core or spinal cord in preparation of specimens or meat
3. Removes the inner hard part of fruits to make them easier to eat or cook with ; takes away the spinal cord or nerves to prepare an animal body part for study or consumption

Etymology: The word "pith" goes back to Old English "piþa," which meant the soft interior of a plant or fruit, and its Germanic relatives point the same way: Dutch "peen" means carrot, and Middle Low German "peddek" could mean bone marrow or the core of a quill. What joins these is a sense of something soft and central, hidden inside a tougher covering. Its doublet is "pit," the stone or seed inside a fruit, so the two words are the same ancestor split into two forms. The verb "pith" is a much more recent creation. It is the noun turned into an action, meaning to strip out that soft core. Middle English had an older verb, "pethen," meaning to give courage or strength, also derived from the noun, but it did not survive into modern English. The modern sense of removing the inner part of fruit or the spinal cord from an animal developed later from the noun, which is why its past form, "pithed," describes both kitchen and laboratory work.