a. [mod. ad. Gr. κεντρικ-ός pertaining to the center, f. κέντρον: see CENTRUM.]
1. That is in or at the center, central.
c. 1590. Marlowe, Faustus, vi. The substance of this centric earth.
1594. 1st Pt. Contention, C. To pierce the bowels of this Centricke earth.
a. 1631. Donne, Poems (1650), 33. Some that have deeper digg’d Loves Mine than I, Say, where his centrique happinesse doth lie.
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, I. II. xvi. Centrick all like one pellucid Sun.
1802. G. Colman, Br. Grins, Elder Bro., i. Centric in London noise … Proud Covent Garden blooms.
2. Of, pertaining to, or characterized by a center.
1712. Blackmore, Creation, II. (ed. 3), 52 (R.). Orbs Centric and Eccentric he prepares.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Dead Pan, iv. Stung to life by centric forces.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner. & Ferns, 406. In the first type, which may be called the centric, the chlorophyll-parenchyma is uniformly distributed around the entire organ.
3. Phys. Of or pertaining to a nerve center.
1871. Sir T. Watson, Princ. & Pract. Med. (ed. 5), I. 570. When the irritating cause operates directly on the spinal cord itself, he calls the disease centric tetanus.
1873. F. E. Anstie, in E. H. Clarke, Sex in Educ., 110. A non-inflammatory centric atrophy.
1879. Carpenter, Ment. Phys., I. ii. § 73. 77. Movements … simply centric, depending upon an excited condition of the ganglionic centres.
B. quasi-sb. A circle or circular orbit with the earth in its center.
1667. Milton, P. L., VIII. 83. How gird the Sphear With Centric and Eccentric scribl’d o’re, Cycle and Epicycle.
a. 1764. Lloyd, Wks. (1774), II. 154. Talk of words little understood, Centric, eccentric, epicycle.
