1. Situated at, in, or near the center: the central states.
2. Forming the center.
3. Having dominant or controlling power or influence: the company's central office.
4. Of basic importance; essential or principal: "Performance, including technological invention and artistic creation, will become central to education at all levels" (Frederick Turner).
5. Easily reached from various points: a central location for the new store.
6. Of or constituting a single source controlling all components of a system: central air conditioning.
7. Anatomy.
   1. Of, relating to, or originating from the nervous system.
   2. Relating to a centrum.
8. Linguistics. Articulated in the middle of the oral cavity; neither front nor back. Used of vowels, as the u in cut.
9. Holding to a moderate ideological position between two extremes.

1. 1. A telephone exchange.
   2. An operator at a telephone exchange.
2. An office or agency at the center of a group of related activities that serves to control and coordinate them: traffic central.

[Latin centrālis, from centrum, center. See center.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.