hub

Pluralhubs

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A point where many routes meet and traffic is distributed or diverted along them.

   Like the center of a spider's web, where every thread meets before running out again.

   The railroad turned the sleepy town into a freight hub almost overnight.

   Passengers flying to smaller cities usually change planes at one of the airline's hubs.

   Similarcenter, junction, nexus

   Note

   The picture comes from the wheel's center: routes run out from a hub like spokes, as the passenger lines that radiate in six directions from Doncaster, which Philip Haigh called "a rail hub in every sense" in 2021. The kind of traffic usually comes first, as in air hub, rail hub or shipping hub, and the word suggests a place that sends traffic on rather than one where it ends.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A central facility that provides a range of related services, for example medical or educational ones.

   A new medical hub on Main Street offers X-rays, lab tests and urgent care.

   The university's research hub brings its labs, data services and grant office under one roof.

   Similarcenter, complex, facility

3. 3
   nouncountable

   The central, usually cylindrical part of a wheel.

   The mechanic greased the hub before putting the wheel back on.

   Turn the hub of the spool slowly to wind the tape back in.

   Note

   The word began in dialect as hubbe, sharing its source with hob, and its ultimate origin is unknown. German Hubbel, "a bump on a surface," may be related, which would put the "bump in the road" meaning nearer the root. It reaches beyond wheels to anything that turns on a center, like the hub of a film spool; nave is the other name for the part.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A device used in computer networks to connect several Ethernet ports together.

   The old office network ran through a single eight-port hub under the reception desk.

   When the network slowed to a crawl, the technician replaced the aging hubs with switches.

   Note

   Next to a switch, a hub is the simple, older box: whatever arrives on one port it repeats out of every other, so each connected machine hears all the traffic. A switch learns which device sits on which port and sends each message only where it is going, which is why networks replaced their hubs with switches.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   An area in a video game from which the player reaches the individual levels.

   The game's hub is a quiet village whose doors open onto each of the twelve levels.

   Unlocking a new portal in the hub lets players jump straight into the lava stages.

   Note

   Game designers borrow the picture of a meeting point of routes: levels branch off the hub like lines from a junction, and the player comes back to it between them. Julian Hazeldine's Speedrun (2014) describes a Sonic game whose next act is chosen at a machine "located in the game's hub area," and hub area is the usual phrase.

6. 6
   nounUScountable

   A rough bump or other projecting obstruction, such as one in a road.

   The plow blade caught on a hub of rock buried in the field.

   Ice had frozen into hard hubs along the edge of the path.

   Similarbump, lump, knob, hump

   Note

   This sense is American, and it turns the usual picture around: a hub in the road is something a wheel jolts over, not the center it turns on. A reader who knows only the central meanings may stumble on it, so outside the US bump is the safer word.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A stake with a nail driven into it, used in surveying to mark a temporary point.

   The survey crew drove a hub at each corner of the property.

   Before grading began, the engineer checked her measurements against the nails in the hubs.

   Similarstake, peg

   Note

   Surveyors drive a hub nearly flush with the ground, and the nail in its top, not the stake itself, marks the exact point. A taller guard stake set beside it carries the written notes and helps the crew find the hub again among the grass and dirt.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   The target or mark at which players throw quoits and similar objects.

   His last quoit struck the hub and spun to a stop beside it.

   They set up the hub at one end of the yard and marked the throwing line at the other.

   Similarpin, target

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A hardened, engraved steel punch used to press a design into a die, as in making coins.

   Each working die is pressed from the master hub, so every coin carries the same portrait.

   A cracked hub forced the mint to halt production of the new quarter.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A block placed against a wheel to keep it from rolling.

    The driver kicked a hub under the wagon's rear wheel before unhitching the horses.

    On the steep street, the movers wedged a hub against each tire of the van.

    Similarchock, wedge, block

11. 11
    nouncountable

    A male weasel.

    In spring the hub went searching along the hedgerow for a mate.

    The gamekeeper found a hub and two females in the same trap.

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