[common Iron Age jargon, preserved by
Unix] 1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of core, produced
when a process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error.
2. By extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or
registering extreme shock. "He dumped core. All over the floor.
What a mess." "He heard about X and dumped core."
3. Occasionally used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great
length; esp. in apology: "Sorry, I dumped core on you". 4. A
recapitulation of knowledge (compare bits, sense 1). Hence,
spewing all one knows about a topic (syn. brain dump), esp.
in a lecture or answer to an exam question. "Short, concise
answers are better than core dumps" (from the instructions to an
exam at Columbia). See core.
