the.com/hub
The point everything connects to, and therefore the point everything can fail from.
means The central part of something that other parts attach to or branch out from — a wheel's core, an airport's main hub, or wherever activity concentrates.
from The word's root sense is the solid center of a wheel that the spokes radiate from — attested in English since the 1600s, though its deeper origin is murky; some trace it to 'hob,' an old word for a rounded lump or the raised back ledge of a fireplace. The leap from wheel-center to 'center of activity' (a transport hub, a hub of industry) came naturally once people needed a word for the thing everything else connects to.
- origin
- from wheel hub, the center every spoke depends on
- airline logic
- hub-and-spoke saves routes, costs you layovers
- network theory
- remove one hub, half the internet notices
- irony
- the most connected point is the easiest single failure