Noun

(en noun)

The series of vertebrae, separated by disks, that encloses and protects the spinal cord, and runs down the middle of the back in vertebrate animals.

any fundamental support, structure, or infrastructure

Before automobiles, railroads were a backbone of commerce.

courage, fortitude, or strength

He would make a good manager, if he had a little more backbone .

Noun

(en noun)

(literally)   The arrangement of support beams that represent a building's general shape and size.

(figuratively)   The larger branches of a tree that determine its shape.

(figuratively, especially in, computing)   A basic conceptual structure.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April

, author=John T. Jost , title=Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)? , volume=100, issue=2, page=162 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.}}

These ‘three principles of connexion’ comprise the framework of principles in Hume's account of the association of ideas.

(literally)   The identification and categorisation of processes or steps that constitute a complex task or mindset in order to render explicit the tacit and implicit.