Brewer's: Hub

The nave of a wheel; a boss; also a skid. (Welsh, hob, a swelling, a protuberance; compare also a hwb.) The Americans call Boston, Massachusetts, “The hub [boss] of the solar system.”

“Boston State-house is the hub of the solar system.” —Holmes: Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, chap. vi. p. 143.

“Calcutta swaggers as if it were the hub of the universe.” —Daily News, 1886.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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