(Encyclopedia) distortion, in electronics, undesired change in an electric signal waveform as it passes from the input to the output of some system or device. In an audio system, distortion results…
(Encyclopedia) credit, letter of, commercial instrument through which a bank or other financial institution instructs a correspondent institution to advance a specified sum of money to the bearer.…
(Encyclopedia) conscience, sense of moral awareness or of right and wrong. The concept has been variously explained by moralists and philosophers. In the history of ethics, the conscience has been…
(Encyclopedia) classical swine fever or hog cholera, acute, highly infectious viral disease of swine, historically perhaps the most serious disease of swine in North America. It is characterized by…
(Encyclopedia) fetishfetishfĕtˈĭsh [key], inanimate object believed to possess some magical power. The fetish may be a natural thing, such as a stone, a feather, a shell, or the claw of an animal, or…
(Encyclopedia) internment, in international law, detention of the nationals or property of an enemy or a belligerent. A belligerent will intern enemy merchant ships or take them as prize, and a…
(Encyclopedia) HabakkukHabakkukhəbakˈək [key], prophetic book of the Bible. It is a collection of oracles, perhaps three in number, delivered against the backdrop of the Babylonian threat to Judah in…
(Encyclopedia) Morris, Wright (Wright Marion Morris), 1910–98, American writer, b. Central City, Nebr. He was for many years professor of English at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco…
(Encyclopedia) open education, also known as open classroom, type of educational reform. The central tenet of this informal system is that children want to learn and will do so naturally if left to…
(Encyclopedia) Mary II, 1662–94, queen of England, wife of William III. The daughter of James II by his first wife, Anne Hyde, she was brought up a Protestant despite her father's adoption of Roman…
