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peddler

(Encyclopedia)peddler or hawker, itinerant vendor of small goods. In rural America peddlers carried their packs or drove a horse and cart from door to door. While the importance of peddlers to the small American co...

marine engine

(Encyclopedia)marine engine, machine for the propulsion of watercraft. The earliest marine power plants, reciprocating steam engines, were used almost exclusively until the early 1900s. In later ship construction t...

grenade

(Encyclopedia)grenade grĭnādˈ [key], small bomb either thrown by hand or shot from a modified rifle or a grenade launcher. It may be filled with gas or chemicals but more often holds an explosive charge that fra...

meteor

(Encyclopedia)meteor, appearance of a small particle flying through space that interacts with the earth's upper atmosphere. While still outside the atmosphere, the particle is known as a meteoroid. Countless meteor...

Damavand

(Encyclopedia)Damavand or Demavend both: dĕmˈəvĕnd [key], volcanic cone, 18,606 ft (5,671 m) high, in the Elburz range, N Iran. A permanently snow-covered volcano of recent geologic origin, it emits gases and s...

International Fund for Agricultural Development

(Encyclopedia)International Fund for Agricultural Development(IFAD), specialized agency of the United Nations with headquarters in Rome, Italy. IFAD grew out of the 1974 World Food Conference; it was established in...

flywheel

(Encyclopedia)flywheel, heavy metal wheel attached to a drive shaft, having most of its weight concentrated at the circumference. Such a wheel resists changes in speed and helps steady the rotation of the shaft whe...

Price, Kenneth

(Encyclopedia)Price, Kenneth, 1935–2012, American ceramic artist, b. Los Angeles, grad. Univ. of Southern California (B.F.A., 1956), New York State College of Ceramics (M.F.A., 1959). Obliterating the distinction...

waxbill

(Encyclopedia)waxbill, common name for small, brightly colored weaver finches of the Estrildini tribe of the family Estrildidae. Most are African with the exception of two S Asian species of avadavats, and one Aust...

bustard quail

(Encyclopedia)bustard quail or button quail, any of the small ground-running Old World birds of the family Turnicidae. Also called a hemipode, it resembles a true quail in appearance and way of life but is more clo...

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