Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

public defender

(Encyclopedia)public defender, governmental official who represents indigent persons accused of crime. U.S. Supreme Court decisions expanding the right to counsel to pretrial proceedings and holding that a person c...

Scone

(Encyclopedia)Scone sko͞on [key], village, Perth and Kinross, central Scotland. Old Scone, west of the modern village of New Scone, was the repository of the Coronation Stone (see under coronation) and the coronat...

San Ildefonso, pueblo, United States

(Encyclopedia)San Ildefonso săn ēlˌdəfŏnˈsō [key], pueblo (1990 pop. 447), N central N.Mex., on the Rio Grande, established in the early 1700s. The inhabitants are Pueblo who speak a Tanoan language. The pue...

hedgehog

(Encyclopedia)hedgehog, Old World insectivorous mammal of the family Erinaceidae. The spiny hedgehogs are found in Africa and Eurasia, except SE Asia. They have rounded bodies up to 13 in. (33 cm) long, very short ...

flying squirrel

(Encyclopedia)flying squirrel, name for certain nocturnal tree squirrels adapted for gliding; they do not actually fly. Most are found in Asia, but one species of the genus Pteromys extends into SE Europe and the t...

latitude

(Encyclopedia)latitude, angular distance of any point on the surface of the earth north or south of the equator. The equator is latitude 0°, and the North Pole and South Pole are latitudes 90°N and 90°S, respect...

Cato the Younger

(Encyclopedia)Cato the Younger or Cato of Utica, 95 b.c.–46 b.c., Roman statesman, whose full name was Marcus Porcius Cato; great-grandson of Cato the Elder. Reared by his uncle Marcus Livius Drusus, he showed an...

tent caterpillar

(Encyclopedia)tent caterpillar, common name for the larvae of the members of a family of moths (Lasiocampidae), easily recognized by the large silk tents, or webs, that the larvae construct during the spring in the...

Bacon, Francis, English philosopher and statesman

(Encyclopedia)Bacon, Francis, 1561–1626, English philosopher, essayist, and statesman, b. London, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at Gray's Inn. He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper to Qu...

Duquesnoy, François

(Encyclopedia)Duquesnoy, François fräNswäˈ dükĕnwäˈ [key], 1594–1643, Flemish sculptor. In 1618 he went to Rome, where he remained most of his life, eventually becoming one of the most sought after sculpt...