Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

bustard

(Encyclopedia)bustard bŭsˈtərd [key], a heavy-bodied, ground-running bird of the family Otididae. Various species are found throughout the arid regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, and S Europe. Bustards range in...

transformer

(Encyclopedia)transformer, electrical device used to transfer an alternating current or voltage from one electric circuit to another by means of electromagnetic induction. The simplest type of transformer consists ...

Chugach Mountains

(Encyclopedia)Chugach Mountains cho͞oˈgăch [key], one of the Pacific coastal ranges, S Alaska, extending from the St. Elias Mts., on the Alaska-Yukon border, NW to the Manuska River. Mt. Marcus Baker, 13,176 ft ...

Farrar, Frederic William

(Encyclopedia)Farrar, Frederic William, 1831–1903, English clergyman and author, dean of Canterbury (1895–1903), b. Bombay (now Mumbai), India, educated in England. He was assistant master at Harrow from 1855 t...

anthropometry

(Encyclopedia)anthropometry ănthrəpŏmˈətrē [key], technique of measuring the human body in terms of dimensions, proportions, and ratios such as those provided by the cephalic index. Once the standard approach...

Kahoolawe

(Encyclopedia)Kahoolawe kähōˈōläˈvā, –wā, kähōˈläˈ– [key], uninhabited island, 45 sq mi (117 sq km), central Hawaii; separated from Maui island to the NE by Alalakeiki Channel. The low island, dott...

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

(Encyclopedia)Kakinomoto no Hitomaro käˈkēˈnōˈmōˈtō nō hēˈtōˈmäˈrō [key], ?–710?, early Japanese lyric poet. He is the greatest poet represented in the Manyôshu [collection of myriad leaves], wh...

Morison, Stanley

(Encyclopedia)Morison, Stanley, 1889–1967, English typographer and journalist. Morison was typographical consultant to Cambridge Univ. Press and to the English Monotype Corp. and editor of the Fleuron from 1926 t...

Karlin, John Elias

(Encyclopedia)Karlin, John Elias, American industrial psychologist and human-factors engineering pioneer, b. Johannesburg, South Africa, grad. Univ. of Cape Town (B.A., M.A.), Univ. of Chicago (Ph.D., 1942). With a...

Park City

(Encyclopedia)Park City, town (1990 pop. 4,468), Summit co., N central Utah, in the Wasatch Range. A former mining town whose silver and other deposits were mined out, it was a nearly ghost town by the 1950s but ha...