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naturalism, in philosophy

(Encyclopedia)naturalism, in philosophy, a position that attempts to explain all phenomena and account for all values by means of strictly natural (as opposed to supernatural) categories. The particular meaning of ...

nautilus, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)nautilus or chambered nautilus, cephalopod mollusk belonging to the sole surviving genus (Nautilus) of a subclass that flourished 200 million years ago, known as the nautiloids. The spirally coiled sh...

aureole, in art

(Encyclopedia)aureole, in art: see nimbus.

aureole, in physics

(Encyclopedia)aureole ôrˈēōlˌ [key], in physics, luminous circle seen when the sun or other bright light is observed through a diffuse medium, i.e., smoke, thin cloud, fog, haze, or mist. It sometimes occurs a...

orange, in botany

(Encyclopedia)orange, name for a tree of the family Rutaceae (rue, or orange, family), native to China and Indochina, and for its fruit, the most important fresh fruit of international commerce. Its physical charac...

orders in council

(Encyclopedia)orders in council, in British government, orders given by the sovereign on the advice of all or some of the members of the privy council, without the prior consent of Parliament. Orders in council, fi...

voice, in grammar

(Encyclopedia)voice, grammatical category according to which an action is referred to as done by the subject (active, e.g., men shoot bears) or to the subject (passive, e.g., bears are shot by men). In Latin, voice...

walleye, in medicine

(Encyclopedia)walleye: see strabismus.

walleye, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)walleye or walleyed pike: see perch. ...

valence, in chemistry

(Encyclopedia)valence, combining capacity of an atom expressed as the number of single bonds the atom can form or the number of electrons an element gives up or accepts when reacting to form a compound. Atoms are c...