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quarter horse

(Encyclopedia)quarter horse, American breed of light horse that originated during the colonial era, partly from Arabian ancestry (see Arabian horse). The name refers to the horse's reputation for speed at the quart...

Zähringen

(Encyclopedia)Zähringen tsĕrˈĭng-ən [key], noble German family. It took its name from a now ruined castle near Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, and can be traced to the 10th cent. The family held extensive fiefs i...

Dacia

(Encyclopedia)Dacia dāˈshə [key], ancient name of the European region corresponding roughly to modern Romania (including Transylvania). It was inhabited before the Christian era by a people who were called Getae...

Akihito

(Encyclopedia)Akihito äkēˈhētō [key], 1933–, emperor of Japan (1989–2019). As crown prince, he traveled widely, visiting Great Britain, Canada, the United States, and many countries of Asia and South Ameri...

Clinton, George

(Encyclopedia) Clinton, George, 1941- , American singer, songwriter, producer, and bandleader, b. Kannapolis, N.C. Although born in North Carolina, Clinton was ...

figured bass

(Encyclopedia)figured bass, in music, a system of shorthand notation in which figures are written below the notes of the bass part to indicate the chords to be played. Called also thorough bass and basso continuo, ...

Hegira

(Encyclopedia)Hegira or Hejira both: hĭjīˈrə, hĕjˈərə [key] [Ar.,=Hijra=breaking off of relations], the departure of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca in Sept., 622. Muhammad was a monotheist and preached aga...

globe

(Encyclopedia)globe, spherical map of the earth (terrestrial globe) or the sky (celestial globe). The terrestrial globe provides the only graphic representation of the areas of the earth without significant distort...

ogham

(Encyclopedia)ogham, ogam, or ogum all: ŏgˈəm, ōˈəm [key], ancient Celtic alphabet of one of the Irish runic languages. It was used by the druids and abandoned after the first few centuries of the Christian ...

Ma, Yo-Yo

(Encyclopedia)Ma, Yo-Yo mä [key], 1955–, American cellist, b. Paris. The son of musicologist Hiao-Tsun Ma, who left China in the 1930s, he was a musical prodigy, giving a public recital in Paris at the age of si...