Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Great Slave Lake

(Encyclopedia)Great Slave Lake, second largest lake of Canada, c.10,980 sq mi (28,400 sq km), Northwest Territories, named for the Slave (Dogrib), a tribe of Native Americans. It is c.300 mi (480 km) long and from ...

Greenwich, town, United States

(Encyclopedia)Greenwich grĕnˈĭch [key], residential town (2020 pop. 63,518), Fairfield co., SW Conn., on ...

Giurgiu

(Encyclopedia)Giurgiu jo͝orˈjo͝o [key], city, S Romania, in Walachia, on the Danube River opposite R...

glanders

(Encyclopedia)glanders, highly contagious disease of horses, mules, and donkeys, caused by the bacterium Actinobacillus mallei. Although it can be transmitted to humans, it is limited almost exclusively to handlers...

Gloucester, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Gloucester, city (2020 pop. 29,729), Essex co., NE Mass., on Cape Ann; settled 1623, inc. as a city 1873. It is a port of entry at the head of Glouceste...

Grotowski, Jerzy

(Encyclopedia)Grotowski, Jerzy yĕˈzhĭ grôtôfˈskē [key], 1933–99, Polish stage director and theatrical theorist. Grotowski was founder and director of the small but influential Polish Laboratory Theatre (19...

gavelkind

(Encyclopedia)gavelkind găvˈəlkīnd [key] [M.E.,=family tenure], custom of inheritance of lands held in socage tenure, whereby all the sons of a holder of an estate in land share equally in such lands upon the d...

escape velocity

(Encyclopedia)escape velocity, the velocity a body must be given in order to escape the gravitational hold of some other larger body, e.g., the earth, moon, or sun. A body given less than the escape velocity will f...

folkways

(Encyclopedia)folkways, term coined by William Graham Sumner in his treatise Folkways (1906) to denote those group habits that are common to a society or culture and are usually called customs. The word provided a ...

absinthe

(Encyclopedia)absinthe ăbˈsĭnth [key], an emerald-green liqueur distilled from wormwood and other aromatics, including angelica root, sweet-flag root, star anise, and dittany, which have been macerated and steep...