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radiosonde

(Encyclopedia)radiosonde rāˈdēōsŏnd [key], group of instruments for simultaneous measurement and radio transmission of meteorological data, including temperature, pressure, and humidity of the atmosphere. The ...

spinet

(Encyclopedia)spinet, musical instrument of the harpsichord family. Although the terms virginal and spinet, interchangeable until the end of the 17th cent., were sometimes used indiscriminately to designate any har...

pronoun

(Encyclopedia)pronoun, in English, the part of speech used as a substitute for an antecedent noun that is clearly understood, and with which it agrees in person, number, and gender. In English the pronouns are clas...

Rio Branco, José Maria da Silva Paranhos, barão do

(Encyclopedia)Rio Branco, José Maria da Silva Paranhos, barão do zho͝ozĕˈ mərēˈə də sēlˈvə pəräˈnyo͝os bərouNˈ do͝o rēˈo͝o brängˈko͝o [key], 1845–1912, Brazilian statesman and diplomat. ...

Green, Anna Katherine

(Encyclopedia)Green, Anna Katherine, 1846–1935, American detective-story writer, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Ripley Female College, Poultney, Vt., 1867. Of her many thrillers, characterized by logical construction a...

golden parachute

(Encyclopedia)golden parachute, a contract given to top executives of a corporation to provide benefits in case of job loss due to a takeover by another firm or a merger. The unusually generous benefits may include...

paleography

(Encyclopedia)paleography pālēŏgˈrəfē [key] [Gr.,=early writing], term generally meaning all study and interpretation of old ways of recording language. In a narrower sense, it excludes epigraphy (the study o...

Korematsu, Fred Toyosaburo

(Encyclopedia)Korematsu, Fred Toyosaburo, 1919–2005, Japanese-American internment protester, b. Oakland, Calif. He was a shipyard welder when, after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in 1942, President F. D. Roos...

Reines, Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Reines, Frederick, 1918–99, American physicist, b. Paterson, N.J., Ph.D. New York Univ., 1944. He was a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory (1944–59), a professor at Case Institute of Tec...

attorney

(Encyclopedia)attorney, agent put in place of another to manage particular affairs of the principal. An attorney in fact is an agent who conducts business under authority that is controlled and limited by a written...