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whist

(Encyclopedia)whist, card game for four players, those on opposite sides of the table being partners. The full pack of 52 cards is dealt. The dealer's last card is turned up to indicate trump, and after he draws th...

Raffarin, Jean-Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Raffarin, Jean-Pierre zhäN-pyĕr räfärăNˈ [key], 1948–, French politician. From a political family, he began his career in business and served as a spokesman for a labor minister in the late 19...

fiat money

(Encyclopedia)fiat money fīˈət, fīˈăt [key], inconvertible money that is made legal tender by the decree, or fiat, of the government but that is not covered by a specie reserve. It is commonly understood to b...

Macri, Mauricio

(Encyclopedia)Macri, Mauricio, 1959–, Argentinian political leader. After graduating from the Catholic Univ. of Argentina, he was active in his family's businesses in the 1980s and 90s before becoming president o...

Bavarian Succession, War of the

(Encyclopedia)Bavarian Succession, War of the, between Austria and Prussia, 1778–79. With the extinction of the Bavarian line of the house of Wittelsbach on the death of Elector Maximilian Joseph in 1777, the duc...

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

(Encyclopedia)International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) (IBRD), independent specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters at Washington, D.C.; one of five closely associated develop...

smart card

(Encyclopedia)smart card, small device that resembles a credit card but contains an embedded microprocessor to store and process information. Magnetic-stripe cards, which store a very small amount of information (m...

savings and loan association

(Encyclopedia)savings and loan association (S&L), type of financial institution that was originally created to accept savings from private investors and to provide home mortgage services for the public. The fir...

alphabet

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Examples of letters in various alphabets (arrows indicate the direction of reading) alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing, theoretically having a one-for-one relation bet...

Delors, Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Delors, Jacques (Jacques Lucien Jean Delors) zhäk lo͞osyăNˈ zhäN dəlôrˈ [key] 1925–, French economist and politician and European statesman, president (1985–95) of the European Commission....