Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

147 results found

North, Frederick North, 8th Baron

(Encyclopedia)North, Frederick North, 8th Baron, 1732–92, British statesman, best known as Lord North. He entered Parliament in 1754 and became a junior lord of the treasury (1759), privy councilor (1766), and ch...

Struve

(Encyclopedia)Struve shtro͞oˈvə [key], family of astronomers. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, 1793–1864, was born in Germany but later lived in Russia. While director (1817–39) of Dorpat Observatory he w...

bismuth

(Encyclopedia)bismuth bĭzˈməth [key] [Ger. Weisse Masse=white mass], metallic chemical element; symbol Bi; at. no. 83; at. wt. 208.98040; m.p. 271.3℃; b.p. about 1,560℃; sp. gr. 9.75 at 20℃; valence +3 or ...

Celan, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Celan, Paul äntˈshschwa;l [key], 1920–70, Romanian-French poet. Although he spent his early years in Romania and his later years in France, Celan wrote in German and is widely considered the great...

Tory

(Encyclopedia)Tory tôˈrē [key], English political party. The term was originally applied to outlaws in Ireland and was adopted as a derogatory name for supporters of the duke of York (later James II) at the time...

infinity

(Encyclopedia)infinity, in mathematics, that which is not finite; it is often indicated by the symbol ∞. A sequence of numbers, a1, a2, a3, … , is said to “approach infinity” if the numbers eventually b...

Barenboim, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Barenboim, Daniel bârˈənboimˌ [key], 1942–, Israeli pianist and conductor, b. Buenos Aires, Argentina. He made his debut in Buenos Aires at seven. His family settled in Israel in 1952, and he st...

Battenberg

(Encyclopedia)Battenberg bătˈənbûrg [key], German princely family, issued from the morganatic union of Alexander, a younger son of Louis II, grand duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Julia von Hauke, who was ...

Berg, Alban

(Encyclopedia)Berg, Alban älˈbän bĕrk [key], 1885–1935, Austrian composer. In his youth he taught himself music but in 1904 he became the pupil and close friend of Arnold Schoenberg. Later Berg himself taught...

dialect

(Encyclopedia)dialect, variety of a language used by a group of speakers within a particular speech community. Every individual speaks a variety of his language, termed an idiolect. Dialects are groups of idiolects...