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Cassini

(Encyclopedia)Cassini käs-sēˈnē [key], name of a family of Italian-French astronomers, four generations of whom were directors of the Paris Observatory. Gian Domenico Cassini, 1625–1712, was born in Italy and...

Hancock, John

(Encyclopedia)Hancock, John, 1737–93, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Braintree, Mass. From an uncle he inherited Boston's leading mercantile firm, and n...

Helene

(Encyclopedia)Helene həlēnˈ, hĕlˈənə [key], in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn XII (or S12), Helene is an irregularly shaped (nonspherical) body meas...

Meiklejohn, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Meiklejohn, Alexander mĭkˈəljŏn [key], 1872–1964, American educator, b. Rochdale, England, grad. Brown Univ., 1893, Ph.D. Cornell, 1897. He taught philosophy at Brown (1897–1912), serving as d...

kosher

(Encyclopedia)kosher [Heb.,=proper, i.e., fit for use], in Judaism, term used in rabbinic literature to mean what is ritually correct, but most widely applied to food that is in accordance with dietary laws based o...

Weinreich, Uriel

(Encyclopedia)Weinreich, Uriel, 1926–67, Polish-American linguist, b. Vilnius, Poland (now in Lithuania), Ph.D. Columbia Univ., 1951. Weinreich taught linguistics at Columbia (1951–67) and is noted for his cont...

taiga

(Encyclopedia)taiga tīˈgə [key], northern coniferous-forest belt of Eurasia, bordered on the north by the treeless tundra and on the south by the steppe. This vast belt, comprising about one third of the forest ...

scale, in cartography

(Encyclopedia)scale, in cartography, the ratio of the distance between two points on a map to the real distance between the two corresponding points portrayed. The scale may be expressed in three ways: numerically,...

Philistines

(Encyclopedia)Philistines fĭlˈĭstēnz, fĭlĭsˈ– [key], inhabitants of Philistia, a non-Semitic people who came to Palestine from a region in the Mediterranean in the 12th cent. b.c. Genetic studies in the 21...

Calypso, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Calypso, in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn XIV (or S14), Calypso is a small, irregularly shaped (nonspherical) body measuring about 21 mi (34...