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infertility

(Encyclopedia)infertility, inability to conceive or carry a child to delivery. The term is usually limited to situations where the couple has had intercourse regularly for one year without using birth control. The ...

plastic

(Encyclopedia)plastic, any organic material with the ability to flow into a desired shape when heat and pressure are applied to it and to retain the shape when they are withdrawn. The first important plastic, cel...

numeral

(Encyclopedia)numeral, symbol denoting anumber. The symbol is a member of a family of marks, such as letters, figures, or words, which alone or in a group represent the members of a numeration system. The earliest ...

nucleus, in physics

(Encyclopedia)nucleus, in physics, the extremely dense central core of an atom. Following the discovery of radioactivity by A. H. Becquerel in 1896, Ernest Rutherford identified two types of radiation given off b...

South Dakota

(Encyclopedia)CE5 South Dakota dəkōˈtə [key], state in the N central United States. It is bordered by North Dakota (N), Minnesota and Iowa (E), Nebraska (S), and Wyoming and Montana (W). ...

heroin

(Encyclopedia)heroin hĕˈrəwən [key], opiate drug synthesized from morphine (see narcotic). Originally produced in 1874, it was thought to be not only nonaddictive but useful as a cure for respiratory illness an...

glass

(Encyclopedia)glass, hard substance, usually brittle and transparent, composed chiefly of silicates and an alkali fused at high temperature. Glass has become invaluable in modern architecture, illumination, elect...

Joyce, James

(Encyclopedia)Joyce, James, 1882–1941, Irish novelist. Perhaps the most influential and significant novelist of the 20th cent., Joyce was a master of the English language, exploiting all of its resources. His nov...

colonization

(Encyclopedia)colonization, extension of political and economic control over an area by a state whose nationals have occupied the area and usually possess organizational or technological superiority over the native...

Chinese architecture

(Encyclopedia)Chinese architecture, the buildings and other structures created in China from prehistoric times to the present day. Since the late 19th cent. the Chinese have adopted European architectural styles....