Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

adoption

(Encyclopedia)adoption, act by which the legal relation of parent and child is created. Adoption was recognized by Roman law but not by common law. Statutes first introduced adoption into U.S. law in the mid-19th c...

O'Connor, Frank

(Encyclopedia)O'Connor, Frank, 1903–66, Irish short-story writer, whose name originally was Michael O'Donovan. He was a librarian in Dublin and later a director of the Abbey Theatre (1936–39). O'Connor is noted...

Jordan, Vernon Eulion, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Jordan, Vernon Eulion, Jr., 1935–2021, African-American civil-rights leader and lawyer, b. Atlanta, Ga., DePauw Univ. (BA, 1957), Howard Univ. Law Sch...

hominy

(Encyclopedia)hominy [Algonquian], hulled corn with the germ removed and served either ground or whole. The pioneers in North America prepared it by soaking the kernels in weak wood lye until the hulls floated to t...

Cino da Pistoia

(Encyclopedia)Cino da Pistoia chēˈnō dä pēstôˈyä [key], 1270–1337?, Italian jurist and poet, whose full name was Guittoncino dei Sinibaldi, or Sighibuldi. A friend of Dante and Petrarch, he wrote treatise...

canker

(Encyclopedia)canker, small sore on the inside of the mouth. A canker appears as a shallow, whitish ulcer surrounded by a thin, red area. It is tender, sometimes painful, and may occur singly or as one of a group o...

gerrymander

(Encyclopedia)gerrymander jĕrˈēmănˌdər, gĕr– [key], in politics, rearrangement of voting districts so as to favor the party in power. The objective is to create as many districts as possible in areas of kn...

consular service

(Encyclopedia)consular service, organized body of public officers maintained by a government in the important ports and trade centers of foreign countries to protect the persons and interests of its nationals and t...

erythema

(Encyclopedia)erythema ĕrˌəthēˈmə [key], more or less diffuse redness of the skin due to concentration of an abnormally large amount of blood within the small vessels of the skin (hyperemia), as in burns. Ery...

Bank of England

(Encyclopedia)Bank of England, central bank and note-issuing institution of Great Britain. Popularly known as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, its main office stands on the street of that name in London. The ba...