Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Fuertes, Louis Agassiz

(Encyclopedia)Fuertes, Louis Agassiz fo͞oĕrˈtēs [key], 1874–1927, American artist and naturalist, b. Ithaca, N.Y., grad. Cornell, 1897. His paintings of birds appear in most of the leading American ornitholog...

Garnier, Jean Louis Charles

(Encyclopedia)Garnier, Jean Louis Charles gärnyāˈ [key], 1825–98, French architect, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and won the Grand Prix de Rome (1848). He was awarded the commission for the Opéra in ...

Jones, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Jones, Sir William, 1746–94, English philologist and jurist. Jones was celebrated for his understanding of jurisprudence and of Oriental languages. He published an Essay on the Law of Bailments (178...

More, Henry

(Encyclopedia)More, Henry, 1614–87, English philosopher, one of the foremost representatives of the school of Cambridge Platonists. His writings emphasized the mystical and theosophic phases of that philosophy, a...

ohm

(Encyclopedia)ohm ōm [key] [for G. S. Ohm], symbol Ω, unit of electrical resistance, defined as the resistance in a circuit in which a potential difference of one volt creates a current of one ampere; hence, 1 oh...

Nerval, Gérard de

(Encyclopedia)Nerval, Gérard de zhārärˈ də nĕrvälˈ [key], 1808–55, French writer, an early romantic. His real name was Gérard Labrunie. His writings include translations of Faust (1828) and other German ...

libido

(Encyclopedia)libido lĭbēˈdō, –bīˈ– [key] [Lat.,=lust], psychoanalytic term used by Sigmund Freud to identify instinctive energy with the sex instinct. For Freud, libido is the generalized sexual energy o...

Manu

(Encyclopedia)Manu mŭˈno͞o [key], semilegendary Hindu lawgiver. Traditionally ascribed to him are the Laws of Manu, best known of the Sanskrit smriti texts (see Sanskrit literature). They were compiled, probably...

Layard, Sir Austen Henry

(Encyclopedia)Layard, Sir Austen Henry lāˈərd [key], 1817–94, English archaeologist and diplomat. Between 1842 and 1851 he explored and excavated in Mesopotamia, especially at Nineveh. In the period from 1852 ...

Parker, Isaac Charles

(Encyclopedia)Parker, Isaac Charles, 1838–96, American frontier judge, b. Belmont co., Ohio. Self-taught in law, Parker began practice in St. Joseph, Mo., in 1859. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representati...