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Senancour, Étienne Pivert de

(Encyclopedia)Senancour, Étienne Pivert de ātyĕnˈ pēvĕrˈ də sənäNco͞orˈ [key], 1770–1846, French writer. He is known principally for his autobiographical epistolary novel Obermann (1804, tr. 1903). Th...

Shakhmatov, Aleksey Aleksandrovich

(Encyclopedia)Shakhmatov, Aleksey Aleksandrovich əlĭksyāˈ əlĭksänˈdrəvĭch shôkmətôfˈ [key], 1864–1920, Russian philologist and historian. Shakhmatov's many books on the history of the Russian langua...

Shakhty

(Encyclopedia)Shakhty shäkhˈtē [key], city (1989 pop. 226,000), SW European Russia; a major anthracite-mining center of the Donets Basin. Industrial products include iron, clothing, brewed beverages, and footwea...

Owl and the Nightingale, The

(Encyclopedia)Owl and the Nightingale, The, Middle English poem written probably by Nicholas de Guildford of Dorsetshire about the beginning of the 13th cent. Written in 2,000 lines of octosyllabic couplets, it des...

drought

(Encyclopedia)drought, abnormally long period of insufficient rainfall. Drought cannot be defined in terms of inches of rainfall or number of days without rain, since it is determined by such variable factors as th...

Copán

(Encyclopedia)Copán kōpänˈ [key], ruined city of the Maya, W Honduras, in a small river valley of the same name. Copán is noted for its fine sculptured stele and majestic architecture. The ruins were the site ...

Hesiod

(Encyclopedia)Hesiod hēˈsēəd, hĕsˈ– [key], fl. 8th cent.? b.c., Greek poet. He is thought to have lived later than Homer, but there is no absolute certainty about the dates of his life. Hesiod portrays hims...

Academy

(Encyclopedia)Academy, school founded by Plato near Athens c.387 b.c. It took its name from the garden (named for the hero Academus) in which it was located. Plato's followers met there for nine centuries until, al...

Passover

(Encyclopedia)Passover, in Judaism, one of the most important and elaborate of religious festivals. Its celebration begins on the evening of the 14th of Nisan (first month of the religious calendar, corresponding t...

Celtic art

(Encyclopedia)Celtic art kĕlˈtĭk, sĕlˈ– [key]. The earliest clearly Celtic style in art was developed in S Germany and E France by tribal artisans of the mid- to late 5th cent. b.c. With the dispersal of Cel...