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chancel

(Encyclopedia)chancel, primarily that part of the church close to the altar and used by the officiating clergy. In the early churches it was separated from the nave by a low parapet or open railing (cancellus), its...

jinni

(Encyclopedia)jinni jĭn [key], in Arabic and Islamic folklore, spirit or demon endowed with supernatural power. In ancient belief the jinn were associated with the destructive forces of nature. In Islamic traditio...

music hall

(Encyclopedia)music hall. In England, the Licensing Act of 1737 confined the production of legitimate plays to the two royal theaters—Drury Lane and Covent Garden; the demands for entertainment of the rising lowe...

U , letter of the alphabet

(Encyclopedia)U, 21st letter of the alphabet, corresponding to the Greek upsilon [Gr.,=u without the aspirate]. Until the late Middle Ages the capital was V, the minuscule u, no distinction being made between the c...

Prévost d'Exiles, Antoine François

(Encyclopedia)Prévost d'Exiles, Antoine François äbāˈ prāvōˈ [key], 1697–1763, French novelist, journalist, and cleric. After a dissolute youth he entered (1720) the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Maur. He la...

Lang, Andrew

(Encyclopedia)Lang, Andrew, 1844–1912, English scholar and man of letters, b. Scotland. His poetry, much of it written in the forms of ballades, triolets, and rondeaux, appeared in such volumes as his Ballads in ...

Canetti, Elias

(Encyclopedia)Canetti, Elias kənĕtˈē [key], 1905–94, English novelist and essayist, b. Ruschuk (now Ruse), Bulgaria. He came from a Sephardic Jewish background, spent most of his early years in Vienna, and, f...

Akkadian

(Encyclopedia)Akkadian əkāˈdēən [key], extinct language belonging to the East Semitic subdivision of the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). Also called Assyro...

Indo-Iranian

(Encyclopedia)Indo-Iranian, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by more than a billion people, chiefly in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (see The Indo-Eu...

Thackeray, William Makepeace

(Encyclopedia)Thackeray, William Makepeace thăkˈərē [key], 1811–63, English novelist, b. Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. He is important not only as a great novelist but also as a brilliant satirist. In 1830, ...