Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

acids and bases

(Encyclopedia)acids and bases, two related classes of chemicals; the members of each class have a number of common properties when dissolved in a solvent, usually water. Another theory that provides a very broad ...

arts and crafts

(Encyclopedia)arts and crafts, term for that general field of applied design in which hand fabrication is dominant. The term was coined in England in the late 19th cent. as a label for the then-current movement dir...

Lymington and Pennington

(Encyclopedia)Lymington and Pennington lĭmˈĭngtən [key], town (1991 pop. 11,614), Hampshire, S England, on the Solent channel at the mouth of the Lymington River. It is a market town, resort, and port; coast tr...

Masters and Johnson

(Encyclopedia)Masters and Johnson, pioneering research team in the field of human sexuality, consisting of the gynecologist William Howell Masters, 1915–2001, b. Cleveland, and the psychologist Virginia Eshelman ...

marque and reprisal

(Encyclopedia)marque and reprisal: see privateering. ...

Armagnacs and Burgundians

(Encyclopedia)Armagnacs and Burgundians, opposing factions that fought to control France in the early 15th cent. The rivalry for power between Louis d'Orléans, brother of the recurrently insane King Charles VI, an...

Laurel and Hardy

(Encyclopedia)Laurel and Hardy, American film comedy team. The duo consisted of Stan Laurel, 1890–1965, b. Ulverson, England, whose real name was Arthur Stanley Jefferson; and Oliver Hardy, 1892–1957, b. Atlant...

Lepidodendron and Sigillaria

(Encyclopedia)Lepidodendron sĭjĭlârˈēə [key], two principal genera of an extinct group of primitive vascular trees. They dominated the forests of the early Carboniferous period until the ferns gained ascendan...

Lewis and Harris

(Encyclopedia)Lewis and Harris, island (1985 est. pop. 23,500), 825 sq mi (2,137 sq km), largest and northernmost of the Outer Hebrides, Western Isles council area, NW Scotland, 24 mi (35 km) from the mainland acro...

libel and slander

(Encyclopedia)libel and slander, in law, types of defamation. In common law, written defamation was libel and spoken defamation was slander. Today, however, there are no such clear definitions. Permanent forms of d...