Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Benjamin

(Encyclopedia)Benjamin [Heb.,=son of fortune], younger son of Jacob and Rachel, eponymous ancestor of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. His mother, dying, named him Benoni bĕnōˈnī [key] [Heb.,=son of my sorrow]. ...

Uni

(Encyclopedia)Uni o͞oˈnē [key], fl. c.2300 b.c., Egyptian official of the VI dynasty. His career is known through his private inscription. After rising from an obscure court position to a position of command, he...

Scorel, Jan van

(Encyclopedia)Scorel, Jan van yän vän skōˈrəl [key], 1495–1562, Dutch portrait and religious painter, influenced by Gossaert in Utrecht and by Dürer in Nuremberg. About 1521 he visited Palestine and later R...

Orosius, Paulus

(Encyclopedia)Orosius, Paulus ōrōˈshēəs [key], c.385–420, Iberian priest, theologian, and historian, b. Tarragona, Spain or Braga, Portugal. He went to see St. Augustine (c.413) and wrote, on request, a summ...

Huntington, Ellsworth

(Encyclopedia)Huntington, Ellsworth, 1876–1947, American geographer, b. Galesburg, Ill., grad. Beloit College, 1897, M.A. Harvard, 1902, Ph.D. Yale, 1909. He taught at Euphrates College, Turkey (1897–1901); acc...

waxwing

(Encyclopedia)waxwing, any of three species of perching songbirds of the Northern Hemisphere. Waxwings have crests (raised only in alarm) and sleek brownish-gray plumage with flecks of red pigment resembling sealin...

Tchernaiev, Mikhail Grigoryevich

(Encyclopedia)Tchernaiev or Chernyaiev, Mikhail Grigoryevich mēkhəyēlˈ grĭgôrˈyəvĭch chĭrnyīˈəf [key], 1828–98, Russian general and Pan-Slavist. Sent on a minor mission to central Asia in 1864, he ex...

Shanghai Cooperation Organization

(Encyclopedia)Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), association of Eurasian nations founded 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Under the charter signed in 2002...

Pergamum

(Encyclopedia)Pergamum pûrˈgəməm [key], ancient city of NW Asia Minor, in Mysia (modern Turkey), in the fertile valley of the Caicus. It became important c.300 b.c., after the breakup of the Macedonian empire, ...

Kurds

(Encyclopedia)Kurds kûrds, ko͝ords [key], a non-Arab Middle Eastern minority population that inhabits the region known as Kurdistan, an extensive plateau and mountain area, c.74,000 sq mi (191,660 sq km), in SW A...