Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

ethics

(Encyclopedia)ethics, in philosophy, the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles. Moral principles may be viewed either as the standard of conduct that individuals have constructed fo...

Metropolitan Opera Company

(Encyclopedia)Metropolitan Opera Company, term used in referring collectively to the organizations that have produced opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City. The original house, at West 39th Street an...

deafness

(Encyclopedia)deafness, partial or total lack of hearing. It may be present at birth (congenital) or may be acquired at any age thereafter. A person who cannot detect sound at an amplitude of 20 decibels in a frequ...

Northwest Territories

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Northwest Territories, territory (2001 pop. 37,360), 532,643 sq mi (1,379,028 sq km), NW Canada. The Northwest Territories lie W of Nunavut, N of lat. 60°N, and E of Yukon. Until 1999, when th...

organized crime

(Encyclopedia)organized crime, criminal activities organized and coordinated on a national scale, often with international connections. The American tradition of daring desperadoes like Jesse James and John Dilling...

small arms

(Encyclopedia)small arms, firearms designed primarily to be carried and fired by one person and, generally, held in the hands, as distinguished from heavy arms, or artillery. Automatic small arms were develope...

English art and architecture

(Encyclopedia)English art and architecture, the distinctive national art and architecture that art may be said to have evolved in the 12th cent. with the Norman style. Building before that time was in what is commo...

Franklin, Benjamin

(Encyclopedia)Franklin, Benjamin, 1706–90, American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer, b. Boston. The only American of the colonial period to earn a European reputation as a natural philosopher, he is bes...

Industrial Revolution

(Encyclopedia)Industrial Revolution, term usually applied to the social and economic changes that mark the transition from a stable agricultural and commercial society to a modern industrial society relying on comp...

Utopia

(Encyclopedia)Utopia yo͞otōˈpēə [key] [Gr.,=no place], title of a book by Sir Thomas More, published in Latin in 1516. The work pictures an ideal state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole...