Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Playfair, Sir Nigel

(Encyclopedia)Playfair, Sir Nigel nīˈjəl plāˈfâr [key], 1874–1934, English actor-manager. He made his acting debut in 1902 and later appeared in major London productions of Shaw and Shakespeare. He took on ...

Poitier, Sir Sidney

(Encyclopedia)Poitier, Sir Sidney, 1927–2022, Bahamian-American actor, b. Miami, raised in the Bahamas, returned to the United States at 14. Poitier served in the 1...

Rushdie, Sir Salman

(Encyclopedia)Rushdie, Sir Salman sälmänˈ ro͞oshˈdē [key], 1947–, British novelist, b. Bombay (now Mumbai, India). He is known for the allusive richness of his language and the wide variety of Eastern and W...

Ryle, Sir Martin

(Encyclopedia)Ryle, Sir Martin, 1918–84, British radio astronomer, B.S. Oxford, 1939. Ryle was a researcher and professor at Cambridge from 1945 until his retirement in 1982. Knighted in 1966, he was Britain's As...

Petty, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Petty, Sir William, 1623–87, English statistician and physician. He was a founder of the Royal Society and was physician general to the army of Ireland in 1652. Petty's survey of the Irish estates a...

Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus

(Encyclopedia)Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus pĕvzˈnər [key], 1902–83, English architectural historian, b. Germany. Influenced by Heinrich Wölfflin, Pevsner contended in his many works that art must be considered withi...

Phips, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Phips, Sir William, 1651–95, American colonial governor. Born in what is today Maine, he was a carpenter and shipbuilder in Boston and became interested in sunken treasure. On his second hunt for tr...

Previn, Sir André

(Encyclopedia)Previn, Sir André prĕvˈĭn [key], 1929–2019, American conductor, composer, and pianist, b. Germany as Andreas Ludwig Priwin. His family fled Nazi Germany in 1938, and he became an American citize...

Prevost, Sir George

(Encyclopedia)Prevost, Sir George prĕˈvō [key], 1767–1816, British soldier and governor in chief of Canada (1811–15). He held several administrative posts in the West Indies before becoming (1808) lieutenant...

Sadler, Sir Ralph

(Encyclopedia)Sadler or Sadleir, Sir Ralph both: sădˈlər [key], 1507–87, English diplomat. Through the influence of Thomas Cromwell, he secured (c.1536) the favor of Henry VIII, for whom he went on numerous mi...