Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

strategy and tactics

(Encyclopedia)strategy and tactics, in warfare, related terms referring, respectively, to large-scale and small-scale planning to achieve military success. Strategy may be defined as the general scheme of the condu...

supply and demand

(Encyclopedia)supply and demand, in classical economics, factors that are said to determine price, by correlating the amount of a given commodity producers hope to sell at a certain price (supply), and the amount o...

tar and pitch

(Encyclopedia)tar and pitch, viscous, dark-brown to black substances obtained by the destructive distillation of coal, wood, petroleum, peat, and certain other organic materials. The heating or partial burning of w...

adhesion and cohesion

(Encyclopedia)adhesion and cohesion, attractive forces between material bodies. A distinction is usually made between an adhesive force, which acts to hold two separate bodies together (or to stick one body to anot...

Walton and Weybridge

(Encyclopedia)Walton and Weybridge wāˈbrĭj [key], city (19981 pop. 50,031), Surrey, SE England. It is largely a residential suburb of London. There is market gardening, an aircraft works, and other industries. ...

Urim and Thummim

(Encyclopedia)Urim and Thummim yo͞oˈrĭm, thŭmˈĭm [key], in the Bible, name of sacred instruments used for casting lots. The meaning of the two names is uncertain, as is the nature of the lots. They were in so...

wheel and axle

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Wheel and axle wheel and axle, simple machine consisting of a wheel mounted rigidly upon an axle or drum of smaller diameter, the wheel and the axle having the same axis. It is fundamentally a...

Weber and Fields

(Encyclopedia)Weber and Fields wĕbˈər [key], American comedy team. The partners were Joe Weber (Joseph Maurice Weber), 1867–1942, and Lew Fields (Lewis Maurice Schanfield), 1867–1941, both born in New York C...

Sac and Fox

(Encyclopedia)Sac and Fox, closely related Native Americans of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Sac and Fox culture was of the Eastern Woodlands are...

Browse by Subject