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Zoar, village, United States

(Encyclopedia)Zoar zôr, zōˈər [key], village, Tuscarawas co., E central Ohio, on the Tuscarawas River; founded 1817, inc. 1884. It was founded by a group of Separatists from S Germany who fled religious persecu...

Lidman, Sara

(Encyclopedia)Lidman, Sara säˈrä lēdˈmän [key], 1923–2004, Swedish writer. Her novels The Tar Still (1953), Cloudberry Land (1955), and The Rain Bird (1958, tr. 1962), treating rural life in N Sweden, estab...

Valle, Pietro della

(Encyclopedia)Valle, Pietro della pyĕˈtrō dĕlˈlä välˈlā [key], 1586–1652, Italian traveler in Asia. He sailed (1614) from Venice; spent a year in Constantinople, where he studied Turkish and Arabic; then...

folklore

(Encyclopedia)folklore, the body of customs, legends, beliefs, and superstitions passed on by oral tradition. It includes folk dances, folk songs, folk medicine (the use of magical charms and herbs), and folktales ...

heath, tract of open land

(Encyclopedia)heath, tract of open land characterized by a few scattered trees, abundant moss cover, and numerous low shrubs, principally of the heath family (see heath, in botany). In high-latitude regions with mi...

acre, measure of land area

(Encyclopedia)acre, measure of land area used in the English units of measurement. The acre was originally the area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day and therefore differed in size from one locality to another. It...

feudalism

(Encyclopedia)feudalism fyo͞oˈdəlĭzəm [key], form of political and social organization typical of Western Europe from the dissolution of Charlemagne's empire to the rise of the absolute monarchies. The term fe...

Barents Sea

(Encyclopedia)Barents Sea, arm of the Arctic Ocean, N of Norway and European Russia, partially enclosed by Franz Josef Land on the north, Novaya Zemlya on the east, and Svalbard on the west. Its waters are warmed b...

New Netherland

(Encyclopedia)New Netherland, territory included in a commercial grant by the government of Holland to the Dutch West India Company in 1621. Colonists were settled along the Hudson River region; in 1624 the first p...

aristocracy

(Encyclopedia)aristocracy ărˌĭstŏkˈrəsē [key] [Gr.,=rule by the best], in political science, government by a social elite. In the West the political concept of aristocracy derives from Plato's formulation in...