Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

glider

(Encyclopedia)glider, type of aircraft resembling an airplane but having at most a small auxiliary propulsion plant and usually no means of propulsion at all. The typical modern glider has very slender wings and a ...

tornado

(Encyclopedia)tornado, dark, funnel-shaped cloud containing violently rotating air that develops below a heavy cumulonimbus cloud mass and extends toward the earth. The funnel twists about, rises and falls, and whe...

Atsugi

(Encyclopedia)Atsugi ätˌso͞oˈgē [key], city, Kanagawa prefecture, E central Honshu, Japan, on the Sagami River. It is an important communication, commercial, and agricultural cente...

Kaneohe Bay

(Encyclopedia)Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, on the east coast of Oahu, protected by coral reefs and dotted with islands. The shores of the bay are rimmed with ancient fishponds built by the Hawaiian chiefs. A U.S. marine co...

Goldsboro

(Encyclopedia)Goldsboro, city (2020 pop. 33,657), seat of Wayne co., E central N.C.; inc. 1847. Goldsboro is a marketplace for bright-leaf tobacco and a shipping cent...

Robinson, Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Robinson, Theodore, 1852–96, American painter, b. Irasburg, Vt. Beginning his career as a realist, Robinson was profoundly influenced by his meeting with Monet in 1888. Translating the impressionist...

Santa Maria, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Santa Maria, city (1990 pop. 61,284), Santa Barbara co., S Calif., near San Luis Obispo Bay; founded 1874 as Central City, renamed 1882, inc. 1905. A growing city, it has an economy based largely on a...

Panama City

(Encyclopedia)Panama City, city (1990 pop. 34,378), seat of Bay co., NW Fla., on St. Andrews Bay; inc. 1909. A Gulf Coast resort with amusement parks and excellent fishing, it is also a port of entry. The city's in...

Bourne

(Encyclopedia)Bourne, town (2020 pop. 20,452), Barnstable co., SE Mass., crossed by Cape Cod Canal; settled 1627, inc. 1884. Bourne Bridge (1935), across the canal, m...

Stymphalian birds

(Encyclopedia)Stymphalian birds stĭmfāˈlēən [key], in Greek mythology, dangerous man-eating birds that infested the woods around Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia. As his fifth labor, Hercules frightened the birds in...

Browse by Subject