Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

346 results found

multimedia

(Encyclopedia)multimedia, in personal computing, software and applications that combine text, high-quality sound, two- and three-dimensional graphics, animation, photo images, and full-motion video. In order to wor...

Nureyev, Rudolf

(Encyclopedia)Nureyev, Rudolf no͝orĕˈyĕf [key], 1938–93, Russian ballet dancer, b. near Irkutsk, Siberian USSR (now Russia). Nureyev studied in Ufa and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and in 1958 he became a ...

leafhopper

(Encyclopedia)leafhopper, common name for small, wedge-shaped leaping insects, cosmopolitan in distribution, belonging to the family Cicadellidae, which comprises some 5,500 species of insects. Some are brightly co...

art history

(Encyclopedia)art history, the study of works of art and architecture. In the mid-19th cent., art history was raised to the status of an academic discipline by the Swiss Jacob Burckhardt, who related art to its cul...

Louis, Joe

(Encyclopedia)Louis, Joe (Joseph Louis Barrow) lo͞oˈĭs [key], 1914–81, American boxer, b. Lafayette, Ala. His father, a sharecropper, died when Louis was four years old, and in 1926 his stepfather took the fam...

Koolhaas, Rem

(Encyclopedia)Koolhaas, Rem (Remmet Lucas Koolhaas), 1944–, Dutch architect, b. Rotterdam. He began his career as a journalist and screenwriter, moving to London in the late 1960s to study architecture. Koolhaas ...

Turner, Frederick Jackson

(Encyclopedia)Turner, Frederick Jackson, 1861–1932, American historian, b. Portage, Wis. He taught at the Univ. of Wisconsin from 1885 to 1910 except for a year spent in graduate study at Johns Hopkins. From 1910...

word processing

(Encyclopedia)word processing, use of a computer program or a dedicated hardware and software package to write, edit, format, and print a document. Text is most commonly entered using a keyboard similar to a typewr...

Bertolucci, Bernardo

(Encyclopedia)Bertolucci, Bernardo bĕrnärˈdō bĕrˌtōlo͞otˈchē [key], 1940–2018, Italian film director and screenwriter, considered one of the finest Italian directors of his generation. The son of poet A...

Styron, William

(Encyclopedia)Styron, William, 1925–2006, American novelist, b. Newport News, Va., grad. Duke, 1947. His fiction is often powerful, deeply felt, poetic, and elegiac. He became well known for his novel The Confess...

Browse by Subject