Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

250 results found

bridge, card game

(Encyclopedia)bridge, card game derived from whist, played with 52 cards by four players in two partnerships. Bridge probably originated in the Middle East in the 19th cent. Auction bridge, one form of the game, ...

identity theft

(Encyclopedia)identity theft, the use of one person's personal information by another to commit fraud or other crimes. The most common forms of identity theft occur when someone obtains another person's social secu...

letter of credit

(Encyclopedia)letter of credit: see credit, letter of. ...

credit, letter of

(Encyclopedia)credit, letter of, commercial instrument through which a bank or other financial institution instructs a correspondent institution to advance a specified sum of money to the bearer. The document is ca...

Commodity Credit Corporation

(Encyclopedia)Commodity Credit Corporation: see agricultural subsidies. ...

Farm Credit Administration

(Encyclopedia)Farm Credit Administration (FCA), an independent agency of the executive branch of the federal government that supervises and regulates the Farm Credit System (FCS) for American agriculture. The Farm ...

Farm Credit System

(Encyclopedia)Farm Credit System: see Farm Credit Administration. ...

e-commerce

(Encyclopedia)e-commerce, commerce conducted over the Internet, most often via the World Wide Web. E-commerce can apply to purchases made through the Web or to business-to-business activities such as inventory tran...

automated teller machine

(Encyclopedia)automated teller machine (ATM), device used by bank customers to process account transactions. Typically, a user inserts into the ATM a special plastic card that is encoded with information on a magne...

Crédit Mobilier of America

(Encyclopedia)Crédit Mobilier of America krĕˈdĭt mōbĭlyāˈ, krādēˈ [key], ephemeral construction company, connected with the building of the Union Pacific RR and involved in one of the major financial sca...