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Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer

(Encyclopedia)Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer pēˈbädē, –bədē [key], 1804–94, American educator, lecturer, and reformer, b. Billerica, Mass. The Peabody family moved (c.1809) to Salem, where the father began pra...

record player

(Encyclopedia)record player or phonograph, device for reproducing sound that has been recorded as a spiral, undulating groove on a disk. This disk is known as a phonograph record, or simply a record (see sound reco...

skepticism

(Encyclopedia)skepticism skĕpˈtĭsĭzəm [key] [Gr.,=to reflect], philosophic position holding that the possibility of knowledge is limited either because of the limitations of the mind or because of the inaccess...

baroque, in music

(Encyclopedia)baroque, in music, a style that prevailed from the last decades of the 16th cent. to the first decades of the 18th cent. Its beginnings were in the late 16th-century revolt against polyphony that gave...

phonetics

(Encyclopedia)phonetics fōnĕtˈĭks, fə– [key], study of the sounds of languages from three basic points of view. Phonetics studies speech sounds according to their production in the vocal organs (articulatory...

Amundsen, Roald

(Encyclopedia)Amundsen, Roald (Roald Engelbregt Grauning Amundsen) rōˈäl äˈmo͝onsən [key], 1872–1928, Norwegian polar explorer; the first person to reach the South Pole. He served (1897–99) as first mate...

monsters and imaginary beasts

(Encyclopedia)monsters and imaginary beasts. The mythologies and legends of ancient and modern cultures teem with an enormous variety of monsters and imaginary beasts. A great number of these are composites of diff...

cooking

(Encyclopedia)cooking, the process of using heat to prepare foods for consumption. Many common cooking methods involve the use of oil. Frying is cooking in hot oil; sautéing is cooking in a small amount of oil; st...

fishing

(Encyclopedia)fishing, act of catching fish for consumption or display. Fishing—usually by hand, club, spear, net, and (at least as early as 23,000 years ago) by hook—was known to prehistoric people. It was pra...

epilepsy

(Encyclopedia)epilepsy, a chronic disorder of cerebral function characterized by periodic convulsive seizures. There are many conditions that have epileptic seizures. Sudden discharge of excess electrical activity,...