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naturalism, in philosophy

(Encyclopedia)naturalism, in philosophy, a position that attempts to explain all phenomena and account for all values by means of strictly natural (as opposed to supernatural) categories. The particular meaning of ...

nautilus, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)nautilus or chambered nautilus, cephalopod mollusk belonging to the sole surviving genus (Nautilus) of a subclass that flourished 200 million years ago, known as the nautiloids. The spirally coiled sh...

aureole, in physics

(Encyclopedia)aureole ôrˈēōlˌ [key], in physics, luminous circle seen when the sun or other bright light is observed through a diffuse medium, i.e., smoke, thin cloud, fog, haze, or mist. It sometimes occurs a...

orange, in botany

(Encyclopedia)orange, name for a tree of the family Rutaceae (rue, or orange, family), native to China and Indochina, and for its fruit, the most important fresh fruit of international commerce. Its physical charac...

Neptune, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Neptune, in astronomy, 8th planet from the sun at a mean distance of about 2.8 billion mi (4.5 billion km) with an orbit lying between those of Uranus and the dwarf planet Pluto; its period of revolut...

Orion, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Orion, in astronomy, constellation located on the celestial equator. It is one of the most conspicuous and easily recognizable constellations in the entire sky. From ancient times it has been mentione...

voice, in grammar

(Encyclopedia)voice, grammatical category according to which an action is referred to as done by the subject (active, e.g., men shoot bears) or to the subject (passive, e.g., bears are shot by men). In Latin, voice...

Vulcan, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Vulcan, in astronomy, hypothetical planet whose existence was proposed by Le Verrier to explain part of the advance of the perihelion of Mercury, not all of which could be accounted for by gravitation...

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