Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

empyema

(Encyclopedia)empyema ĕmpē-ēˈmə [key], persistent purulent discharge into a cavity such as the pleural space or the gallbladder. Empyema results as a complication of bacterial infections such as pneumonia and ...

Bourget, Le

(Encyclopedia)Bourget, Le, town, Seine–Saint-Denis dept., N central France. A suburb of Paris, it is the site of Le Bourget airport, once Paris's main airport but n...

Steer, Philip Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Steer, Philip Wilson, 1860–1942, English landscape painter. Steer worked largely in the tradition of French impressionist painting and was considered the greatest English landscape painter of his da...

Altichiero da Zevio

(Encyclopedia)Altichiero da Zevio ältēkyāˈrō dä tsāvˈyō [key], c.1330–c.1395, Italian painter, follower of Giotto. He worked in Verona and then Padua. His frescoes in the churches of Sant' Antonio and Sa...

White, Edward Higgins, 2d

(Encyclopedia)White, Edward Higgins, 2d, 1930–67, American astronaut, b. San Antonio. While serving as pilot of Gemini 4 (June 3–7, 1965), he became the first American to perform extravehicular activity. He had...

Arrokoth

(Encyclopedia)Arrokoth, trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper Belt (see comet). First observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014 and later nicknamed Ultima Thule (until its official naming in late 2019), it beca...

hammock

(Encyclopedia)hammock, suspended bed, usually of netting, canvas, or leather. The hammock and its name were introduced to Europeans by Christopher Columbus, who learned of them from Native Americans. While the plai...

Clarke, Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Clarke, Samuel, 1675–1729, English philosopher and divine. His chief interest was rational theology, and, although a critic of the deists, he was in sympathy with some of their ideas. He supported t...

exobiology

(Encyclopedia)exobiology or astrobiology, search for extraterrestrial life within the solar system and throughout the universe. Philosophical speculation that there might be other worlds similar to ours dates back ...

Macdonald-Wright, Stanton

(Encyclopedia)Macdonald-Wright, Stanton, 1890–1973, American artist, b. Charlottsville, Va. Macdonald-Wright was among the first Americans to paint in a totally abstract mode. Together with Morgan Russell, he fou...