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archerfish

(Encyclopedia)archerfish, laterally compressed fish, genus Toxotes, which catches insects by spitting at and disabling them. The archerfish has a groove in the roof of its mouth that forms a long narrow tube when t...

Pali

(Encyclopedia)Pali päˈlē [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Some scholars classify it as a Prakrit, or vernacular dialect of clas...

Pentastomida

(Encyclopedia)Pentastomida pĕnˈtəstōˌmə [key], tongue worms, small phylum of fewer than 100 species of parasites living in the upper respiratory passages of reptiles, and occasionally of birds and mammals. Th...

Udall, John

(Encyclopedia)Udall, Udal yo͞oˈdəl, yo͞ovˈdāl [key], 1560?–1592, English clergyman, educated at Cambridge. He adopted Puritan sympathies and aided John Penry in issuing the anticlerical pamphlets published ...

Syriac

(Encyclopedia)Syriac sērˈēăkˌ [key], late dialect of Aramaic, which is a West Semitic language (see Afroasiatic languages). The early Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria gave the Greek name Syriac to the Arama...

cross-laminated timber

(Encyclopedia)cross-laminated timber (CLT), manufactured wood panels that consist of layers of boards glued together under pressure with the grain of the boards in one layer running perpendicular to the grain in ad...

numbat

(Encyclopedia)numbat nŭmˈbăt [key], small marsupial, of SW Australia, also known as the marsupial anteater. The numbat, Myrmecobius fasciatus, resembles a squirrel in size and general appearance, but is adapted ...

kinkajou

(Encyclopedia)kinkajou kĭngˈkəjo͞oˌ [key], nocturnal, arboreal mammal, Potos flavus, found from Mexico to Brazil and related to the raccoon. It has a long, slender body with soft, short, woolly hair of any of ...

Swahili language

(Encyclopedia)Swahili language, member of the Bantu group of African languages (see African languages and Bantu languages). Swahili is spoken by 30 million people, chiefly in Tanzania, Kenya, Congo (Kinshasa), Buru...

Urdu

(Encyclopedia)Urdu o͞orˈdo͞o [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official tongue of Pakistan, Urdu is also one of the 15 langu...