Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

archetype

(Encyclopedia)archetype ärˈkĭtīpˌ [key] [Gr. arch=first, typos=mold], term whose earlier meaning, “original model,” or “prototype,” has been enlarged by C. G. Jung and by several contemporary literary ...

byliny

(Encyclopedia)byliny bĭlēˈnē [key] [Rus.,=what has happened], Russian scholarly term first applied in the 1840s to a great body of narrative and heroic poems. They are called by the folk stariny [Rus.,=what is ...

brass

(Encyclopedia)brass, alloy having copper (55%–90%) and zinc (10%–45%) as its essential components. The properties of brass vary with the proportion of copper and zinc and with the addition of small amounts of o...

Turpan

(Encyclopedia)Turpan to͝orˈfänˈ [key], town and oasis (1994 est. pop. 64,300), in the Turpan depression (c.5,000 sq mi/12,950 sq km), E Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. It is an agricultural center prod...

Blades, Rubén

(Encyclopedia)Blades, Rubén ro͞obānˈ bläˈᵺās [key], 1948–, Panamanian singer, songwriter, band leader, and actor. He is a graduate (1972) of the Univ. of Panama law school and holds a masters degree (198...

Rayonnant style

(Encyclopedia)Rayonnant style rāˈənănt [key], the middle period (c.1240–1350) of French Gothic architecture, so termed from the characteristic radiating tracery of the rose window. In this period many of the ...

Crichton, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Crichton, Michael krīˈtən [key], 1942–2008, American novelist, screenwriter, and director, b. Chicago, grad. Harvard Medical School (1969). He wrote several thrillers under a pseudonym while a st...

Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish

(Encyclopedia)Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish äˌnəndäˈ kĕnˈtĭsh ko͝omäˌrəswäˈmē [key], 1877–1947, art historian, b. Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Raised in London by an English mother, he returned to Ceylon...

ellipse

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Ellipse ellipse, closed plane curve consisting of all points for which the sum of the distances between a point on the curve and two fixed points (foci) is the same. It is the conic section fo...

apocalypse

(Encyclopedia)apocalypse əpŏkˈəlĭps [key] [Gr.,=uncovering], genre represented in early Jewish and in Christian literature in which the secrets of the heavenly world or of the world to come are revealed by ang...