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primate

(Encyclopedia)primate, member of the mammalian order Primates, which includes humans, apes, monkeys, and prosimians, or lower primates. The group can be traced to the late Cretaceous period, where members were fore...

Walcott, Derek Alton

(Encyclopedia)Walcott, Derek Alton, 1930–2017, West Indian dramatist and poet, b. Castries, St. Lucia, grad. Univ. of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, 1953. His grandfathers were both white, one of English, the ot...

canoe

(Encyclopedia)canoe kəno͞oˈ [key], long, narrow watercraft with sharp ends originally used by most peoples. It is usually propelled by means of paddles, although sails and, more recently, outboard motors are als...

eagle

(Encyclopedia)eagle, common name for large predatory birds of the family Accipitridae (hawk family), found in all parts of the world. Eagles are similar to the buteos, or buzzard hawks, but are larger both in lengt...

iconography

(Encyclopedia)iconography īˌkŏnŏgˈrəfē [key] [Gr.,=image-drawing] or iconology [Gr.,=image-study], in art history, the study and interpretation of figural representations, either individual or symbolic, reli...

fundamentalism

(Encyclopedia)fundamentalism. 1 In Protestantism, religious movement that arose among conservative members of various Protestant denominations early in the 20th cent., with the object of maintaining traditional int...

horror

(Encyclopedia)horror or horror story, literary genre in which an eerie, tense, often suspenseful atmosphere typically builds to the discovery of something repugnant, such as cannibalism, incest, or the killing of c...

pine

(Encyclopedia)pine, common name for members of the Pinaceae, a family of resinous woody trees with needlelike, usually evergreen leaves. The Pinaceae reproduce by means of cones (see cone) rather than flowers and m...

human evolution

(Encyclopedia)human evolution, theory of the origins of the human species, Homo sapiens. Modern understanding of human origins is derived largely from the findings of paleontology, anthropology, and genetics, and i...

Asian drama

(Encyclopedia)Asian drama, dramatic works produced in the East. Of the three major Asian dramas—Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese—the oldest is Sanskrit, although the dates of its origin are uncertain. See also Sansk...

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