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smut

(Encyclopedia)smut, name for an order of parasitic fungi (Ustilaginales) and the various diseases of plants caused by them. Smuts produce sootlike masses of spores on the host. The spore masses may break up into a ...

Shoshone

(Encyclopedia)Shoshone or Shoshoni shəshōˈnē [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Shoshonean group of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American lang...

Orbiting Geophysical Observatory

(Encyclopedia)Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO), series of six orbiting observatories (see observatory, orbiting) launched between 1964 and 1969 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to s...

hornpipe

(Encyclopedia)hornpipe, English folk dance known since the 16th cent., when it obtained its name from the wind instrument that accompanied it. The hornpipes of the 17th and 18th cent. have moderate 3–2 time and 4...

Moore

(Encyclopedia)Moore, city (1990 pop. 40,761), Cleveland co., central Okla., a suburb of Oklahoma City; settled 1889 as Verbeck, renamed Moore, inc. 1893. Its manufactures include lightning- and surge-protection equ...

Marvin, Charles Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Marvin, Charles Frederick, 1858–1943, American meteorologist, b. Putnam (now part of Zanesville), Ohio, grad. Ohio State Univ., 1883. He entered (1884) the U.S. Signal Service, predecessor of the We...

John, Elton Hercules

(Encyclopedia)John, Elton Hercules, 1947–, English popular singer, pianist, and composer, b. Reginald Kenneth Dwight. By the mid-1970s he had become famous presenting his own and other composers' songs in spectac...

puna

(Encyclopedia)puna po͞oˈnä [key], high plateau region, 12,000 to 16,000 ft (3,658–4,877 m) high, between ridges of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia. Arid, cold, and in general, covered by short coarse grass, the ...

Aeolus

(Encyclopedia)Aeolus ēˈələs [key], in Greek mythology. 1 The wind god. He lived on the island of Aeolia, where he kept the winds in a cave. 2 Son of Hellen and ancestor of the Aeolian branch of the Hellenic rac...

kamikaze

(Encyclopedia)kamikaze käˌməkäˈzē [key] [Jap.,=divine wind], the typhoon that destroyed Kublai Khan's fleet, foiling his invasion of Japan in 1281. In World War II the term was used for a Japanese suicide air...