Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

French Revolutionary calendar

(Encyclopedia)French Revolutionary calendar, the official calendar of France, Nov. 24, 1793–Dec. 31, 1805. Its introduction was decreed by the Convention on Oct. 5, 1793, but it was computed from Sept. 22, 1792, ...

Frigg

(Encyclopedia)Frigg or Frigga, Norse mother goddess and the wife of Odin (Woden). One of the most important goddesses of Germanic religion, she was queen of the heavens, a deity of love and the household. She was o...

Ba'ath party

(Encyclopedia)Ba'ath party bäˈäth [key], Arab political party, in Syria and in Iraq. Founded in Damascus in 1941 with an ideology of secularism, socialism, and pan-Arab unionism, it was reformed with the name Ba...

Coué, Émile

(Encyclopedia)Coué, Émile āmēlˈ kwā [key], 1857–1926, French psychotherapist. He is remembered for his formula for curing by optimistic autosuggestion, “Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and b...

Abdül Hamid

(Encyclopedia)Abdül Hamid. For Ottoman sultans thus named, use Abd al-Hamid.

Abdül Aziz

(Encyclopedia)Abdül Aziz. For Ottoman sultans thus named, use Abd al-Aziz.

Hariri

(Encyclopedia)Hariri (Abu Muhammad al-Kasim al-Hariri) härēˈrē [key], 1054–1122, Arab writer of Basra. His principal work is one of the most popular of Arabic books. It is called Makamat [literary assemblies]...

daylight saving time

(Encyclopedia)daylight saving time (DST), time observed when clocks and other timepieces are set ahead so that the sun will rise and set later in the day as measured by civil time. The amount of daylight on a given...

Cimabue, Giovanni

(Encyclopedia)Cimabue, Giovanni jōvänˈnē chēmäbo͞oˈā [key], d. c.1302, Florentine painter, whose real name was Cenni di Pepo or Peppi. The works with which his name is associated constitute a transition in...

Faber, Frederick William

(Encyclopedia)Faber, Frederick William fāˈbər [key], 1814–63, English theologian and hymn writer. A friend of John Henry Newman and an adherent of the Oxford movement, he became (1843) rector of Eton. In 1845 ...