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poet laureate

(Encyclopedia)poet laureate lôˈrēĭt [key], title conferred in Britain by the monarch on a poet whose duty it is to write commemorative odes and verse. It is an outgrowth of the medieval English custom of having...

methadone

(Encyclopedia)methadone mĕthˈədōnˌ, –dŏnˌ [key], synthetic narcotic similar in effect to morphine. Synthesized in Germany, it came into clinical use after World War II. It is sometimes used as an analgesic...

Barbados

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Barbados bärbāˈdōz [key], island state (2020 est. pop. 287,371), 166 sq mi (430 sq km), in ...

Commonwealth of Nations

(Encyclopedia)Commonwealth of Nations, voluntary association of Great Britain and its dependencies, certain former British dependencies that are now sovereign states and their dependencies, and the associated state...

Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques än rōbĕrˈ zhäk türgōˈ [key], 1727–81, French economist, comptroller general of finances (1774–76). The son of a rich merchant, he showed precocious ability at s...

physiocrats

(Encyclopedia)physiocrats fĭzˈēəkrătsˌ [key], school of French thinkers in the 18th cent. who evolved the first complete system of economics. They were also referred to simply as “the economists” or “th...

Whitewater, in U.S. history

(Encyclopedia)Whitewater, popular name for a failed 1970s Arkansas real estate venture by the Whitewater Development Corp., in which Gov. (later President) Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were pa...

Lessing, Doris

(Encyclopedia)Lessing, Doris, 1919–2013, British novelist, b. Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran) as Doris May Tayler. Largely self-educated, she was brought up on a farm in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and in 194...

Museum of Modern Art

(Encyclopedia)Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, established and incorporated in 1929. It is privately supported. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., was its first director. Operating at first in rented galleries, the mu...

Wiltshire

(Encyclopedia)Wiltshire wĭltˈshĭr, –shər [key] or Wilts, county (1991 pop. 553,300), 1,345 sq mi (3,484 sq km), S central England; administratively, Wiltshire is a unitary authority (since 2009). The administ...