Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

wapiti

(Encyclopedia)wapiti wŏpˈĭtē [key], large North American deer, Cervus canadensis, closely related to the Old World red deer. It is commonly called elk in America although the name elk is used in Europe to refer...

Morton, Sarah Wentworth

(Encyclopedia)Morton, Sarah Wentworth, 1759–1846, American author, b. Boston. Under her pseudonym, Philenia, she wrote such works as Ouâbi: Or the Virtues of Nature (1790), a sentimental Native American romance....

chipmunk

(Encyclopedia)chipmunk, rodent of the family Sciuridae (squirrel family). The chipmunk of the E United States and SE Canada is of the genus Tamias. The body of the common Eastern chipmunk, Tamias striatus, is about...

incunabula

(Encyclopedia)incunabula ĭnˌkyo͝onăbˈyo͝olə [key], plural of incunabulum [Late Lat.,=cradle (books); i.e., books of the cradle days of printing], books printed in the 15th cent. The known incunabula represen...

soot

(Encyclopedia)soot, black or dull brown deposit of fine powder resulting from incomplete combustion of fuel of high carbon content, e.g., coal, wood, and oil. It consists chiefly of amorphous carbon and tarry subst...

Brownwood

(Encyclopedia)Brownwood, city (2020 pop. 18,862), seat of Brown co., central Tex.; inc. 1876. Its many industries include oil and gas, printing, and the manufacture o...

Louis XVI, king of France

(Encyclopedia)Louis XVI, 1754–93, king of France (1774–92), third son of the dauphin (Louis) and Marie Josèphe of Saxony, grandson and successor of King Louis XV. In 1770 he married the Austrian archduchess Ma...

Bartlett, John

(Encyclopedia)Bartlett, John, 1820–1905, American compiler and publisher, b. Plymouth, Mass. While he worked in his university book store in Cambridge, he compiled the invaluable Familiar Quotations (1855), which...

Driver, Samuel Rolles

(Encyclopedia)Driver, Samuel Rolles, 1846–1914, English clergyman and biblical scholar. He was regius professor of Hebrew and canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and from 1876 to 1884 was a member of the Old Testamen...

Wittig, Georg

(Encyclopedia)Wittig, Georg, 1897–1987, German chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Marburg, 1926. During his career, Wittig was a professor at the universities of Braunschweig, Freiburg, Tübingen, and Heidelberg. He shared ...

Browse by Subject