Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Rhazes

(Encyclopedia)Rhazes rāˈsĭs, –zĭs [key], 860–932, Persian physician. He was chief physician at the Baghdad hospital. An observant clinician, he formulated the first known description of smallpox as distingu...

Polyglot Bible

(Encyclopedia)Polyglot Bible pŏlˈēglŏt [key], Bible in which different texts, often in different languages, are laid out in parallel columns. Polyglot Bibles serve as tools for textual criticism. Origen's Hexap...

Lipsius, Justus

(Encyclopedia)Lipsius, Justus jŭsˈtəs lĭpˈsēəs [key], 1547–1606, Flemish scholar, whose original name was Joest Lips. He was one of the most celebrated authorities of his day on Roman literature, history, ...

De Sanctis, Francesco

(Encyclopedia)De Sanctis, Francesco fränchāsˈkō dā sängkˈtēs [key], 1817–83, Italian historian and literary critic. He was one of the founders of modern Italian literary criticism. He suffered imprisonmen...

Miami University

(Encyclopedia)Miami University, main campus at Oxford, Ohio; coeducational; state supported; chartered 1809, opened 1824. The library has extensive collections in literature and American history, including the Will...

Fürst, Julius

(Encyclopedia)Fürst, Julius yo͞oˈlyo͝os fürst [key], 1805–73, German Orientalist. Fürst was a distinguished scholar of Semitic languages and literature of his time. During his years as chairman of the depar...

Al-Fasi, Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen

(Encyclopedia)Al-Fasi, Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen äl-fäˈsē [key], 1013–1103, prominent Jewish Talmudic scholar of the very late Gaonic period, b. near Fès, N Africa. He headed the rabbinical school at Fès unt...

Hallaj, Hussein ibn Mansur al-

(Encyclopedia)Hallaj, Hussein ibn Mansur al- ho͞osānˈ ĭbn mänso͝orˈ [key], 857–922, Arabic-speaking Persian Muslim mystic and poet popularly known among Muslims as “the martyr of mystical love.” Born a...

apricot

(Encyclopedia)apricot [Arabic from Lat.,=early ripe], tree, Prunus armeniaca, and its fruit, of the plum genus of the family Rosaceae (rose family), native to temperate Asia and long cultivated in Armenia. The frui...

Achernar

(Encyclopedia)Achernar āˈkərnärˌ [key], brightest star in the constellation Eridanus; Bayer designation α Eridani; 1992 position R.A. 1h37.4m, Dec. −57°16′. A bluish-white white star with apparent magnit...

Browse by Subject