Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

104 results found

mistletoe

(Encyclopedia)mistletoe, common name for the Loranthaceae, a family of chiefly tropical hemiparasitic herbs and shrubs with leathery evergreen leaves and waxy white berries. They have green leaves, but they manufac...

pie

(Encyclopedia)pie, meat, fish, fowl, fruit, or vegetables baked with a crust of pastry, or pastry shells filled with custard or pudding. The pies of the Romans, especially at banquets in the days of the empire, wer...

holly

(Encyclopedia)holly, common name for members of the Aquifoliaceae, a family of widely distributed trees and shrubs, most numerous in Central and South America. The evergreen English holly (Ilex aquifolium), the com...

Line Islands

(Encyclopedia)Line Islands or Equatorial Islands, coral group, 43 sq mi (111 sq km), central and S Pacific. Once valuable for their guano deposits, the islands now have coconut groves, airfields, and meteorological...

Berlin, Irving

(Encyclopedia)Berlin, Irving bərlĭnˈ [key], 1888–1989, American songwriter, b. Russia as Israel Baline; his Jewish family fled a pogrom in 1893 and settled in New York's Lower East Side. Alexander's Ragtime Ba...

club moss

(Encyclopedia)club moss, name generally used for the living species of the class Lycopodiopsida, a primitive subdivision of vascular plants. The Lycopodiopsida were a dominant plant group in the Carboniferous perio...

Straits Settlements

(Encyclopedia)Straits Settlements, collective name for certain former British colonies in Southeast Asia. The three British East India Company territories of Pinang, Singapore, and Malacca (see Melaka) were given a...

Beerbohm, Sir Max

(Encyclopedia)Beerbohm, Sir Max bērˈbōm [key], 1872–1956, English essayist, caricaturist, and parodist. He contributed to the famous Yellow Book while still an undergraduate at Oxford. In 1898 he succeeded G. ...

Ridley, Nicholas

(Encyclopedia)Ridley, Nicholas, c.1500–1555, English prelate, reformer, and Protestant martyr. In 1534, while a proctor of Cambridge, he signed the decree against the pope's supremacy in England. In 1537 he becam...

Nizhny Novgorod

(Encyclopedia)Nizhny Novgorod nyēshˈnyī nôfˈgərəd [key], formerly Gorky or Gorki, city (1989 pop. 1,438,000), capital of Nizhny Novgorod region and the administrative center of the Volga federal district, E ...