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Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan

(Encyclopedia)Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan lĕˈ fənyo͞o [key], 1814–73, Irish author. He spent his early career as a journalist. In 1863, he began producing a series of stories noted for their reflections of Irish...

Madison, Dolley

(Encyclopedia)Madison, Dolley, 1768–1849, wife of President James Madison, b. Guilford co., N.C. Born Dolley Payne of Quaker parents, she was brought up in simplicity and was married (1790) to a Quaker, John Todd...

Maslow, Abraham Harold

(Encyclopedia)Maslow, Abraham Harold măzˈlō [key], 1908–70, American psychologist, b. Brooklyn, New York, Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin (1934). He taught at Brooklyn College from 1937, then became head of the psych...

Ruth

(Encyclopedia)Ruth, book of the Bible. It tells a story, set in the days of the judges, of the fidelity of a Moabite widow (Ruth) to her widowed mother-in-law (Naomi). After the death of her husband in Moab, Ruth r...

Salomon, Haym

(Encyclopedia)Salomon, Haym hīm [key], 1740–85, American Revolutionary financier, b. Lissa (now Leszno), Poland. A Jewish emigrant from Poland, he was imprisoned (1778) by the British in New York City for aiding...

Terence

(Encyclopedia)Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) tĕrˈəns [key], b. c.185 or c.195 b.c., d. c.159 b.c., Roman writer of comedies, b. Carthage. As a boy he was a slave of Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, who brou...

Cromwell, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Cromwell, Richard, 1626–1712, lord protector of England; third son of Oliver Cromwell. He was the eldest surviving son at the death of his father (Sept. 3, 1658), who had nominated him as his succes...

cofferdam

(Encyclopedia)cofferdam, temporary barrier for excluding water from an area that is normally submerged. Made commonly of wood, steel, or concrete sheet piling (see pile), cofferdams are used in constructing the fou...

Cynewulf

(Encyclopedia)Cynewulf kĭnˈəwo͝olfˌ, ko͝onˈ– [key], fl. early 9th cent.?, Old English religious poet of Northumbria or Mercia. Four poems have been ascribed to him on the evidence of his signatures in rune...

Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott

(Encyclopedia)Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott krĭsˈtyän fürkhˈtəgôt gĕlˈərt [key], 1715–69, German poet and moralist. His best-known works are Fabeln und Erzählungen (1746–48, tr. Fables and Other Po...