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metaphysics

(Encyclopedia)metaphysics mĕtəfĭzˈĭks [key], branch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature of existence. It perpetuates the Metaphysics of Aristotle, a collection of treatises placed after the Physic...

Botha, Pieter Willem

(Encyclopedia)Botha, Pieter Willem pēˈtər vĭlˈəm bōˈtə [key], 1916–2006, South African political leader. An Afrikaner and a member of the right-wing National party, he first entered parliament in 1948. B...

Smith, Sydney

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Sydney, 1771–1845, English clergyman, writer, and wit, ordained in the Church of England in 1794. In 1798 he went as a tutor to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, occasionally preached, an...

Alito, Samuel Anthony, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Alito, Samuel Anthony, Jr. əlēˈtō [key], 1950–, U.S. government official and judge, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (2006–), b. Trenton, N.J., grad. Pr...

Hoppner, John

(Encyclopedia)Hoppner, John, 1758–1810, English portrait painter. He was a protégé of George III, whose illegitimate son he was rumored to be. He imitated, without total success, the style of Sir Joshua Reynold...

Assemblies of God

(Encyclopedia)Assemblies of God, a large group of churches comprising the second largest Pentecostal organization in the United States, founded at Hot Springs, Ark., in Apr., 1914. In doctrine the Assemblies of God...

Wise, Stephen Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Wise, Stephen Samuel, 1874–1949, American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader, b. Budapest, grad. College of the City of New York, 1891, Ph.D. Columbia, 1901. He served as a rabbi in New York City (1893...

Younger, Cole

(Encyclopedia)Younger, Cole (Thomas Coleman Younger), 1844–1916, American outlaw, b. Jackson co., Mo. After the Civil War he joined the outlaw band of Jesse James, with whom he had served as a Confederate guerril...

Bragg, Sir William Henry

(Encyclopedia)Bragg, Sir William Henry, 1862–1942, English physicist, educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served on the faculties of the Univ. of Adelaide in Austra...

Buell, Don Carlos

(Encyclopedia)Buell, Don Carlos, 1818–98, Union general in the Civil War, b. near Marietta, Ohio, grad. West Point, 1841. Buell was appointed brigadier general of volunteers in the Civil War (May, 1861), helped o...