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manueline

(Encyclopedia)manueline mənwĕlˈēn, –īn [key], sumptuous, composite Portuguese style of architectural ornamentation of the early 16th cent. It combined contemporary Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Flemish e...

Corn Belt

(Encyclopedia)Corn Belt, major agricultural region of the U.S. Midwest where corn acreage once exceeded that of any other crop. It is now commonly called the Feed Grains and Livestock Belt. Located in the north cen...

ormolu

(Encyclopedia)ormolu ôrˈməlo͞o [key], finish used on metal to imitate gold. It is employed chiefly for furniture mountings. The term originally applied to a coating of ground gold and was extended to alloys of ...

G

(Encyclopedia)G, 7th letter of the alphabet. It is a usual symbol for a voiced velar stop, as in the English go. It was originally a differentiated form of Greek gamma, which has C as its formal Roman correspondent...

Hilton, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Hilton, Walter, d. 1396, English religious writer, an Austin canon of Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire. His spiritual treatise The Scale of Perfection (ed. by Evelyn Underhill, 1923) is a general manual fo...

International Fund for Agricultural Development

(Encyclopedia)International Fund for Agricultural Development(IFAD), specialized agency of the United Nations with headquarters in Rome, Italy. IFAD grew out of the 1974 World Food Conference; it was established in...

Jayawardene, Junius Richard

(Encyclopedia)Jayawardene, Junius Richard jīˌəwärˈdēn [key], 1906–96, prime minister (1977–78) and president (1978–88) of Sri Lanka. Active in Sri Lankan politics since the early 1940s, he was a foundin...

Rhineland-Palatinate

(Encyclopedia)Rhineland-Palatinate rīnˈlănd pəlătˈĭnĭtˌ [key], Ger. Rheinland-Pfalz, state (1994 pop. 3,926,000), 7,658 sq mi (19,834 sq km), W Germany. Mainz is the capital. The state was formed in 1946 b...

horticulture

(Encyclopedia)horticulture [Lat. hortus=garden], science and art of gardening and of cultivating fruits, vegetables, flowers, and ornamental plants. Horticulture generally refers to small-scale gardening, and agric...

acetate

(Encyclopedia)acetate ăsˈĭtātˌ [key], one of the most important forms of artificial cellulose-based fibers; the ester of acetic acid. The first patents for the production of fibers from cellulose acetate appea...