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North, Frederick North, 8th Baron

(Encyclopedia)North, Frederick North, 8th Baron, 1732–92, British statesman, best known as Lord North. He entered Parliament in 1754 and became a junior lord of the treasury (1759), privy councilor (1766), and ch...

Struve

(Encyclopedia)Struve shtro͞oˈvə [key], family of astronomers. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, 1793–1864, was born in Germany but later lived in Russia. While director (1817–39) of Dorpat Observatory he w...

bismuth

(Encyclopedia)bismuth bĭzˈməth [key] [Ger. Weisse Masse=white mass], metallic chemical element; symbol Bi; at. no. 83; at. wt. 208.98040; m.p. 271.3℃; b.p. about 1,560℃; sp. gr. 9.75 at 20℃; valence +3 or ...

Celan, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Celan, Paul äntˈshschwa;l [key], 1920–70, Romanian-French poet. Although he spent his early years in Romania and his later years in France, Celan wrote in German and is widely considered the great...

Tory

(Encyclopedia)Tory tôˈrē [key], English political party. The term was originally applied to outlaws in Ireland and was adopted as a derogatory name for supporters of the duke of York (later James II) at the time...

Barenboim, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Barenboim, Daniel bârˈənboimˌ [key], 1942–, Israeli pianist and conductor, b. Buenos Aires, Argentina. He made his debut in Buenos Aires at seven. His family settled in Israel in 1952, and he st...

Battenberg

(Encyclopedia)Battenberg bătˈənbûrg [key], German princely family, issued from the morganatic union of Alexander, a younger son of Louis II, grand duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Julia von Hauke, who was ...

Berg, Alban

(Encyclopedia)Berg, Alban älˈbän bĕrk [key], 1885–1935, Austrian composer. In his youth he taught himself music but in 1904 he became the pupil and close friend of Arnold Schoenberg. Later Berg himself taught...

dialect

(Encyclopedia)dialect, variety of a language used by a group of speakers within a particular speech community. Every individual speaks a variety of his language, termed an idiolect. Dialects are groups of idiolects...

mathematics

(Encyclopedia)mathematics, deductive study of numbers, geometry, and various abstract constructs, or structures; the latter often “abstract” the features common to several models derived from the empirical, or ...