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Shaw, George Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Shaw, George Bernard, 1856–1950, Irish playwright and critic. He revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas. The lengthy pref...

Lima, city, Peru

(Encyclopedia)Lima lēˈmə, Span. lēˈmä [key], city (1990 metropolitan area est. pop. 6,400,000), W Peru, capital and largest city of Peru. Its port is Callao. The Lima urban area is Peru's economic center and ...

Erasmus

(Encyclopedia)Erasmus dĕsĭdērˈēəs [key] [Gr. Erasmus, his given name, and Lat., Desiderius=beloved; both are regarded as the equivalent of Dutch Gerard, Erasmus' father's name], 1466?–1536, Dutch humanist, ...

Doric order

(Encyclopedia)Doric order, earliest of the orders of architecture developed by the Greeks and the one that they employed for most buildings. It is generally believed that the column and its capital derive from an e...

Steiner, George

(Encyclopedia)Steiner, George, 1929–2020, American critic, essayist, novelist, and educator, b. Paris, France, immigrated to the United States 1940, became a U.S. citizen 1944; Ph.D. Oxford, 195). He spoke and wr...

cat

(Encyclopedia)cat, name applied broadly to the carnivorous mammals constituting the family Felidae, and specifically to the domestic cat, Felis catus. The great roaring cats, the lion, tiger, and leopard are anatom...

Walpole, Robert, 1st earl of Orford

(Encyclopedia)Walpole, Robert, 1st earl of Orford, 1676–1745, English statesman. Walpole is usually described as the first prime minister of Great Britain, but he was not a prime minister in the modern sense. A...

Leeward Islands

(Encyclopedia)Leeward Islands lo͞oˈərd, lyo͞oˈ–, lēˈ– [key], northern group of the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies, extending SE from Puerto Rico to the Windward Islands. The principal islands are the...

water bug

(Encyclopedia)water bug, name for a large number of water-living bugs, comprising several families of the order Hemiptera (true bugs). All have jointed, sharp, sucking beaks, breathe air, and undergo gradual metamo...

Dickens, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Dickens, Charles, 1812–70, English author, b. Portsmouth, one of the world's most popular, prolific, and skilled novelists. Charles Dickens is one of the giants of English literature. He wrote fro...