Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

George of Trebizond

(Encyclopedia)George of Trebizond trĕbˈĭzŏnd [key], c.1396–1486, Greek scholar, b. Crete. Settling in Venice, he taught Greek, philosophy, and rhetoric there and in Vicenza before going to Rome in 1442. He be...

Suidas

(Encyclopedia)Suidas syo͞oˈĭdəs [key], title of a Greek lexicon-encyclopedia. The name is also applied to its compiler, who seems to have lived in the 10th cent. a.d. Included in the lexicon are texts from clas...

Septuagint

(Encyclopedia)Septuagint sĕpˈtyo͞oəjĭnt [key] [Lat.,=70], oldest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made by Hellenistic Jews, possibly from Alexandria, c.250 b.c. Legend, according to the fictional l...

Grivas, George

(Encyclopedia)Grivas, George grēˈväs [key], 1898–1974, Greek and Cypriot general, b. Cyprus. He joined the Greek army and early became an advocate of enosis (the union of Cyprus with Greece). After World War I...

Magna Graecia

(Encyclopedia)Magna Graecia măgˈnə grēˈshə [key] [Lat.,=great Greece], Greek colonies of S Italy. The Greek overseas expansion of the 8th cent. b.c. founded a number of towns that became the centers of a new,...

fraternity and sorority

(Encyclopedia)fraternity and sorority, in American colleges, a student society formed for social purposes, into which members are initiated by invitation and occasionally by a period of trial known as hazing. Frate...

Theodorakis, Mikis

(Encyclopedia) Theodorakis, Mikis , 1925-2021, Greek composer and politician, b. Chios island, Greece, Athens Conservatoire (1950). Theodorakis showed interest in mus...

Charron, Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Charron, Pierre pyĕr shärôNˈ [key], 1541–1603, French Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher. He was an important contributor to 17th-century theological thought, combining an individual form...

Ishtar

(Encyclopedia)Ishtar ĭshˈtär [key], ancient fertility deity, the most widely worshiped goddess in Babylonian and Assyrian religion. She was worshiped under various names and forms. Most important as a mother god...

Burghers

(Encyclopedia)Burghers bûrˈgərz [key], in the 18th cent., a party of the Secession Church of Scotland, resulting from one of the “breaches” in the history of Presbyterianism. To qualify as a burgess in certa...