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reading, mental process

(Encyclopedia)reading, process of mentally interpreting written symbols. Facility in reading is an essential factor in educational progress, and instruction in this basic skill is a primary purpose of elementary ed...

Revelation

(Encyclopedia)Revelation or Apocalypse əpŏkˈəlĭps [key], the last book of the New Testament. It was written c.a.d. 95 on Patmos Island off the coast of Asia Minor by an exile named John, in the wake of local p...

Vikings

(Encyclopedia)Vikings, Scandinavian warriors who raided the coasts of Europe and the British Isles from the 9th cent. to the 11th cent. In their language, the word “viking” originally meant a journey, as for tr...

Proust, Marcel

(Encyclopedia)Proust, Marcel pro͞ost [key], 1871–1922, French novelist, b. Paris. He is one of the great literary figures of the modern age. Born to wealthy bourgeois parents, he suffered delicate health as a c...

Farron, Julia

(Encyclopedia)Farron, Julia, 1922–2019, English ballerina, b. Joyce Margaret Farron-Smith. She studied at the Vic-Wells Ballet School, joined the company (now the Royal Ballet) in 1936, and, as the company's youn...

Turpan

(Encyclopedia)Turpan to͝orˈfänˈ [key], town and oasis (1994 est. pop. 64,300), in the Turpan depression (c.5,000 sq mi/12,950 sq km), E Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. It is an agricultural center prod...

barite

(Encyclopedia)barite bərīˈtēz [key] [New Lat., from barium], or heavy spar, a white, yellow, blue, red, or colorless mineral. It is a sulfate of barium, BaSO4, found in nature as tabular crystals or in granular...

cire perdue

(Encyclopedia)cire perdue sēr pĕrdüˈ [key] [Fr.,=lost wax], sculptural process of metal casting that may be used for hollow and solid casting. The sculptor makes a model in plaster or clay that is then coated w...

Ingersoll, Robert Green

(Encyclopedia)Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833–99, American orator and lawyer, b. Dresden, N.Y. The son of a Congregational minister who eventually settled in Illinois, Ingersoll was admitted (1854) to the bar and b...

Gower, John

(Encyclopedia)Gower, John gouˈər, gôr [key], 1330?–1408, English poet. He was the best-known contemporary and friend of Chaucer, who addressed him as “Moral Gower,” at the end of Troilus and Criseyde. Appa...