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dolphin, aquatic mammal

(Encyclopedia)dolphin, aquatic mammal, any of the small toothed whales of the family Delphinidae, numbering more than 50 species. These include the true, or beaked, dolphins, the killer whale, the pilot whale, and ...

Tillich, Paul Johannes

(Encyclopedia)Tillich, Paul Johannes tĭlˈĭk [key], 1886–1965, American philosopher and theologian, b. Germany, educated at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau. In 1912 he was ordained a m...

Rift Valley fever

(Encyclopedia)Rift Valley fever, acute viral disease that affects domestic livestock and can be transmitted to humans. The disease is most common in E and S Africa, but also occurs widely in sub-Saharan Africa and ...

Vico, Giovanni Battista

(Encyclopedia)Vico, Giovanni Battista jōvänˈnē bät-tēˈstä vēˈkō [key], 1668–1744, Italian philosopher and historian, also known as Giambattista Vico, b. Naples. In 1699, Vico became professor of rhetor...

Forster, E. M.

(Encyclopedia)Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan Forster), 1879–1970, English author, one of the most important British novelists of the 20th cent. After graduating from Cambridge, Forster lived in Italy and Greece. D...

Bell, Alexander Melville

(Encyclopedia)Bell, Alexander Melville, 1819–1905, Scottish-American educator, b. Edinburgh. Bell worked out a physiological or visible alphabet, with symbols that were intended to represent every sound of the hu...

prehistory

(Encyclopedia)prehistory, period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some reco...

herm, in Greek art

(Encyclopedia)herm hûrm [key], in 6th-century Greek art, vertical pillar surmounted by a bearded human head and often having a phallus below. These structures were considered sacred to Hermes. They were placed on ...

Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawney

(Encyclopedia)Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawney, 1864–1929, English philosopher, sociologist, and journalist. He taught at Oxford and at the Univ. of London. Hobhouse sought to show with evidence from anthropology and ...

phrenology

(Encyclopedia)phrenology, study of the shape of the human skull in order to draw conclusions about particular character traits and mental faculties. The theory was developed about 1800 by the German physiologist Fr...