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piquet

(Encyclopedia)piquet or picquet both: pēkāˈ [key], card game played by two persons with a deck of 32 cards—7 (low) up to ace (high) in each suit. Each player receives 12 cards, and eight cards are left on the ...

plateau

(Encyclopedia)plateau, elevated, level or nearly level portion of the earth's surface, larger in summit area than a mountain and bounded on at least one side by steep slopes, occurring on land or in oceans. Some pl...

Walter, Thomas Ustick

(Encyclopedia)Walter, Thomas Ustick, 1804–87, American architect, b. Philadelphia. In 1819 he entered the office of William Strickland in Philadelphia as a student. In 1830 he began practice, the county prison (1...

liquefaction

(Encyclopedia)liquefaction, change of a substance from the solid or the gaseous state to the liquid state. Since the different states of matter correspond to different amounts of energy of the molecules making up t...

Udmurt Republic

(Encyclopedia)Udmurt Republic o͝odˈmo͝ort, Rus. o͝odmo͞ortˈ [key] or Udmurtia, constituent republic (1990 pop. 1,620,000), 16,255 sq mi (42,100 sq km), European Russia, in the forested foothills of the Urals,...

air conditioning

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Cross section of air conditioning unit. air conditioning, mechanical process for controlling the humidity, temperature, cleanliness, and circulation of air in buildings and rooms. Indoor air i...

assembly line

(Encyclopedia)assembly line, manufacturing technique in which a product is carried by some form of mechanized conveyor among stations at which the various operations necessary to its assembly are performed. It is u...

Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency

(Encyclopedia)Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), specialized agency of the United Nations. Formed in 1988, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., it is a member of the World Bank Group (see Internatio...

Nantucket

(Encyclopedia)Nantucket năntŭkˈĭt [key], island, c.14 mi (23 km) long, from 3 to 6 mi (4.8–9.6 km) wide, SE Mass., lying c.25 mi (40 km) S of Cape Cod, from which it is separated by Nantucket Sound. Muskeget ...

Kós

(Encyclopedia)Kós kŏs, kôs [key], Lat. Cos, island (1991 pop. 26,379), 111 sq mi (287 sq km), SE Greece, in the Aegean Sea; 2d largest of the Dodecanese, near the Bodrum peninsula of Turkey. Although it rises to...