Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

mores

(Encyclopedia)mores môrˈāz [key], concept developed by William Graham Sumner to designate those folkways that if violated, result in extreme punishment. The term comes from the Latin mos (customs), and although ...

Lars Porsena

(Encyclopedia)Lars Porsena or Lars Porsenna both: lärz pôrˈsənə, pôrsĕnˈə [key], semilegendary king of Clusium (modern Chiusi) in Etruria, who marched against Rome to reinstate the exiled Tarquinius Priscu...

Lord's Prayer

(Encyclopedia)Lord's Prayer or Our Father, the principal Christian prayer that Jesus in the New Testament (Mat. 6.9–13; Luke 11.2–4) taught his followers, beginning, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your na...

Pasquier, Étienne

(Encyclopedia)Pasquier, Étienne ātyĕnˈ päkyāˈ [key], 1529–1615, French jurist and man of letters. After study under Jacques Cujas, Pasquier began his legal career in 1549. Always a confirmed advocate of Ga...

Paulist Fathers

(Encyclopedia)Paulist Fathers, American society of Roman Catholic priests, officially named the Society of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle (Latin abbr., C.S.P.). It was founded (1858) by Isaac Hecker, wh...

Wood, Anthony

(Encyclopedia)Wood or à Wood, Anthony, 1632–95, English antiquary. His painstaking researches into the history of Oxford resulted in two great works, The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford (in L...

Sumer Is Icumen In

(Encyclopedia)Sumer Is Icumen In so͝omˈər ĭs ēko͝omˈən ĭn [key] [M.E.,=summer has (literally: is) come in], an English rota or round composed c.1250. It is the earliest extant example of canon, of six part...

alder

(Encyclopedia)alder ôlˈdər [key], name for deciduous trees and shrubs of the genus Alnus of the family Betulaceae (birch family), widely distributed, especially in mountainous and moist areas of the north temper...

Coke, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Coke, Thomas ko͝ok, kōk [key], 1747–1814, English clergyman and early bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. After taking orders (1777) in the Church of England, he openly allied him...

Handlin, Oscar

(Encyclopedia)Handlin, Oscar, 1915–2011, American historian, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Brooklyn College (B.A., 1934). He received his Ph.D (1940) from Harvard and taught there from 1939 to 1984. Most of his work i...