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trapezoid

(Encyclopedia)trapezoid, closed plane figure bounded by four line segments, or sides, two of which are parallel and two of which are nonparallel. The parallel sides of a trapezoid are called bases and the nonparall...

simile

(Encyclopedia)simile sĭmˈəlē [key] [Lat.,=likeness], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which an object is explicitly compared to another object. Robert Burns's poem “A Red Red Rose” contains two straightfo...

Zweibrücken

(Encyclopedia)Zweibrücken tsvīˌbrüˈkən [key], Fr. Deux-Ponts, city (1994 pop. 35,704), Rhineland-Palatinate, W Germany, near the Saarland border. Zweibrücken is a transportation center and has ironworks, ste...

Thomasville

(Encyclopedia)Thomasville. 1 City (1990 pop. 17,457), seat of Thomas co., SW Ga., near the Fla. line; inc. 1831. It is a farm trade center, with a large fresh-vegetable market. Manufactures include lumber, clothing...

Saxe-Altenburg

(Encyclopedia)Saxe-Altenburg săks-ălˈtənbərg [key], Ger. Sachsen-Altenburg, former duchy, Thuringia, central Germany. Altenburg was the capital. Created a separate duchy in 1603, it was ruled by an Ernestine l...

Shih-T'ao

(Encyclopedia)Shih-T'ao shûr-tou [key], 1641–c.1670, Chinese painter of the late Ming–early Ch'ing period, one of the major figures in 17th-century painting. A descendant of the imperial Ming family, he escape...

isobar

(Encyclopedia)isobar īˌsəbărˈĭk [key], line drawn on a weather map through points of equal atmospheric pressure. Isobars are used to define cyclones (low-pressure regions) and anticyclones (high-pressure regi...

infinity

(Encyclopedia)infinity, in mathematics, that which is not finite; it is often indicated by the symbol ∞. A sequence of numbers, a1, a2, a3, … , is said to “approach infinity” if the numbers eventually b...

squash racquets

(Encyclopedia)squash racquets or squash, game played on a four-walled court, 16 ft (4.88 m) high by 181⁄2 ft (5.64 m) wide by 32 ft (9.75 m) long. The back wall, shorter than the front wall, usually measures 9 ft...

ray, in physics

(Encyclopedia)ray, in physics, term denoting the straight line along which light or other form of radiation is propagated from its source. It generally refers to the line of propagation of waves but is also applied...