Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

banner system

(Encyclopedia)banner system, Manchu conscription system. Companies of Manchu warriors were grouped (1601) into brigades, each with a distinctive banner. The banner system integrated former tribal units into a burea...

sweating system

(Encyclopedia)sweating system, method of exploiting labor by supplying materials to workers and paying by the piece (see piecework) for work done on those materials in the workers' homes or in small workshops (swea...

seignorial system

(Encyclopedia)seignorial system: see manorial system; feudalism. ...

borstal system

(Encyclopedia)borstal system bôrˈstəl [key], rehabilitation method formerly used in Great Britain for delinquent boys aged 16 to 21. The idea originated (1895) with the Gladstone Committee as an attempt to refor...

steering system

(Encyclopedia)steering system, in automobiles, steering wheel, gears, linkages, and other components used to control the direction of a vehicle's motion. Because of friction between the front tires and the road, es...

Continental System

(Encyclopedia)Continental System, scheme of action adopted by Napoleon I in his economic warfare with England from 1806 to 1812. Economic warfare had been carried on before 1806, but the system itself was initiated...

international monetary system

(Encyclopedia)international monetary system, rules and procedures by which different national currencies are exchanged for each other in world trade. Such a system is necessary to define a common standard of value ...

Belidor, Bernard Forest de

(Encyclopedia)Belidor, Bernard Forest de bĕrnärˈ fôrĕˈ də bālēdôrˈ [key], 1693–1761, French engineer. He wrote numerous books dealing with mathematics, artillery, and hydraulic, civil, and military eng...

manorial system

(Encyclopedia)manorial system sēnyôrˈēəl [key], economic and social system of medieval Europe under which peasants' land tenure and production were regulated, and local justice and taxation were administered. ...

planetary system

(Encyclopedia)planetary system, a star and all the celestial bodies bound to it by gravity, especially planets and their natural satellites. Until the last decade of the 20th cent., the only planetary system known ...