Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Brigue and Tende

(Encyclopedia)Brigue and Tende brēg, täNd [key], Ital. Briga and Tenda, two small districts, Alpes-Maritimes dept., SE France, on the French-Italian border. The districts are on the “Route Royal,” opened in 1...

butter-and-eggs

(Encyclopedia)butter-and-eggs, common name for a plant of the family Scrophulariaceae (figwort family) and sometimes for other yellow-and-orange flowers. Butter-and-eggs plants are classified in the division Magnol...

acids and bases

(Encyclopedia)acids and bases, two related classes of chemicals; the members of each class have a number of common properties when dissolved in a solvent, usually water. Another theory that provides a very broad ...

Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Associations

(Encyclopedia)Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Associations (YMHA, YWHA), organizations that promote health, social activities, recreation, acculturation of new Jewish Americans, and Jewish culture among Jews o...

Harmodius and Aristogiton

(Encyclopedia)Harmodius and Aristogiton härmōˈdēəs, ârˌĭstōjīˈtən [key], d. c.514 b.c., Athenian tyrannicides. Provoked by a personal quarrel, the two friends planned to assassinate Hipparchus and his b...

Blues and Greens

(Encyclopedia)Blues and Greens, political factions in the Byzantine Empire in the 6th cent. They took their names from two of the four colors worn by the circus charioteers. Their clashes were intensified by religi...

Masters and Johnson

(Encyclopedia)Masters and Johnson, pioneering research team in the field of human sexuality, consisting of the gynecologist William Howell Masters, 1915–2001, b. Cleveland, and the psychologist Virginia Eshelman ...

Bolshevism and Menshevism

(Encyclopedia)Bolshevism and Menshevism bōlˈshəvĭzəm, bŏlˈ–, mĕnˈshəvĭzəm [key], the two main branches of Russian socialism from 1903 until the consolidation of the Bolshevik dictatorship under Lenin ...

executors and administrators

(Encyclopedia)executors and administrators. An executor is the person designated in the will of a deceased person to carry out the provisions of the will. An administrator is the person appointed by a probate court...

Tristram and Isolde

(Encyclopedia)Tristram and Isolde trĭsˈtrəm, ĭsōlˈdə, ĭzōlˈ– [key], medieval romance. The earliest extant version (incomplete) was written (c.1185) by Thomas of Britain in Anglo-Norman French verse. Abo...

Browse by Subject