Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

button

(Encyclopedia)button, knoblike appendage used on wearing apparel either for ornament or for fastening. Although buttons were sometimes used as fasteners by Greeks and Romans, they were more often merely ornamental ...

Gatineau, city, Canada

(Encyclopedia)Gatineau gătˈĭnō [key], city, SW Que., Canada, at the junction of the Gatineau and Ottawa ...

Vanier

(Encyclopedia)Vanier, formerly Eastview, town (1991 pop. 18,150), SE Ont., Canada, at the confluence of the Rideau and Ottawa rivers. It is an industrial suburb of Ottawa. ...

Latter-day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ of

(Encyclopedia)Latter-day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ of, name of the church founded (1830) at Fayette, N.Y., by Joseph Smith. The headquarters are in Salt Lake City, Utah. Its members, now numbering about 5.7 mi...

Spanish language

(Encyclopedia)CEE Spanish language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). The official language of Spain and 19 Latin American nati...

mammoth

(Encyclopedia)mammoth, name for several large prehistoric relatives (genus Mammuthus) of modern elephants which ranged over Eurasia and North America in the Pleistocene epoch. The shoulder height of the Siberian, o...

soap plant

(Encyclopedia)soap plant, any of various plants having cleansing properties. A few are of commercial importance, but most soap plants are used locally, as in early times, for toilet and laundry purposes. The soapba...

Hudson Bay

(Encyclopedia)Hudson Bay, inland sea of North America, c.475,000 sq mi (1,230,000 sq km), c.850 mi (1,370 km) long and c.650 mi (1,050 km) wide, E central Canada. Hudson Bay and James Bay (its southern extension) a...

Zapotec

(Encyclopedia)Zapotec zäˈpətĕk, säˈ– [key], indigenous people of Mexico, primarily in S Oaxaca and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Little is known of the origin of the Zapotec. Unlike most native peoples of ...

Malinowski, Bronislaw

(Encyclopedia)Malinowski, Bronislaw brŏnēˈslŏf mălĭnŏfˈskē [key], 1884–1942, English anthropologist, b. Poland, Ph.D. Univ. of Kraków, 1908. Working in the field of cultural anthropology, he gained reno...

Browse by Subject