Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

snakebite

(Encyclopedia)snakebite, wound inflicted by the teeth of a snake. The bite of a nonvenomous snake is rarely serious. Venomous snakes have fangs, hollow teeth through which poison is injected into a victim. All type...

Phoebe, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Phoebe fēˈbē [key], in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn IX (or S9), Phoebe is 137 mi (220 km) in diameter, orbits Saturn at a mean distance ...

Weaver, Sigourney

(Encyclopedia) Weaver, Sigourney , 1949- , American actress, b. New York, N.Y., as Susan Alexandra Weaver, Stanford Univ. (B.A., 1972), Yale Univ. (M.F.A., 1974). Wea...

Visby

(Encyclopedia)Visby wĭzˈbē [key], city (1990 pop. 20,990), capital of Gotland co., SE Sweden, on Gotland Island and on the Baltic Sea. It is an industrial center and a popular resort and has a modern ice-free po...

Lope de Rueda

(Encyclopedia)Lope de Rueda lōˈpā dā ro͞oāˈᵺä [key], 1510?–1565, Spanish dramatist. A precursor of the Golden Age of Spanish literature, Rueda was an actor and a manager as well as a playwright. He is s...

Laver, Rod

(Encyclopedia)Laver, Rod (Rodney George Laver) lāˈvər [key], 1938–, Australian tennis player. He left school at age 15 to pursue tennis and in 1962 became the first male grand-slam winner in tennis since Don B...

Lehmbruck, Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Lehmbruck, Wilhelm vĭlˈhĕlm lāmˈbro͝ok [key], 1881–1919, German sculptor. He studied at Düsseldorf and went to Paris in 1910. Influenced at first by Rodin, Brancusi, and Maillol, he later arr...

Kraus, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Kraus, Karl kärl krous [key], 1874–1936, Austrian essayist and poet, b. Bohemia. His satirical review the Fackel lashed out at hypocrisy, intellectual corruption, and the machine age. His voluminou...

AARP

(Encyclopedia)AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan national organization dedicated to “enriching the experience of aging”; membership is open to people age 50 or older. Founded in 1958 by Ethel Percy Andrus as Americ...

D'Israeli, Isaac

(Encyclopedia)D'Israeli, Isaac, 1766–1848, English critic and historian, b. London; father of Benjamin Disraeli. Born into a wealthy Jewish family, he produced his first poem at the age of 14. His best-known work...