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hotel

(Encyclopedia)hotel [Fr., from O.Fr. (origin of Eng. hostel), from Latin (origin of Eng. hospital),=guest place], name applied since the late 17th cent. to an establishment supplying both food and lodging to the pu...

muckrakers

(Encyclopedia)muckrakers, name applied to American journalists, novelists, and critics who in the first decade of the 20th cent. attempted to expose the abuses of business and the corruption in politics. The term d...

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

(Encyclopedia)Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807–82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body o...

LaGuardia, Fiorello Henry

(Encyclopedia)LaGuardia, Fiorello Henry fēərĕlˈō, ləgwärˈdēə [key], 1882–1947, U.S. public official, congressman, and mayor of New York City (1934–45), b. New York City. He spent his early years in Ar...

Tahiti

(Encyclopedia)Tahiti tähēˈtē [key], island (2002 pop. 169.674), South Pacific, in the Windward group of the Society Islands, French Polynesia. The capital is Papeete. Tahiti is the largest (402 sq mi/1,041 sq k...

Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeyevich

(Encyclopedia)Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeyevich syĭrgāˈ syĭrgāˈəvĭch prōkôfˈēĕf [key], 1891–1953, Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Prokofiev achieved wide popularity with his lively music, in wh...

Seward, William Henry

(Encyclopedia)Seward, William Henry, 1801–72, American statesman, b. Florida, Orange co., N.Y. In 1861, Seward became Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln, and many expected him to be the real power in th...

semantics

(Encyclopedia)semantics [Gr.,=significant] in general, the study of the relationship between words and meanings. The empirical study of word meanings and sentence meanings in existing languages is a branch of lingu...

coronation

(Encyclopedia)coronation, ceremony of crowning and anointing a sovereign on his or her accession to the throne. Although a public ceremony inaugurating a new king or chief had long existed, a new religious service ...

Hayes, Rutherford Birchard

(Encyclopedia)Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822–93, 19th President of the United States (1877–81), b. Delaware, Ohio, grad. Kenyon College, 1843, and Harvard law school, 1845. He became a moderately successful l...