Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

no-fault insurance

(Encyclopedia)no-fault insurance, type of indemnity plan, usually applied to automobile coverage, in which those injured in an accident receive direct payment from the company with which they themselves are insured...

Frasconi, Antonio

(Encyclopedia)Frasconi, Antonio äntōˈnyō fräskōˈnē [key], 1919–2013, American graphic artist, b. Buenos Aires. His family moved to Uruguay weeks after his birth. Frasconi immigrated to the United States i...

gospel music

(Encyclopedia)gospel music, American religious musical form that owes much of its origin to the Christian conversion of West Africans enslaved in the American South. Gospel music partly evolved from the songs slave...

coherence

(Encyclopedia)coherence, constant phase difference in two or more Waves over time. Two waves are said to be in phase if their crests and troughs meet at the same place at the same time, and the waves are out of pha...

Ryan, Kay

(Encyclopedia)Ryan, Kay, 1945–, American poet, b. San Jose, Calif., grad. Univ. of California at Los Angeles (B.A., 1967; M.A., 1968). She taught remedial English in a Marin co. community college for more than 30...

Ginzburg, Natalia Levi

(Encyclopedia)Ginzburg, Natalia Levi nətälˈyə lēˈvē gĭnˈsbûrg [key], 1916–91, Italian novelist. Because she and her husband Leone Ginzburg were Jewish, they were confined to a small village from 1940 to...

Wonder, Stevie

(Encyclopedia)Wonder, Stevie, 1950–, American singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, b. Saginaw, Mich., as Steveland Hardaway Judkins (changed to Steveland Hardaway Morris, 1961). Blind from birth, he played th...

Charles, Ray

(Encyclopedia)Charles, Ray (Ray Charles Robinson), 1930–2004, African-American musician and composer, b. Albany, Ga. Blinded at age seven, he was raised in Florida and at 16 began singing in a local hillbilly gro...

Kelsey, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Kelsey, Henry kĕlˈsē [key], c.1670–1729, English fur trader and explorer in Canada. He entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1684. He was sent (1689) inland to secure trade with abor...

Buchwald, Art

(Encyclopedia)Buchwald, Art bŭkˈwôld, bo͝okˈ– [key], 1925–2006, American humorist, b. Mt. Vernon, N.Y. He began (1949) a syndicated entertainment column for the New York Herald Tribune while living in Pari...

Browse by Subject