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Nîmes

(Encyclopedia)Nîmes nēm [key], city (1990 pop. 133,607), capital of Gard dept., S France, in Cévennes. An important market town and rail hub, its products include machinery, textiles and clothing, and tinware. A...

Carnot, Nicolas Léonard Sadi

(Encyclopedia)Carnot, Nicolas Léonard Sadi kärnōˈ [key], 1796–1832, French physicist, a founder of modern thermodynamics; son of Lazare N. M. Carnot. His famous work on the motive power of heat (Réflexions ...

Bougainville, Louis Antoine de

(Encyclopedia)Bougainville, Louis Antoine de lwē äNtwänˈ də bo͞ogăNvēlˈ [key], 1729–1811, French navigator. He accompanied Montcalm to Canada as aide-de-camp, and he later (c.1764) established a colony o...

brandy

(Encyclopedia)brandy [for brandywine, from Du.,=burnt, i.e., distilled, wine], strong alcoholic spirit distilled from wine or from marc, the residue of the wine press. The most noted brandy is cognac, made from whi...

Sismondi, Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de

(Encyclopedia)Sismondi, Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de zhäN shärl lāônärˈ sēmôNdˈ də sēsmôNdēˈ [key], 1773–1842, Swiss historian, economist, and critic. A member of the circle of Mme de Staël, he...

Stijl, de

(Encyclopedia)Stijl, de də stīl [key] [Du.,=the style], Dutch nonfigurative art movement, also called neoplasticism. In 1917 a group of artists, architects, and poets was organized under the name de Stijl, and a ...

Cahn, Sammy

(Encyclopedia)Cahn, Sammy kän [key], 1913–93, American lyricist, b. New York City as Samuel Cohen. With his first collaborator, Saul Chaplin, he wrote material for vaudeville, and scored his first success (1935)...

Borlaug, Norman Ernest

(Encyclopedia)Borlaug, Norman Ernest bôrˈlôg [key], 1914–2009, U.S. agronomist, b. near Saude, Iowa, grad. Univ. of Minn. (Ph.D., 1942). He worked as researcher with the E. I. du Pont Company until 1944, when ...

West Flanders

(Encyclopedia)West Flanders, Du. West-Vlaanderen, Fr. Flandre Occidentale, province (1991 pop. 1,106,829), W Belgium, bordering on the North Sea in the west, on the Netherlands in the northeast, and on France in th...

Proust, Marcel

(Encyclopedia)Proust, Marcel pro͞ost [key], 1871–1922, French novelist, b. Paris. He is one of the great literary figures of the modern age. Born to wealthy bourgeois parents, he suffered delicate health as a c...