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jai alai

(Encyclopedia)jai alai hīˈlīˌ [key], handball-like game of Spanish Basque origin. It is also called pelota. Jai alai is played on a three-walled court with a hard rubber ball that must be hurled against the fro...

Heine, Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Heine, Heinrich hīnˈrĭkh hīˈnə [key], 1797–1856, German poet, b. Düsseldorf, of a Jewish family. One of the greatest of German lyric poets, he had a varied career. After failing in business h...

curve

(Encyclopedia)curve, in mathematics, a line no part of which is straight; more generally, it is considered to be any one-dimensional collection of points, thus including the straight line as a special kind of curve...

cloth of gold

(Encyclopedia)cloth of gold, fabric woven wholly or partly of gold threads. From remote times gold has been used as material for weaving either alone or with other fibers. In India tapestries were made from gold th...

electrode

(Encyclopedia)electrode, terminal through which electric current passes between metallic and nonmetallic parts of an electric circuit. In most familiar circuits current is carried by metallic conductors, but in som...

Wilkes-Barre

(Encyclopedia)Wilkes-Barre wĭlks-bârˈē [key], city (1990 pop. 47,523), seat of Luzerne co., E Pa., on the east bank of the Susquehanna River; settled 1769, inc. as a city 1871. Once a major anthracite coal cent...

camouflage

(Encyclopedia)camouflage kămˈəfläzh [key], in warfare, the disguising of objects with artificial aids, especially for the purpose of making them blend into their surroundings or of deceiving the observer as to ...

bonsai

(Encyclopedia)bonsai bōnˈsī [key], art of cultivating dwarf trees in containers. Bonsai, developed by the Japanese more than a thousand years ago, is derived from the Chinese practice of growing miniature plants...

Sheffield plate

(Encyclopedia)Sheffield plate, metalware of copper, silver-plated by fusion, originated at Sheffield, England. This process of plating was discovered c.1742 by a Sheffield cutler, Thomas Boulsover, who found while ...

Gary, Elbert Henry

(Encyclopedia)Gary, Elbert Henry, 1846–1927, American lawyer and industrialist, b. near Wheaton, Ill., grad. Union College of Law, Chicago, 1868. Rising rapidly as a corporation lawyer, he became mayor of Wheaton...