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Bam

(Encyclopedia)Bam bäm [key], town, Kerman prov., SE Iran, on the intermittent Bam River. Located on the we...

Orkhon

(Encyclopedia)Orkhon ôrˈkŏn, ôr-khŏnˈ [key], river, c.300 mi (480 km) long, rising in the Khangai Mts., N central Republic of Mongolia, and flowing east, then north, past the site of ancient Karakorum, and th...

Tyre

(Encyclopedia)Tyre tīr [key], ancient city of Phoenicia, S of Sidon. It is the present-day Sur in Lebanon, a small town on a peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean from the mainland of Syria S of Beirut. It was ...

synodic period

(Encyclopedia)synodic period sĭnŏdˈĭk [key], in astronomy, length of time during which a body in the solar system makes one orbit of the sun relative to the earth, i.e., returns to the same elongation. Because ...

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

(Encyclopedia)Dionysius of Halicarnassus hălˌĭkärnăsˈəs [key], fl. late 1st cent. b.c., Greek rhetorician and historian. He taught at Rome and was one of the most celebrated of ancient critics. Among his ext...

Alès

(Encyclopedia)Alès älāˈ, älĕsˈ [key], city, Gard dept., S France, in Languedoc, at the foot of the Cévennes Mts., on the Gardon River. Once noted for cloth and silk, its industr...

debenture

(Encyclopedia)debenture dəbĕnˈchər [key], document acknowledging indebtedness. In Great Britain a debenture is practically the same as a bond, and debenture stock is similar to preferred stock. In the United St...

Eton

(Encyclopedia)Eton ēˈtən [key], town, Windsor and Maidenhead, central England, on the Thames River. It i...

Encke, Johann Franz

(Encyclopedia)Encke, Johann Franz yōˈhän fränts ĕngˈkə [key], 1791–1865, German astronomer. He was assistant (1816–22) and director (1822–25) of the observatory at Seeberg (near Gotha) and director (fr...

identity theft

(Encyclopedia)identity theft, the use of one person's personal information by another to commit fraud or other crimes. The most common forms of identity theft occur when someone obtains another person's social secu...

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