Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

senryu

(Encyclopedia)senryu sĕnrēo͞oˈ [key], a Japanese poem structurally similar to the haiku but primarily concerned with human nature. It is usually humorous or satiric. Used loosely, the term means a poem similar ...

Cruveilhier, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Cruveilhier, Jean zhäN krüvĕyāˈ [key], 1791–1874, French physician. The first professor of pathology at the Univ. of Paris (from 1836), he introduced the descriptive method into the study of th...

Fates

(Encyclopedia)Fates, in Greek religion and mythology, three goddesses who controlled human lives; also called the Moerae or Moirai. They were: Clotho, who spun the web of life; Lachesis, who measured its length; an...

Vanderbilt University

(Encyclopedia)Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, Tenn.; coeducational; chartered 1872 as Central Univ. of Methodist Episcopal Church, founded and renamed 1873, opened 1875 through a gift from Cornelius Vanderbilt...

Horsley, Sir Victor Alexander Haden

(Encyclopedia)Horsley, Sir Victor Alexander Haden, 1857–1916, English surgeon and neurologist. A specialist in surgery of the endocrine glands and the nervous system, he devised a noted operation for spinal-cord ...

monsters and imaginary beasts

(Encyclopedia)monsters and imaginary beasts. The mythologies and legends of ancient and modern cultures teem with an enormous variety of monsters and imaginary beasts. A great number of these are composites of diff...

rat

(Encyclopedia)rat, name applied to various stout-bodied rodents, usually having a pointed muzzle, long slender tail, and dexterous forepaws. It refers particularly to the two species of house rat, Rattus norvegicus...

geography

(Encyclopedia)geography, the science of place, i.e., the study of the surface of the earth, the location and distribution of its physical and cultural features, the areal patterns or places that they form, and the ...

Norton, Eleanor Holmes

(Encyclopedia)Norton, Eleanor Holmes, 1937–, African-American lawyer and government official. As an attorney (1965–70) for the American Civil Liberties Union, she specialized in First Amendment cases. She later...

May, Rollo

(Encyclopedia)May, Rollo, 1909–94, American psychologist, b. Ada, Ohio. Previously a theological student and Congregational minister, May received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia Univ. in 1949,...