Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

exposition

(Encyclopedia)exposition or exhibition, term frequently applied to an organized public fair or display of industrial and artistic productions, designed usually to promote trade and to reflect cultural progress. Exp...

Vionnet, Madeleine

(Encyclopedia)Vionnet, Madeleine, 1876–1975, French fashion designer. She worked for Parisian and London dressmakers and designed for the Callot Soeurs and Jacques Doucet houses before opening her own studio in 1...

Amati

(Encyclopedia)Amati ämäˈtē [key], Italian family of violinmakers of Cremona. The founder of the Cremona school was Andrea Amati (c.1520–c.1578), whose earliest violins date from c.1564. His labels bore the na...

Zillertal Alps

(Encyclopedia)Zillertal Alps tsĭlˈərtälˌ [key], range of the E Alps astride the Austro-Italian border and extending 35 mi (56 km) NE into the Tyrol. The range rises to 11,555 ft (3,522 m) in the Hockfeiler, on...

bowling

(Encyclopedia)bowling, indoor sport, also called tenpins, played by rolling a ball down an alley at ten pins; for lawn bowling, see bowls. Bowling is one of the most popular participatory sports in the United State...

shorthand

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Shorthand systems shorthand, any brief, rapid system of writing that may be used in transcribing, or recording, the spoken word. Such systems, many having characters based on the letters of th...

recognition

(Encyclopedia)recognition, acknowledgment of the admission of new states into the international community by political action of states that are already members. Its derivation is found in the policy of the older E...

depreciation

(Encyclopedia)depreciation, in accounting, reduction in the value of fixed or capital assets, as by use, damage, weathering, or obsolescence. It can be estimated according to a number of methods. In the straight-li...

Palm Springs

(Encyclopedia)Palm Springs, city (1990 pop. 40,181), Riverside co., S Calif.; founded 1876, inc. 1938. It is a verdant desert oasis and a resort with classic mid-20th cent. architecture (known as Mid-Century Modern...

Anthropocene

(Encyclopedia)Anthropocene Epoch, an unofficial term used by scientists to describe a period of time—up to the present—in which humanity has impacted the planet on a global scale. The phrase was fir...