Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Bevin, Ernest

(Encyclopedia)Bevin, Ernest bĕvˈən [key], 1881–1951, British labor leader and statesman. An orphan who earned his own living from childhood, he began a long career as a trade union official when he became secr...

SETI

(Encyclopedia)SETI sĕtˈē [key] [Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence], name given to a series of independent programs to detect radio signals from civilizations beyond the solar system. Modern SETI efforts c...

specific gravity

(Encyclopedia)specific gravity, ratio of the weight of a given volume of a substance to the weight of an equal volume of some reference substance, or, equivalently, the ratio of the masses of equal volumes of the t...

lutetium

(Encyclopedia)lutetium, formerly lutecium both: lo͞otēˈshēəm [key], metallic chemical element; symbol Lu; atomic number 71; at. wt. 174.9668; m.p. about 1,663℃; b.p. about 3,395℃; sp. gr. 9.835 at 25℃; v...

mahogany

(Encyclopedia)mahogany, common name for the Meliaceae, a widely distributed family of chiefly tropical shrubs and trees, often having scented wood. The valuable hardwood called mahogany is obtained from many member...

shuffleboard

(Encyclopedia)shuffleboard, sport in which players use cue sticks to push disks onto a scoring diagram at either end of a concrete or terrazzo court. The court is 52 ft (15.85 m) long and 6 ft (1.83 m) wide. The ba...

cruise missile

(Encyclopedia)cruise missile, low-flying, continuously powered offensive missile designed to evade defense systems. A cruise missile typically uses an aircraft engine rather than a rocket engine to fly at subsonic ...

Crumb, George Henry

(Encyclopedia)Crumb, George Henry, 1929–, American composer, b. Charleston, W.Va., grad. Mason College of Music, Charleston (B.A. 1950); Univ. of Illinois (M.A. 1953); Univ. of Michigan (D.M.A. 1959). In his comp...

cinéma vérité

(Encyclopedia)cinéma vérité, a style of filmmaking that attempts to convey candid realism. Often employing lightweight, hand-held cameras and sound equipment, it shows people in everyday situations and uses auth...

anabolic steroid

(Encyclopedia)anabolic steroid ănˌdrōjĕnˈĭk [key], any of a group of synthetic derivatives of testosterone that promote muscle and bone growth. Used to treat uncontrolled weight loss in wasting diseases, anab...