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spiritual

(Encyclopedia)spiritual, a religious folk song of American origin, particularly associated with African-American Protestants of the southern United States. The African-American spiritual, characterized by syncopati...

mechanics

(Encyclopedia)mechanics, branch of physics concerned with motion and the forces that tend to cause it; it includes study of the mechanical properties of matter, such as density, elasticity, and viscosity. Mechanics...

sound

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Sound waves: An air pressure wave radiating outward from a loudspeaker is perceived as sound. sound, any disturbance that travels through an elastic medium such as air, ground, or water to be ...

capital punishment

(Encyclopedia)capital punishment, imposition of a penalty of death by the state. Since the 1970s almost all capital sentences in the United States have been imposed for homicide. There has been intense debate reg...

Free State

(Encyclopedia)Free State, formerly Orange Free State, province, 50,126 sq mi (129,825 sq km), E central South Africa. It was renamed Free State shortly after the 1994...

gene therapy

(Encyclopedia)gene therapy, the use of genes and the techniques of genetic engineering in the treatment of a genetic disorder or chronic disease. There are many techniques of gene therapy, all of them still in expe...

apartment house

(Encyclopedia)apartment house, building having three or more dwelling units. Numerous early examples of this form of dwelling have been found in remains of Roman and medieval cities and in the 17th-cent. Pueblo vil...

Delian League

(Encyclopedia)Delian League dēˈlēən [key], confederation of Greek city-states under the leadership of Athens. The name is used to designate two distinct periods of alliance, the first 478–404 b.c., the second...

coronary artery disease

(Encyclopedia)coronary artery disease, condition that results when the coronary arteries are narrowed or occluded, most commonly by atherosclerotic deposits of fibrous and fatty tissue. Coronary artery disease is t...

deconstruction

(Encyclopedia)deconstruction, in linguistics, philosophy, and literary theory, the exposure and undermining of the metaphysical assumptions involved in systematic attempts to ground knowledge, especially in academi...