Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

467 results found

personal watercraft

(Encyclopedia)personal watercraft (PWC), a lightweight vessel usually less than 16 ft (5 m) long that uses an inboard water jet pump, powered by an internal-combustion engine, as its primary source of propulsion. T...

stalactite ornament

(Encyclopedia)stalactite ornament, type of ornament characteristic of Islamic architecture. Generally executed in wood or in plaster over a wood or brick base, it consists of little vertical polygonal or curved nic...

Whitby, town, England

(Encyclopedia)Whitby, town, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, N England, at the mouth of the Esk. It is a port and resort whose primary industries are fishing and tourism. Jet is found locally, and jewelry and ornament...

White, Ellen Gould (Harmon)

(Encyclopedia)White, Ellen Gould (Harmon), 1827–1915, leader of the Seventh-day Adventists, b. Gorham, Maine. Converted at the age of 15 to the beliefs of the Adventists, she began to receive visions accepted as ...

tapeworm

(Encyclopedia)tapeworm, name for the parasitic flatworms forming the class Cestoda. All tapeworms spend the adult phase of their lives as parasites in the gut of a vertebrate animal (called the primary host). Most ...

Faulkner, William

(Encyclopedia)Faulkner, William, 1897–1962, American novelist, b. New Albany, Miss., one of the great American writers of the 20th cent. Born into an old Southern family named Falkner, he changed the spelling of ...

Kefauver, Carey Estes

(Encyclopedia)Kefauver, Carey Estes kēfôvər [key], 1903–63, U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1949–63), b. Madisonville, Tenn., known as Estes Kefauver. He became a Chattanooga lawyer and in 1938 was elected to t...

Kenny, Enda

(Encyclopedia)Kenny, Enda ĕnˈdä [key], 1951–, Irish politician. After teaching primary school, he was elected to the Irish parliament in 1975, winning his late father's seat and becoming the body's youngest me...

archery

(Encyclopedia)archery, sport of shooting with bow and arrow, an important military and hunting skill before the introduction of gunpowder. England's Charles II fostered archery as sport, establishing in 1673 the wo...

Gregoras, Nicephorus

(Encyclopedia)Gregoras, Nicephorus nīsĕfˈərəs grĕgˈərəs [key], c.1295–c.1359, Byzantine historian and theologian, one of the most learned men of his time. Among his scientific and philosophical works is ...