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value-added tax

(Encyclopedia)value-added tax (VAT), levy imposed on business at all levels of the manufacture and production of a good or service and based on the increase in price, or value, provided by each level. Because the c...

antithesis

(Encyclopedia)antithesis ăntĭthˈĭsĭs [key], a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Parallelism of expression serves...

absolute music

(Encyclopedia)absolute music, term used for music dependent on its structure alone for comprehension. It is the antithesis of program music. It is not associated with extramusical ideas or with a pictorial or narra...

Stahl, Georg Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Stahl, Georg Ernst gāˈôrkh ĕrnst shtäl [key], 1660–1734, German physician and chemist. He taught (1694–1716) at the Univ. of Halle, then went to Berlin as court physician. He is known for his...

Streptomyces

(Encyclopedia)Streptomyces strĕpˌtəmīˈsēz [key], bacterial genus of the order Actinomycetales, members of which resemble fungi in their branching filamentous structure. Various species produce such antibiotic...

chlorophyll

(Encyclopedia)CE5 chlorophyll klôrˈəfĭlˌ [key], green pigment that gives most plants their color and enables them to carry on the process of photosynthesis. Chemically, chlorophyll has several similar forms...

Braque, Georges

(Encyclopedia)Braque, Georges zhôrzh bräk [key], 1882–1963, French painter. He joined the artists involved in developing fauvism in 1905, and at l'Estaque c.1909 he was profoundly influenced by Cézanne. He met...

Laue, Max von

(Encyclopedia)Laue, Max von mäks fən louˈə [key], 1879–1960, German physicist, studied under Max Planck. From 1919 he was professor of theoretical physics at the Univ. of Berlin. He worked out a method for me...

Machpelah

(Encyclopedia)Machpelah măkpēˈlə [key], cave, near Hebron; also called the Cave of the Patriarchs. The Book of Genesis relates that it was bought by Abraham from Ephron, son of Zohar the Hittite, for a family b...

Kopp, Hermann Franz Moritz

(Encyclopedia)Kopp, Hermann Franz Moritz hĕrˈmän fräntz mōˈrĭts kôp [key], 1817–92, German physical chemist and historian of chemistry. His research concerned the connection between the physical propertie...