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corm

(Encyclopedia)corm, short, thickened underground stem, usually covered with papery leaves. A corm grows vertically, producing buds at the upper nodes and roots from the lower surface. Corms serve as organs of food ...

Abi

(Encyclopedia)Abi āˈbī [key] [short for Abijah], in the Bible, King Hezekiah's mother. ...

tuning fork

(Encyclopedia)tuning fork, steel instrument in the shape of a U with a short handle. When struck it produces an almost pure tone, retaining its pitch over a long period of time; thus it is a valuable aid in tuning ...

Joiakim

(Encyclopedia)Joiakim joiˈəkĭm [key] [short for Jehoiakim], in the Bible, high priest. ...

Munro, H. H.

(Encyclopedia)Munro, H. H. (Hector Hugh Munro), pseud. Saki säˈkē [key], 1870–1916, English author, b. Burma (now Myanmar). He began his career writing political satires for the Westminster Gazette, and from 1...

Tibetan language

(Encyclopedia)Tibetan language, member of the Tibeto-Burman subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages (see Sino-Tibetan languages). It is spoken by 5 million people in the Tibet autonomous region and the Qi...

trunkfish

(Encyclopedia)trunkfish, any member of a family of fishes, Ostraciidae, also called boxfishes, that have short triangular bodies covered by firmly united hexagonal bony plates. Only the jaw, the bases of the fins, ...

McCourt, Frank

(Encyclopedia)McCourt, Frank, 1930–2009, Irish-American memoirist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. When McCourt was four his immigrant family returned to Ireland. He dropped out of school at 13 and had saved enough by 19 to re...

Samaroff, Olga

(Encyclopedia)Samaroff, Olga səmäˈrôf [key], 1882–1948, American pianist and educator, whose real name was Hickenlooper, b. San Antonio, Tex.; studied at the Paris Conservatory. Her American debut (1905) was ...

Mariette, Auguste Édouard

(Encyclopedia)Mariette, Auguste Édouard ōgüstˈ ādwärˈ märyĕtˈ [key], 1821–81, French Egyptologist. On a visit (1850–54) to Egypt to collect Coptic manuscripts for the Louvre, he excavated (1851) the r...