Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Schulz, Bruno

(Encyclopedia)Schulz, Bruno, 1892–1942, Polish short-story writer and artist. Unrecognized until after World War II, Schulz is now considered the finest modern Polish-language prose stylist and a significant visu...

Chinese

(Encyclopedia)Chinese, subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages (see Sino-Tibetan languages), which is also sometimes grouped with the Tai, or Thai, languages in a Sinitic subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan lan...

symbol

(Encyclopedia)symbol, sign representing something that has an independent existence. The most important use of symbols is in language. To say so, however, does not solve the perennial philosophical questions as to ...

radical, in mathematics

(Encyclopedia)radical, in mathematics, symbol () placed over a number or expression, called the radicand, to indicate a root of the radicand. When used without a sign or index number, as in 4, it designates the pos...

Say, Allen

(Encyclopedia)Say, Allen, 1937–, Japanese-American writer and illustrator of children's books, b. Yokohama, Japan, as James Allen Koichi Moriwaki Seii. After an apprentceship with a well-known cartoonist, the bas...

bonobo

(Encyclopedia)bonobo, smaller of two species of chimpanzee, genus Pan. Whereas the common chimpanzee, P. troglodytes, lives in forests across most of equatorial Africa, the bonobo, P. paniscus (sometimes called the...

inequality

(Encyclopedia)inequality, in mathematics, statement that a mathematical expression is less than or greater than some other expression; an inequality is not as specific as an equation, but it does contain informatio...

Badger, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Badger, Joseph, 1708–65, American painter, b. Charlestown, Mass. By trade a glazier and house and sign painter, he turned his hand to portraiture. Generally uninspired, his work appears at its best ...

Kiowa

(Encyclopedia)Kiowa kīˈəwə [key], Native North Americans whose language is thought to form a branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). The Kiowa, a nomadic people of the Plain...

Browse by Subject