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anchor

(Encyclopedia)anchor, device cast overboard to secure a ship, boat, or other floating object by means of weight, friction, or hooks called flukes. In ancient times an anchor was often merely a large stone, a bag or...

negotiable instrument

(Encyclopedia)negotiable instrument, bill of exchange, check, promissory note, or other written contract for payment that may serve as a substitute for money. It is simple in form and easy to transfer. Transfer of ...

soup

(Encyclopedia)soup, liquid food in which different kinds of solid food have been cooked, e.g., meat, fish, fowl, vegetables, cereals, or fruit. Many soups are peculiar to certain localities, e.g., the pot-au-feu of...

Cree

(Encyclopedia)Cree, Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They formerly inhabited the area S of Hudson B...

arbitrage

(Encyclopedia)arbitrage: see foreign exchange. ...

bezique

(Encyclopedia)bezique bəzēkˈ [key], card game usually played with 128 cards by two players. Bezique developed in France and England in the 1860s and originally required only 64 cards; later there were variations...

legate

(Encyclopedia)legate lĕgˈət [key] [Lat. legare=to send], one sent as a representative of a state or of some high authority. In Roman history a legate was sent by the senate to the provinces as an envoy of the em...

Mafia

(Encyclopedia)Mafia mäˈfēä [key], name given to a number of organized groups of Sicilian brigands in the 19th and 20th cent. Unlike the Camorra in Naples, the Mafia had no hierarchic organization; each group op...

Mauss, Marcel

(Encyclopedia)Mauss, Marcel märsĕlˈmōs [key], 1872–1950, French sociologist and anthropologist. Nephew of eminant sociologist Émile Durkheim, Mauss graduated from the Univ. of Bordeaux and the École Pratiqu...

Petty, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Petty, Richard, 1937–, American auto racing driver, b. Level Cross, N.C. The son of Lee Petty, a champion stock car race driver, he won a record 200 National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing ra...