Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

bittersweet

(Encyclopedia)bittersweet, name for two unrelated plants, belonging to different families, both fall-fruiting woody vines sometimes cultivated for their decorative scarlet berries. One, called also woody nightshade...

Zhang Xianliang

(Encyclopedia)Zhang Xianliang jäng shyän-lyäng [key], 1936–, Chinese writer. During the 1957 antirightist campaign, the Chinese Communists judged his poetry deviant and sentenced him to prison in Ningxia. He w...

Southey, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Southey, Robert souˈᵺē, sŭᵺˈē [key], 1774–1843, English author. Primarily a poet, he was numbered among the so-called Lake poets. While at Oxford he formed (1794) a friendship with Coleridg...

Sellars, Peter

(Encyclopedia)Sellars, Peter, 1957–, American director, b. Pittsburgh, grad. Harvard (1981). A highly innovative director, he began his career with the Boston Shakespeare Co. (1983–84) and Washington's American...

caoutchouc

(Encyclopedia)caoutchouc kouˈcho͝ok [key], natural rubber obtained as a latex from various tropical plants, e.g., the Pará rubber tree. It is much more elastic than balata or gutta-percha. It is the most familia...

cerrado

(Encyclopedia)cerrado, tropical ecological region, c. 770,000 sq mi (2 million sq km), Brazil, encompassing several states and the federal district and extending into Bolivia and Paraguay. Located in the central pl...

Queneau, Raymond

(Encyclopedia)Queneau, Raymond rāmôNˈ kĕnōˈ [key], 1903–76, French author and critic. He was an advocate of surrealism during the middle and late 1920s. Queneau is best known for his manipulations of style ...

pimento

(Encyclopedia)pimento or allspice, common names for a tree (Pimenta dioica or P. officinalis) of the family Myrtaceae (myrtle family) cultivated in the West Indies for its dried unripe berries, used medicinally and...

cicada

(Encyclopedia)cicada sĭkāˈdə [key], large, noise-producing insect of the order Homoptera, with a stout body, a wide, blunt head, protruding eyes, and two pairs of membranous wings. The front wings, which are lo...

weaverbird

(Encyclopedia)weaverbird, name for the Ploceidae, a family of Old World seed-eating birds closely resembling finches (hence the alternate name weaver finch). It includes a number of so-called goldfinches and waxbil...