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harmonica

(Encyclopedia)harmonica. 1 The simplest of the musical instruments employing free reeds, known also as the mouth organ or French harp. It was probably invented in 1829 by Friedrich Buschmann of Berlin, who called h...

Van Druten, John William

(Encyclopedia)Van Druten, John William văn dro͞oˈtən [key], 1901–57, English dramatist. His best-known plays, primarily light comedies, include Old Acquaintance (1940), The Voice of the Turtle (1943), I Remem...

Schipa, Tito

(Encyclopedia)Schipa, Tito tēˈtō skēˈpä [key], 1888–1965, Italian operatic tenor. He made his debut in 1910 in Vercelli. After many appearances in Europe, he came to the United States in 1919, joining the C...

Mass, in Christianity

(Encyclopedia)Mass, religious service of the Roman Catholic Church, which has as its central act the performance of the sacrament of the Eucharist. It is based on the ancient Latin liturgy of the city of Rome, now ...

Bonar, Horatius

(Encyclopedia)Bonar, Horatius bŏnˈər [key], 1808–89, Scottish clergyman and hymn writer. In 1837 he became minister to the North Parish in Kelso; in 1843, Bonar, with his congregation, seceded in the movement ...

Demosthenes

(Encyclopedia)Demosthenes dĭmŏsˈthənēz [key], 384?–322 b.c., Greek orator, generally considered the greatest of the Greek orators. He was a pupil of Isaeus, and—although the story of his putting pebbles in...

organ

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Organ organ, a musical wind instrument in which sound is produced by one or more sets of pipes controlled by a keyboard, each pipe producing only one pitch by means of a mechanically produced ...

Fréchette, Louis Honoré

(Encyclopedia)Fréchette, Louis Honoré lwē ônôrāˈ frāshĕtˈ [key], 1839–1908, French Canadian poet and politician, b. Lévis, Que. He worked (1865–71) as a journalist in Chicago and while there wrote a ...

Ammon, in the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Ammon ămˈən [key], in the Bible, people living E of the Dead Sea. Their capital was Rabbath-Ammon, the present-day Amman (Jordan). Their god was Milcom, to whom Solomon built an altar. A Semitic pe...

vibration

(Encyclopedia)vibration, in physics, commonly an oscillatory motion—a movement first in one direction and then back again in the opposite direction. It is exhibited, for example, by a swinging pendulum, by the pr...