Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Adana ... Adhemar De Chabannes

Adana: city, south-central Turkey, situated in the plain of Cilicia, on the Seyhan River (the ancient Sarus River). An agricultural and industrial centre and the nation's fourth largest city, it probably overlies a Hittite settlement that dates from approximately 1400 BC; ...
Adangme: people occupying the coastal area of Ghana from Kpone to Ada, on the Volta River, and inland along the Volta; they include the Ada, Kpone, Krobo, Ningo, Osuduku, Prampram, and Shai, all speaking variants of Ga-Adangme of the Kwa branch ...
Adanson, Michel: French botanist who devised a natural system of classification and nomenclature of plants, based on all their physical characteristics, with an emphasis on families.
Adapa: in Mesopotamian mythology, legendary sage and citizen of the Sumerian city of Eridu, the ruins of which are in southern Iraq. Endowed with vast intelligence by Ea (Sumerian: Enki), the god of wisdom, Adapa became the hero of the Sumerian ...
Adapazari: city, northwestern Turkey, lying in a fertile plain west of the Sakarya River. It is situated along the old military road from Istanbul. The region came under Ottoman control in the early 14th century, and the city acquired its present ...
adaptation: in biology, process by which an animal or plant becomes fitted to its environment; it is the result of natural selection acting upon heritable variation. Even the simpler organisms must be adapted in a great variety of ways: in their ...
adaptive radiation: evolution of an animal or plant group into a wide variety of types adapted to specialized modes of life. A striking example is the radiation, beginning in the Tertiary period (beginning 66.4 million years ago), of basal mammalian stock into ...
adat: customary law of the indigenous peoples of Malaysia and Indonesia. It was the unwritten, traditional code governing all aspects of personal conduct from birth to death. Two kinds of Malay adat law developed prior to the 15th century: Adat Perpateh ...
Adcock, Fleur: New Zealand-born British poet known for her tranquil domestic lyrics intercut with flashes of irony and glimpses of the fantastic and the macabre.
Adda River: river, in the Lombardia (Lombardy) regione of northern Italy, issuing from small lakes in the Rhaetian Alps at 7,660 feet (2,335 m). The Adda flows southward from Bormio to Tirano, where it turns west past Sondrio to enter Lake Como ...
Addams, Charles: cartoonist whose drawings, known mostly through The New Yorker magazine, became famous in the United States as examples of macabre humour.
Addams, Jane: American social reformer and pacifist, cowinner (with Nicholas Murray Butler) of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931. She is probably best known as the founder of Hull House in Chicago, one of the first social settlements in North America.
addax: (species Addax nasomaculatus), desert-dwelling antelope, family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla), once found throughout the Sahara but now much reduced in numbers and distribution and threatened with extinction from overhunting. A heavy-bodied, short-legged, gregarious antelope, the addax is characterized by broad hooves ...
adder: any of several venomous snakes of the viper family, Viperidae, and the death adder, a viperlike member of the cobra snake family, Elapidae. The name adder may also be applied to certain other snakes, such as the hognose snake (q.v.), ...
Adderley, Cannonball: one of the most prominent and popular American jazz musicians of the 1950s and '60s whose exuberant music was firmly in the bop school but which also employed the melodic sense of traditional jazz. A multi-instrumentalist, Adderley is best-known for ...
Adderley, Nat: American cornetist and songwriter who starred in the popular "soul jazz" quintet headed (1959-75) by his older brother, Cannonball Adderley.
adding machine: a type of calculator (q.v.) used for performing simple arithmetical operations.
Addis Ababa: capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is located on a well-watered plateau surrounded by hills and mountains, in the geographic centre of the country.
Addison: county, western Vermont, U.S. It is bounded by Lake Champlain (constituting the border with New York state) to the west and the Green Mountains to the east. Lowlands in the west give way to foothills and mountains in the east. ...
Addison disease: a rare disorder defined by destruction of the outer layer of the adrenal glands, the hormone-producing organs located just above the kidneys.
Addison, Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount, Baron Addison Of Stallingborough: British surgeon and statesman who was prominent in both Liberal and Labour governments between the wars and after World War II.
Addison, Joseph: English essayist, poet, and dramatist, who, with Richard Steele, was a leading contributor to and guiding spirit of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator. His writing skill led to his holding important posts ...
Addison, Thomas: English physician after whom Addison's disease, a metabolic dysfunction caused by atrophy of the adrenal cortex, and Addison's (pernicious) anemia were named. He was the first to correlate a set of disease symptoms with pathological changes in one of the ...
addition reaction: any of a class of chemical reactions in which an atom or group of atoms is added to a molecule.
additive: in foods, any of various chemical substances added to foods to produce specific desirable effects. The term additive may also be expanded to include substances-possibly useless or deleterious-that enter foods unintentionally. Additives include such substances as artificial or natural colourings ...
Addo Elephant National Park: national park in Eastern province, South Africa. It has an area of 208 square miles (540 square km) and consists of two sections connected by a corridor. The southern part of the park lies in the Sundays River valley south ...
adductor muscle: any of the muscles that draw a part of the body toward its median line or toward the axis of an extremity (compare abductor muscle), particularly three powerful muscles of the human thigh-adductor longus, adductor brevis, and adductor magnus. Originating ...
Ade, George: American playwright and humorist whose Fables in Slang summarized the kind of wisdom accumulated by the country boy in the city.
Adela: daughter of William I the Conqueror of England and mother of Stephen, king of England, whose right to the throne derived through her.
Adelaer: Norwegian-born seaman and naval officer, distinguished in both Venetian and Danish naval history.
Adelaide: capital of the state of South Australia. Situated at the base of the Mount Lofty Ranges, 9 miles (14 km) inland from the centre of the eastern shore of the Gulf St. Vincent, it has a Mediterranean climate with hot ...
Adelaide River: river in northwestern Northern Territory, Australia, rising in the hills west of Brock's Creek and flowing (with marked summer increases in volume) for 110 miles (180 km) northeastward to Adam Bay, an inlet of the Timor Sea on Clarence Strait. ...
Adelaide, Saint: consort of the Western emperor Otto I and, later, regent for her grandson Otto III; she helped strengthen the German church while subordinating it to imperial power.
adelantado: (Spanish: "one who goes before"), representative of the kings of Castile (Spain) who in the early European Middle Ages headed military expeditions and, from the reign of Ferdinand III (1217-52) until the 16th century, held judicial and administrative powers over ...
Adelard Of Bath: English Scholastic philosopher and early interpreter of Arabic scientific knowledge.
Adelie Coast: part of the coast of Wilkes Land in eastern Antarctica, extending from Claire Coast (west) to George V Coast (east). The region is an ice-covered plateau rising from the Indian Ocean and occupying an area of about 150,000 square miles ...
Adelphi University: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Garden City, New York, U.S. Adelphi is a liberal arts college serving Long Island, with branch campuses in Manhattan and Huntington. It offers a range of bachelor's and master's degree programs in business, ...
Adelung, Johann Christoph: one of the most influential German-language scholars before Jacob Grimm. His grammars, dictionary, and works on style helped to standardize the language.
Aden: city of Yemen. It is situated along the north coast of the Gulf of Aden and lies on a peninsula enclosing the eastern side of At-Tawahi Harbour. The peninsula enclosing the western side of the harbour is called Little Aden.
Aden, Gulf of: deepwater basin that forms a natural sea link between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. Named after the seaport of Aden, in southern Yemen, the gulf is situated between the coasts of Arabia and the Horn of Africa. To ...
Adena culture: culture of various communities of ancient North American Indians, about 500 BC-AD 100, centred in what is now southern Ohio. Groups in Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and possibly Pennsylvania bear similarities and are roughly grouped with the Adena culture. (The ...
Adenauer, Konrad: first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany; 1949-63), presiding over its reconstruction after World War II. A Christian Democrat and firmly anticommunist, he supported the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and worked to reconcile Germany with its ...
Adenet Le Roi: poet and musician, interesting for the detailed documentary evidence of his career as a household minstrel.
adenine: organic compound belonging to the purine family, occurring free in tea or combined in many substances of biological importance, including the nucleic acids, which govern hereditary characteristics of all cells.
adenoids: a mass of lymphatic tissue, similar to the (palatine) tonsils, that is attached to the back wall of the nasal pharynx (i.e., the upper part of the throat opening into the nasal cavity proper). An individual fold of such nasopharyngeal ...
adenosine triphosphate: energy-carrying molecule found in the cells of all living things. ATP captures chemical energy obtained from the breakdown of food molecules and releases it to fuel other cellular processes.
adenovirus: any virus belonging to the family Adenoviridae. This group of viruses was discovered in the 1950s and includes more than 45 types that cause sore throat and fever in humans, hepatitis in dogs, and several diseases in fowl, mice, cattle, ...
Adeodatus II: pope (672-676) who was the first pontiff to date events in terms of his reign, which began with his election on April 11, 672.
Ader, Clement: self-taught French engineer and inventor, and a pioneer of flight before the Wright brothers.
adhan: (Arabic: "announcement"), the Muslim call to Friday public worship and to the five daily hours of prayer. It is proclaimed by the muezzin, a servant of the mosque chosen for good character, as he stands at the door or side ...
Adhemar De Chabannes: Frankish chronicler whose major work, Chronicon Aquitanicum et Francicum ("Chronicle of Aquitaine and France"), traces the history of Aquitaine and of the Franks from the times of the legendary king Pharamond.