British detective-story writer of unusual subtlety, wit, and imaginative power, who created the bland, bespectacled, keen-witted Albert Campion, one of the most interesting of fictional detectives.
U.S. representative (1863-71) and senator (1873-1908) from Iowa, cosponsor of the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, which expanded U.S. Treasury purchase of silver bullion and restored the silver dollar as legal tender.
in prosody, the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. Sometimes the repetition of initial vowel sounds (head rhyme) is also referred to as alliteration. As a poetic device, it is often discussed with assonance ...
prose that uses alliteration and some of the techniques of alliterative verse. Notable examples are from Old English and Middle English, including works by the Anglo-Saxon writer Aelfric and the so-called Katherine Group of five Middle English devotional works.
early verse of the Germanic languages in which alliteration, the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables, is a basic structural principle rather than an occasional embellishment. Although alliteration is a common device in almost ...
American rock band whose bluesy, jam-oriented sound helped spark the Southern rock movement of the 1970s and set the stage for several generations of roots-oriented improvisational rock bands. The members were Duane Allman (in full Howard Duane Allman; b. Nov. ...
ancient Celtic tribe living in the northeast of Gallia Narbonensis (i.e., Narbonne Gaul, in the part of southeastern France bounded by the Rhone and Isere rivers) and in the area around Geneva. The Allobroges were first mentioned in history when ...
apportionment of productive assets among different uses. Resource allocation arises as an issue because the resources of a society are in limited supply, whereas human wants are usually unlimited, and because any given resource can have many alternative uses.
land freely held, without obligation of service to any overlord. Allodial land tenure was of particular significance in Europe during the Middle Ages, when most land was held by feudal tenure.
Israeli soldier and politician who was best known as the architect of the Allon Plan, a peace initiative that he formulated after Israel captured Arab territory in the Six-Day War of June 1967.
one of the phonetically distinct variants of a phoneme (q.v.). The occurrence of one allophone rather than another is usually determined by its position in the word (initial, final, medial, etc.) or by its phonetic environment. Speakers of a language ...
drug used in the treatment of gout, a disease that is characterized by severe inflammation in one or more of the joints of the extremities. Allopurinol inhibits an enzyme that is necessary to form uric acid, a substance present in ...
large carnivorous dinosaurs that lived from 150 million to 144 million years ago during the Late Jurassic Period; they are best known from fossils found in the western United States, particularly from the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry in Utah and the Garden ...
in enzymology, inhibition or activation of an enzyme by a small regulatory molecule that interacts at a site (allosteric site) other than the active site (at which catalytic activity occurs). The interaction changes the shape of the enzyme so as ...
the existence of a chemical element in two or more forms, which may differ in the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids or in the occurrence of molecules that contain different numbers of atoms. The existence of different crystalline forms ...
southern suburb of the town of Ayr, South Ayrshire council area, historic county of Ayrshire, Scotland, famous as the birthplace of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns. There is a museum alongside the thatched cottage where he was born in 1759 ...
metallic substance composed of two or more elements, as either a compound or a solution. The components of alloys are ordinarily themselves metals, though carbon, a nonmetal, is an essential constituent of steel.
tropical evergreen tree (Pimenta diocia, formerly P. officinalis) of the myrtle family (Myrtaceae), native to the West Indies and Central America and valued for its berries, the source of a highly aromatic spice. Allspice was so named because the flavour ...
rice planter and governor of South Carolina whose papers, South Carolina Rice Plantation, provide important agricultural, political, and social information about the pre-Civil War South. By scientifically draining and reclaiming swamps in his state, he developed one of the last ...
painter and author, commonly held to be the first important American Romantic painter. Allston is known for his experiments with dramatic subject matter and his use of light and atmospheric colour. Although his production was small, it shaped future American ...
in literature, an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text. Allusion is distinguished from such devices as direct quote and imitation or parody. Most allusions are based on the assumption ...
unconsolidated sedimentary deposit that accumulates at the mouth of a mountain canyon because of a cessation of sediment transport by the issuing stream. The deposits, which are generally fan-shaped in plan view, can develop under a wide range of climatic ...
material deposited by rivers. It is usually most extensively developed in the lower part of the course of a river, forming floodplains and deltas, but may be deposited at any point where the river overflows its banks or where the ...
city, Gratiot county, central Michigan, U.S., on the Pine River, some 50 miles (80 km) north of Lansing. Founded in 1853, it is in the heart of an agricultural area producing beans, corn (maize), and sugar beets. Light industry and ...
city, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, south-central Quebec province, Canada, on Alma Island and both banks of the Saguenay River, an outlet of Lac-Saint-Jean (Lake St. John) 140 miles (230 km) north of Quebec city.
(Sept. 20, 1854), victory by the British and the French in the Crimean War that left the Russian naval base of Sevastopol vulnerable and endangered the entire Russian position in the war.
town, Ciudad Real provincia, in the comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") of Castile-La Mancha, west-central Spain. Almaden is located in one of the world's richest mercury-producing regions.
astronomical manual written about AD 150 by Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria). It served as the basic guide for Islamic and European astronomers until about the beginning of the 17th century. Its original name was Mathematike Syntaxis ("The Mathematical Arrangement"); ...
book or table containing a calendar of the days, weeks, and months of the year; a record of various astronomical phenomena, often with weather predictions and seasonal suggestions for farmers; and miscellaneous other data. An almanac provides data on the ...
either of two semiprecious gemstones: a violet-coloured variety of ruby spinel (q.v.) or iron aluminum garnet, which is most abundant of the garnets. Specimens of the garnet, frequently crystals, contain up to 25 percent grossular or andradite and are commonly ...
dam on the Vega de Belen River, in Albacete province, Castile-La Mancha autonomous community, Spain. It is said to be the oldest masonry gravity dam still in use. Probably built in the 16th century, the slender structure has cut-stone facing ...
city, southeastern Kazakstan. It was formerly the capital of the Kazakh S.S.R. (1929-91) and of independent Kazakstan (1991-97). Almaty lies in the northern foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau at an elevation of 2,300-3,000 feet (700-900 m), where the Bolshaya and ...
Portuguese poet whose work forms a bridge between the literary periods of Arcadia and Romanticism in Portugal; her style leans toward the Romantic, but she favoured such classical forms as the ode and epithet and made many allusions to mythology ...
novelist whose works marked the beginning of a major Brazilian generation of northeastern regional writers. Their fiction presents a largely socioeconomic interpretation of life in Brazil's most impoverished and drought-stricken region and is filled with local colour and appeals for ...
author of what is now considered to have been the first great novel in Brazilian literature, Memorias de um sargento de milicias (anonymously in parts, 1853; as a novel, 1854-55; Memoirs of a Militia Sergeant), his only fictional work. Its ...
gemeente (municipality), Overijssel provincie (province), eastern Netherlands, at the junction of the Overijssel Canal and the Almelo-Nordhorn branch of the Twente Canal; it comprises the former municipalities of Ambt-Almelo, Stad-Almelo, and Vriezenveen.
river of La Habana province, western Cuba, rising at about 740 ft (225 m) in the Alturas (heights) de Bejucal and flowing in a semicircle north and west, then northward across the Cuban coastal plain through the city of Havana ...
tree of the Central American tropical forest canopy whose trunk forks repeatedly, resulting in a graceful, rounded crown. Bunches of flowers are produced at the end of the tree's branches after the onset of the rainy season, so that, within ...
cinematographer and recipient of an Oscar from the U.S. Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences for the best cinematography for his work on Days of Heaven (1978).
provincia in the comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") of Andalusia, southeastern Spain, bordering the Mediterranean. Formed in 1833, it has an area of 3,388 square miles (8,774 square km). Primarily mountainous, it is crossed by ...
port city and capital of Almeria provincia, in the comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") of Andalusia, southern Spain, on the Mediterranean Golfo de Almeria. Known to the Romans as Urci or Portus Magnus and to ...
city, Tatarstan republic, Russia, on the left bank of the Stepnoy (Steppe) Zay River. It was founded in 1950 in connection with the discovery of petroleum in the area. Crude oil is sent from Almetyevsk to refineries at Perm and ...
cabecera (principal built-up area) and partido (political subdivision) of Gran (Greater) Buenos Aires, Argentina, south of the city of Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires province. The partido was founded in 1873 ...
