Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Barb ... Barcelona chair

Barb: native horse breed of the Barbary states of North Africa. It is related to, and probably an offshoot of, the Arabian horse but is larger, with a lower placed tail, and has hair at the fetlock (above and behind the ...
Barbacena: city, southeastern Minas Gerais estado (state), Brazil. It is situated in the Serra da Mantiquera, at 3,727 feet (1,136 metres) above sea level. The settlement was made the seat of a municipality in 1791 and elevated to ...
Barbados: island nation in the Caribbean, situated about 100 miles (160 kilometres) east of the Windward Islands. Roughly triangular in shape, it measures 21 miles from northwest to southeast and about 14 miles from east to west, with a total area ...
Barbados cherry: common name for various tropical and subtropical trees and shrubs of the genera Bunchiosa and Malpighia (family Malpighiaceae), especially M. glabra, M. punicifolia, and M. urens.
Barbados Ridge: submarine ridge of the Caribbean Sea rising from the southern end of the axis of the Puerto Rico Trench. The Barbados Ridge is paralleled on either side by a shallow trough. Negative gravity anomalies (observed gravity values less than theoretically ...
Barbara, Saint: virgin martyr of the early church and patroness of artillerymen. According to legend, which dates only to the 7th century, she was the daughter of a pagan, Dioscorus, who kept her guarded to protect her beauty from harm. When she ...
Barbari, Jacopo de': Venetian painter and engraver who probably painted the first signed and dated (1504) pure still life (a dead partridge, gauntlets, and arrow pinned against a wall). Until c. 1500 he remained in Venice. A large engraved panorama of the city ...
Barbarossa: Barbary pirate and later admiral of the Ottoman fleet, by whose initiative Algeria and Tunisia became part of the Ottoman Empire. For three centuries after his death, Mediterranean coastal towns and villages were ravaged by his pirate successors.
Barbary: former designation for the coastal region of North Africa bounded by Egypt (east), by the Atlantic (west), by the Sahara (south), and by the Mediterranean Sea (north), and now comprising Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. The name originates from that ...
Barbary macaque: tailless ground-dwelling monkey that lives in groups in the upland forests of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Gibraltar. The Barbary macaque is about 60 cm (24 inches) long and has light yellowish brown fur and a bald pale pink face. Adult ...
Barbary pirate: any of the Muslim pirates operating from the coast of North Africa, at their most powerful during the 17th century but still active until the 19th century. Captains, who formed a class in Algiers and Tunis, commanded cruisers outfitted by ...
barbastelle: either of two bats of the vesper bat family, Vespertilionidae, found in Europe and North Africa (B. barbastellus) and in the Middle East and Asia (B. leucomelas). Barbastelles have short, wide ears that are joined on the forehead. Their fur ...
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia: British writer, poet, and editor whose best writings are on political and social themes. Her poetry belongs essentially in the tradition of 18th-century meditative verse.
Barbe-Marbois, Francois, marquis de: French statesman who in 1803 negotiated the Louisiana Purchase by the United States.
barbecue: an outdoor meal, usually a form of social entertainment, at which meats, fish, or fowl, along with vegetables, are roasted over a wood or charcoal fire. The term also denotes the grill or stone-lined pit for cooking such a meal, ...
barbed wire: fence wire usually consisting of two longitudinal wires twisted together to form cable and having wire barbs wound around either or both of the cable wires at regular intervals. The varieties of barbed wire are numerous, with cables being single ...
Barbeitos, Arlindo: Angolan poet, many of whose works, written in Portuguese, portray in a subtle manner the struggle of his people for independence as well as the essential harmony between man and nature.
barber: a person whose primary activities in the 20th century are trimming and styling the hair of men, shaving them, and shaping their beards, sideburns, and moustaches. Barbers, or hairdressers, often provide shampooing, manicuring, hair dying, permanent waves, and shoe polishing ...
Barber, Red: American baseball broadcaster, who was the homespun radio and television announcer for the Cincinnati Reds (1934-39), Brooklyn Dodgers (1939-53), and New York Yankees (1954-66) professional baseball teams.
Barber, Samuel: composer who is considered one of the most expressive representatives of the lyric and romantic trends in musical composition in the United States.
Barberi, Domenico, Blessed: mystic and Passionist who worked as a missionary in England.
Barberini Family: an aristocratic Roman family, originally of Barberino in the Else valley; they later settled first in Florence and then in Rome, where they became wealthy and powerful.
barberry: any of almost 500 species of thorny evergreen or deciduous shrubs constituting the genus Berberis of the family Berberidaceae, mostly native to the North Temperate Zone, particularly Asia. Species of Oregon grape, previously included in Berberis but now assigned to ...
barbershop quartet singing: form of popular choral music consisting of unaccompanied male singing, with three voices harmonizing to the melody of a fourth voice. The voice parts are tenor, lead, baritone, and bass, with the lead normally singing the melody and the tenor ...
Barberton: city, Summit county, northeastern Ohio, U.S., just south of Akron, on the Tuscarawas River, there dammed to form the Portage Lakes. It was founded in 1891 by Ohio C. Barber as the new site of his match factory (later the ...
barbet: any of about 75 species of tropical birds constituting the family Capitonidae (order Piciformes). Barbets are named for the bristles at the bases of their stout, sharp bills. They are big-headed, short-tailed birds, 9-30 cm (3.5-12 inches) long, greenish or ...
Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules-Amedee: French novelist and influential critic; he was an arbiter, in his day, of social fashion and literary taste. A member of the minor nobility of Normandy, he remained throughout his life proudly Norman in spirit and style, a royalist opposed ...
Barbeya: genus of dicotyledonous flowering tree, the sole species of which is B. oleoides. It grows in Ethiopia and Somalia and on the Arabian Peninsula. Barbeya has the general aspect of the olive tree but many botanical characteristics of the elm. ...
Barbican: area in the City of London containing residential towers and Barbican Centre, a complex of theatres, halls, and cultural facilities. The London Symphony Orchestra is resident in the arts complex, which is also the London home of the Royal Shakespeare ...
Barbie: an 11-inch- (29-cm-) tall plastic doll with the figure of an adult woman that was introduced in 1959 by Mattel, Inc., a southern California toy company. Ruth Handler, who cofounded Mattel with her husband, Elliot, spearheaded the introduction of the ...
Barbie, Klaus: Nazi leader, head of the Gestapo in Lyon from 1942 to 1944, who was held responsible for the death of some 4,000 persons and the deportation of some 7,500 others.
Barbier, Antoine-Alexandre: French librarian and bibliographer who compiled a standard reference directory of anonymous writings and who helped in preserving scholarly books and manuscripts during and after the French Revolution.
Barbirolli, Sir John: English conductor and cellist.
barbiturate: any of a class of organic compounds used in medicine as sedatives (to produce a calming effect), as hypnotics (to produce sleep), or as an adjunct in anesthesia. The barbiturates are derivatives of barbituric acid (malonyl urea), which is formed ...
barbituric acid: an organic compound of the pyrimidine family, a class of compounds with a characteristic six-membered ring structure composed of four carbon atoms and two nitrogen atoms, that is regarded as the parent compound of the barbiturate drugs. It is used ...
Barbizon school: mid-19th-century French school of painting, part of a larger European movement toward naturalism in art, that made a significant contribution to the establishment of Realism in French landscape painting. Inspired by the Romantic movement's search for solace in nature, the ...
Barbon, Nicholas: English economist, widely considered the founder of fire insurance.
Barbon, Praise-God: English sectarian preacher from whom the Cromwellian Barebones Parliament derived its nickname.
barbooth: dice game of Middle Eastern origin, used for gambling; in the United States it is played chiefly by persons of Greek or Jewish ancestry. The shooter casts two dice (traditionally miniature dice). If he throws 3-3, 5-5, 6-6, or 6-5, ...
Barbosa, Jorge: African poet who expressed in Portuguese the cultural isolation and the tragic nature of life on the drought-stricken Cape Verdean islands. In delicately phrased verse that became a model for later poets, he often praised the stoic endurance of a ...
Barbotine ware: pottery decorated with a clay slip applied by means of a technique first employed on Rhenish pottery prior to the 3rd century AD. The slip was applied by piping, in the same way icing is applied to cakes. It was ...
Barbour, John: author of a Scottish national epic known as The Bruce, the first major work of Scottish literature.
Barbour, Philip P: associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1836-41) and political figure known for his advocacy of states' rights and strict construction of the U.S. Constitution.
Barbourville: city, seat of Knox county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S. It lies on the Cumberland River, in the Cumberland Mountains, and is a gateway to Daniel Boone National Forest. It was founded in 1800 and named for James Barbour, who donated land ...
Barbusse, Henri: novelist, author of Le Feu (1916; Under Fire, 1917), a firsthand witness of the life of French soldiers in World War I. Barbusse belongs to an important lineage of French war writers who span the period 1910 to 1939, mingling ...
barcarole: (from Italian barcarola, "boatman," or "gondolier"), originally a Venetian gondolier's song typified by gently rocking rhythms in 68 or 128 time. In the 18th and 19th centuries the barcarole inspired a considerable number of vocal and instrumental compositions, ranging from ...
Barcelo, Gertrudis: Mexican-born businesswoman who built her fortune through casinos and trade ventures in the early American Southwest.
Barcelona: city, seaport, and capital of Barcelona province and of the Catalonia autonomous community of Spain. Located in the northeastern part of the country, 90 miles (150 km) south of the French border, it is Spain's major Mediterranean port and commercial ...
Barcelona: province, in the autonomous community (region) of Catalonia, northeastern Spain, formed in 1833 from a number of districts stretching between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean coast. Its area is 2,986 sq mi (7,733 sq km). The province follows the axis ...
Barcelona: city, capital of Anzoategui estado ("state"), northeastern Venezuela. On the west bank of the Neveri River, 3 miles (5 km) inland from the Caribbean Sea and about 200 miles (320 km) east of Caracas, it lies in the Barcelona Gap, ...
Barcelona chair: one of the finest and most elegant chairs of the 20th century. It was designed by Mies van der Rohe for the German Pavilion, which he also designed, at the International Exposition in Barcelona in 1929.