spice consisting of the dried leaves of Ocimum basilicum, an annual herb of the family Lamiaceae (Labiatae) native to India and Iran. A number of varieties are used in commerce including the small-leaf common basil, the larger leaf Italian basil, ...
Byzantine emperor (976-1025), who extended imperial rule in the Balkans (notably Bulgaria), Mesopotamia, Georgia, and Armenia and increased his domestic authority by attacking the powerful landed interests of the military aristocracy and of the church.
Greek theologian and bishop of Ancyra (now Ankara, Tur.) whose attempt to mediate a controversy in the Eastern Church was rejected by the heretical faction and brought about his exile.
early Church Father who defended the orthodox faith against the heretical Arians. As bishop of Caesarea he wrote several works on monasticism, theology, and canon law. He was declared a saint soon after his death.
Russian impresario who in 1932 became codirector with Rene Blum of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. He lost the celebrated premier danseur Leonide Massine and several other dancers to Blum, who, with a U.S. sponsoring agency (World Art), reorganized ...
a eucharistic service used by Eastern Orthodox and Eastern-rite Catholic churches 10 times during the year: January 1 (the feast of St. Basil), the first five Sundays in Lent, Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday, Christmas Eve, and the Eve of the ...
island and city, southern Philippines, in the Celebes Sea. Basilan island lies 5 miles (8 km) off the southern tip of the Zamboanga Peninsula of Mindanao, across the Basilan Strait. With an area of 495 square miles (1,282 square km), ...
new town, Basildon district, administrative and historic county of Essex, England. Basildon new town was established in 1949. It was one of eight established 20 to 30 miles (32 to 48 km) from central London to help alleviate the city's ...
district, administrative and historic county of Essex, England, about 25 miles (40 km) east of central London. After World War I many Londoners settled in the Billericay area of Essex. The district includes Billericay and Wickford as well as the ...
Neapolitan soldier, public official, poet, and short-story writer whose Lo cunto de li cunti, 50 zestful tales written in Neapolitan, was one of the earliest such collections based on folktales and served as an important source both for the later ...
member of any of several Christian monastic communities of the Byzantine Rite, so named because they claim St. Basil the Great as their spiritual father. (The Basilians is also the name of a Latin-rite congregation founded in France in 1822 ...
(from Greek basilikos, "imperial"), 9th-century Byzantine code of law initiated by the emperor Basil I and completed after the accession of his son Leo VI the Wise.
in the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, a canonical title of honour given to church buildings that are distinguished either by their antiquity or by their role as international centres of worship because of their association with a major ...
region, southern Italy, along the Golfo di Taranto (Gulf of Taranto), consisting of the provinces of Potenza and Matera, with a total area of 3,858 sq mi (9,992 sq km). Bounded by the regions of Puglia (north and east), Calabria ...
scholar and teacher, who founded a school of Gnosticism known as the Basilidians. He probably was a pupil of Menander in Antioch, and he was teaching in Alexandria at the time of the Roman emperors Hadrian and Antonius Pius.
religious leader who, on Jan. 14, 1951, became the first Ethiopian bishop to be consecrated abuna, or primate, of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. From the 4th century the Ethiopian Church was headed by Egyptian abunas appointed by the Alexandrian patriarch ...
(Basiliscus), any of four species of lizards belonging to the family Iguanidae. The name is applied because of a resemblance to the legendary monster called basilisk.
extinct genus of primitive whales of the family Basilosauridae (suborder Archaeoceti) found in Middle and Late Eocene rocks in North America and northern Africa (the Eocene Epoch lasted from 57.8 to 36.6 million years ago). Basilosaurus had primitive dentition and ...
arid physiographic province occupying much of the western and southwestern part of the United States. The region comprises almost all of Nevada, the western half of Utah, southeastern California, and the southern part of Arizona and extends into northwestern Mexico. ...
borough and district, administrative and historic county of Hampshire, England, west-southwest of London. The borough is largely rural but includes the market town of Basingstoke. Its 17th-century cloth industry has been reestablished, and it has a wide range of light ...
city, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India. Basirhat lies just south of the Ichamati (Upper Jamuna) River near the border with Bangladesh. Connected by road and rail with Barasat, it is a major trade depot for the rice, jute, mustard, ...
a step in a march or dance; the lifting and lowering of the foot, or arsis plus thesis. The term may also refer to the two syllables or the first foot in some ancient verse that serve to introduce the ...
(Centaurea americana), annual garden flower of the family Asteraceae, native to southwestern North America. The basket-flower has oblong leaves and rose-coloured, compact heads of disk flowers that appear to be in baskets because the ray flowers around the head are ...
(Aurinia, or Alyssum, saxatile), ornamental perennial plant, of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), with golden-yellow clusters of tiny flowers and gray-green foliage. It is native to sunny areas of central and southern Europe, usually growing in thin, rocky soils. It forms ...
game played between two teams of five players each on a rectangular court, usually indoors. Each team tries to score by tossing the ball through the opponent's goal, an elevated horizontal hoop and net called a basket.
art and craft of making interwoven objects, usually containers, from flexible vegetable fibres, such as twigs, grasses, osiers, bamboo, and rushes, or from plastic or other synthetic materials. The containers made by this method are called baskets.
huge, sluggish shark of the family Cetorhinidae, usually classified as Cetorhinus maximus but possibly separable into more than one distinct species. Named for its habit of floating or slowly swimming at the surface, the basking shark inhabits northern and temperate ...
insurrection against Soviet rule in Central Asia, begun in 1917 and largely suppressed by 1926. An amalgam of Muslim traditionalists and common bandits, the Basmachi were soon widespread over most of Turkistan, much of which was under regimes independent of ...
in Islam, the formula-prayer: bi'sm Allah ar-rahman ar-rahim, "in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate." This invocation, which was first introduced by the Qur'an, appears at the beginning of every Qur'anic surah (chapter) except the ninth (which presents ...
school of Pahari miniature painting that flourished in the Indian hill states during the late 17th and the 18th centuries, known for its bold vitality of colour and line. Though the school takes its name from the small independent state ...
Soviet physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1964, with Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Prokhorov of the Soviet Union and Charles H. Townes of the United States, for basic research in quantum electronics that led to the development of both ...
member of a people who live in both Spain and France in areas bordering the Bay of Biscay and encompassing the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. In the late 20th century probably about 850,000 true Basques lived in Spain ...
cultural region within the departement of Pyrenees-Atlantiques, extreme southwestern France, bordering the western Pyrenees Mountains where they adjoin the Basque provincias of Spain, along the Bay of Biscay. The region extends from the Anie ...
comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") and historic region of northern Spain encompassing the provincias of Alava, Guipuzcoa, and Biscay (Vizcaya) and established by the statute of autonomy of 1979. The capital is Vitoria (Gasteiz).
language isolate, the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before the region was Romanized. The Basque language is currently used in a narrow area of approximately 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 square miles) in Spain and France. The ...
city, southeastern Iraq. It is the principal port of Iraq. Basra is situated on the western bank of the Shatt Al-Arab (the waterway formed by the union of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) at the Shatt's exit from Lake Al-Hammar, ...
in music, the lowest part in a multi-voiced musical texture. In polyphony of the sort that flourished during the Renaissance, the bass formed one of several relatively independent or contrapuntal melodies.
in zoology, any of a large number of fishes, many of them valued for food or sport. The name bass covers a range of fishes, but most are placed in three families of the order Perciformes: Serranidae, including approximately 400 ...
percussion instrument, the largest and deepest-sounding member of the drum family, usually played with a pair of large felt-headed sticks, or beaters. In modern popular-music bands the bass drum is often part of a drum set and is commonly struck ...
channel separating Victoria, Australia, from the island of Tasmania on the south. Its maximum width is 150 miles (240 km), its depth is 180-240 feet (50-70 m). King Island and the Indian Ocean lie at its western extremity, and the ...
