Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Canterbury Plains ... Capa, Robert

Canterbury Plains: lowland area of east-central South Island, New Zealand. The plains cover an area of 150 by 45 miles (240 by 70 km) bordering on the Pacific Ocean. The Rangitata, Rakaia, and Waimakariri are the principal rivers, flowing east from the ...
Canterbury, archbishop of: in the Church of England, the primate of all England and archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, which approximately includes the area of England south of the former counties of Cheshire and Yorkshire. In ...
Canth, Minna: novelist and dramatist, a late 19th-century leader of the revival of the Finnish vernacular and Realist movement.
canticle: (from Latin canticulum, diminutive of canticum, "song"), a scriptural hymn text, used in various Christian liturgies, that is similar to a psalm in form and content but appears apart from the book of Psalms. In the Old Testament there are ...
cantiga: genre of 13th-century Spanish monophonic, or unison, song, often honouring the Virgin Mary. The most famous collection is a manuscript, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, compiled by King Alfonso X the Wise of Castile and Leon in the second half ...
cantilena: in late medieval and early Renaissance music, term for certain vocal forms as they were known in the 15th century; also a musical texture used widely in both secular and sacred compositions of that century. Cantilena style is characterized by ...
cantilever: beam supported at one end and carrying a load at the other end or distributed along the unsupported portion. The upper half of the thickness of such a beam is subjected to tensile stress, tending to elongate the fibres, the ...
cantillation: in music, intoned liturgical recitation of scriptural texts, guided by signs originally devised as textual accents, punctuations, and indications of emphasis. Such signs, termed ecphonetic signs, appear in manuscripts of the 7th-9th century, both Jewish and Christian (Syrian, Byzantine, Armenian, ...
Cantillon, Richard: Irish economist and financier who wrote one of the earliest treatises on modern economics.
Cantinflas: one of the most popular entertainers in the history of Latin-American cinema. An internationally known clown, acrobat, musician, bullfighter, and satirist, he was identified with the comic figure of a poor Mexican slum dweller, a pelado, who wears trousers held ...
canto: major division of an epic or other long narrative poem. An Italian term, derived from the Latin cantus ("song"), it probably originally indicated a portion of a poem that could be sung or chanted by a minstrel at one sitting. ...
canton: political subdivision in France, Switzerland, and other European countries.
Canton: city, seat (1867) of Lincoln county, southeastern South Dakota, U.S. It lies along the Big Sioux River at the Iowa border, about 20 miles (30 km) southeast of Sioux Falls. It was founded in 1866 and was first called Commerce ...
Canton: city, Fulton county, west-central Illinois, U.S. It lies in the Illinois River valley between the Illinois and Spoon rivers, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Peoria. Founded in 1825 by Isaac Swan, a native of New York, it was ...
Canton: town (township), Norfolk county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S., lying just south of Boston along the Neponset River. Settled in 1650, it was known by its Algonquian name, Punkapoag, and was part of Stoughton. Separately incorporated in 1797, it was renamed because ...
Canton: city, seat (1808) of Stark county, northeastern Ohio, U.S. The city lies 60 miles (97 km) south-southeast of Cleveland. It is the focus of a metropolitan area that includes the cities of North Canton, East Canton, and Massillon. Laid out ...
Canton: city, seat (1834) of Madison county, central Mississippi, U.S. The city lies on a low divide between the Pearl and Big Black rivers 20 miles (32 km) north of Jackson. Poultry processing and the manufacture of office furniture are the ...
Canton: city, capital of Kwangtung sheng (province), southeastern China. It lies near the head of the Pearl River Estuary (Chu Chiang K'ou), more than 90 miles (145 kilometres) inland from the South China Sea. Because of its position ...
Canton enamel: Chinese painted enamel, so named for the principal place of its manufacture, Canton. Painted-enamel techniques were originally developed in Limoges, Fr., from about 1470. These techniques were introduced into China in the 18th century, probably by French missionaries. This is ...
Canton system: trading pattern that developed between Chinese and foreign merchants, especially British, in the South China trading city of Canton from the 17th to the 19th century. The major characteristics of the system developed between 1759 and 1842, when all foreign ...
Canton, John: British physicist and teacher.
Cantonese language: variety of Chinese spoken in Kwangtung and southern Kwangsi provinces, including the important cities of Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau. Cantonese preserves more features of Ancient Chinese than do the other major Chinese languages; it retains most of the final ...
cantor: in Judaism and Christianity, an ecclesiastical official in charge of music or chants.
Cantor, Eddie: American comedian and star of vaudeville, burlesque, the legitimate stage, radio, and television.
Cantor, Georg: German mathematician who founded set theory and introduced the mathematically meaningful concept of transfinite numbers, indefinitely large but distinct from one another.
Cantor, Moritz Benedikt: German historian of mathematics, one of the greatest of the 19th century.
Cantu: town, Como provincia, Lombardia (Lombardy) regione, northern Italy, southeast of Como city. The town has miscellaneous industries, principally the manufacture of furniture, lace, and hardware. There is a school of carpentry. Among its several medieval churches San Teodoro has a ...
cantus firmus: preexistent melody, such as a plainchant excerpt, underlying a polyphonic musical composition (one consisting of several independent voices or parts). The 11th- and 12th-century organum added a simple second melody (duplum) to an existing plainchant melody (the vox principalis, or ...
Canute: Danish king of England (1016-35), of Denmark (as Canute II; 1019-35), and of Norway (1028-35), who was a power in the politics of Europe in the 11th century, respected by both emperor and pope.
Canute IV: martyr, patron saint, and king of Denmark from 1080 to 1086.
Canute VI: king of Denmark (coregent, 1170-82; king, 1182-1202), during whose reign Denmark withdrew from the Holy Roman Empire and extended its dominion along the southern Baltic coast to Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and Holstein. Canute's role in the Danish expansion was overshadowed by ...
canvas: stout cloth probably named after cannabis (Latin: "hemp"). Hemp and flax fibre have been used for ages to produce cloth for sails. Certain classes are termed sailcloth or canvas synonymously. After the introduction of the power loom, canvas was made ...
canvasback: (species Aythya valisineria), bay duck, or pochard (q.v.), of the family Anatidae, one of the most popular of game birds. The male canvasback is a relatively large duck, weighing about 1.4 kg (3 pounds). During the breeding season he has ...
Canvey Island: low-lying island on the north shore of the Thames estuary, Castle Point borough, administrative and historic county of Essex, England. It is connected to the mainland by a bridge at South Benfleet. The island's marine defenses were first constructed by ...
Canyon: city, seat (1889) of Randall county, northern Texas, U.S., in the Texas Panhandle, 16 miles (26 km) south of Amarillo, at a point where the Palo Duro and Tierra Blanca creeks meet to form the Prairie Dog Town Fork of ...
Canyon de Chelly National Monument: area of rock formations and archaeological sites in northeastern Arizona, U.S., on the Navajo Indian reservation immediately east of Chinle. The name is a Spanish corruption of tsegi, a Navajo word meaning "rock canyons." The monument, which was established in ...
Canyonlands National Park: desert wilderness of water-eroded sandstone spires, canyons, and mesas, with Archaic Native American petroglyphs, in southeastern Utah, U.S., just southwest of Moab and Arches National Park. Established in 1964, it occupies an area of 527 square miles (1,365 square km) ...
canzona: , 16th-century Italian polyphonic genre as well as an important type of instrumental music in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 18th- and 19th-century music, canzona refers to a lyrical song or songlike instrumental piece.
Canzoneri, Tony: American professional boxer who held world championships in the featherweight, lightweight, and junior-welterweight divisions.
canzonet: form of 16th-century (c. 1565 and later) Italian vocal music. It was the most popular of the lighter secular forms of the period in Italy and England and perhaps in Germany as well. The canzonet follows the canzonetta poetic form; ...
Cao Bang: town in northeastern Vietnam. Cao Bang is an administrative and market centre, located about 16 miles (25 km) south of the Vietnam-China border on the Bang Giang River, which flows through the region in a southeasterly direction. The Tinh Tuc ...
Cao Dai: ("High Tower," a Taoist epithet for the supreme god), syncretist modern Vietnamese religious movement with a strongly nationalist political character. Cao Dai draws upon ethical precepts from Confucianism, occult practices from Taoism, theories of karma and rebirth from Buddhism, and ...
Cao Lanh: city, located about 75 miles (120 km) west and slightly south of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), southwestern Vietnam. Cao Lanh is on the left bank of the Mekong River, on the southern edge of the Dong Thap Muoi ...
Cao Yu: Chinese playwright who was a pioneer in huaju ("word drama"), a genre influenced by Western theatre rather than traditional Chinese drama (which is usually sung).
Cao Zhan: author of Hongloumeng (Dream of the Red Chamber), generally considered China's greatest novel. A partly autobiographical work, it is written in the vernacular and describes in lingering detail the decline of the powerful Jia family and the ill-fated love between ...
Cao Zhi: one of China's greatest lyric poets and the son of the famous general Cao Cao.
Cao, Diogo: Portuguese navigator and explorer.
caoshu: in Chinese calligraphy, a cursive variant of the standard Chinese scripts lishu and kaishu and their semicursive derivative xingshu. The script developed during the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and it ...
Cap-de-la-Madeleine: city, southern Quebec province, southeastern Canada. It is located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, at the mouth of the Saint-Maurice River, opposite Trois-Rivieres city and midway between Quebec and Montreal cities.
Cap-Haitien: city, northern Haiti, and one of the republic's largest cities. Founded in 1670 by the French, the city was then known as Cap-Francais and gained early renown as the "Paris of the Antilles." It served as capital of the colony ...
Capa, Robert: photographer whose images of war made him one of the greatest photojournalists of the 20th century.