Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Cayman Islands ... Celastrales

Cayman Islands: British colony in the Caribbean Sea, comprising the islands of Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac, situated about 180 miles (290 kilometres) northwest of Jamaica. The islands are the outcroppings of a submarine mountain range that extends northeastward from ...
Cayman Trench: submarine trench on the floor of the western Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. It extends from the Windward Passage at the southeastern tip of Cuba toward Guatemala. The relatively narrow trough trends east-northeast to west-southwest and has ...
Cayrol, Jean: French poet, novelist, and essayist, who stood at the frontiers of the New Novel (nouveau roman), the avant-garde French novel that emerged in the 1950s.
Cayuga: county, central New York state, U.S., bounded by Lake Ontario to the north and Cayuga Lake to the southwest. It consists of a region of rolling hills in the Finger Lakes area of the state. Other lakes include Owasco, Duck, ...
Cayuga: Iroquoian-speaking North American Indians, members of the Iroquois Confederacy, who originally inhabited the region bordering Cayuga Lake in what is now central New York state. (See also Iroquois.) Cayuga men hunted the abundant game, waterfowl, and fish of the region, ...
Cayugan Series: last of the three major divisions of Silurian rocks and time (the Silurian Period lasted from 438 to 408 million years ago). It was named for exposures studied in the region about Cayuga Lake, New York. During Cayugan time, marine ...
cayuse: North American wild or Indian-tamed horse, descended from horses taken to the New World by the Spanish in the 16th century. The name comes from that of an Indian tribe of eastern Washington and Oregon that was known for the ...
CBS Corporation: major American broadcasting company and operator of the CBS national radio and television networks. The company was incorporated in 1927 as United Independent Broadcasters, Inc. Its name was changed a year later to Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., and in 1974 ...
CD: abbreviation of Cordoba Durchmusterung (q.v.), an astronomical catalog.
CD-ROM: type of computer memory in the form of a compact disc that is read by optical means. A CD-ROM drive uses a low-power laser beam to read digitized (binary) data that has been encoded in the form of tiny pits ...
Ceanannus Mor: market town and urban district of County Meath, Ireland, on the River Blackwater. The town was originally a royal residence. In the 6th century it was granted to St. Columba and became a centre of learning. A bishopric was founded ...
Ceanothus: genus of North American shrubs, of the buckthorn family (Rhamnaceae), comprising about 55 species. The leaves are alternate or opposite. The very small blue or white flowers are borne in profuse, erect clusters.
Ceara: estado ("state") of northeastern Brazil. It is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by the Atlantic and the states of Rio Grande do Norte and Paraiba, on the south by the state of Pernambuco, and ...
cease-fire: a total cessation of armed hostilities, regulated by the same general principles as those governing armistice. In contemporary diplomatic usage the term implies that the belligerents are too far apart in their negotiating positions to permit the conclusion of a ...
Ceausescu, Nicolae: Communist official who was leader of Romania from 1965 until he was overthrown and killed in a revolution in 1989.
Ceawlin: king of the West Saxons, or Wessex, from 560 to 592, who drove the Britons from most of southern England and carved out a kingdom in the southern Midlands.
Cebu: island, central Philippines. It is the centre of Visayan-Cebuano culture and has preserved a strong Spanish tradition in its cultural life. Attracted by the island's focal position, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan landed there and converted the ruler and chiefs ...
Cebu City: city, Cebu Island, south-central Philippines. Located on Cebu Island's eastern coast, it is protected by offshore Mactan Island and by the inland Cordillera Central. It is one of the nation's largest cities and a bustling port. Its harbour is provided ...
Cebuano: the second largest cultural-linguistic group in the Philippines, numbering about 17,010,000 in the late 20th century. They speak an Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language and are sometimes grouped with the Hiligaynon and Samaran under the generic name of Visayan (Bisayan) peoples. The ...
Cebuano language: member of the Western, or Indonesian, branch of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family. It was spoken in the late 20th century by as many as 14,600,000 persons in the Philippines (speakers are spread over eastern Negros, Cebu, Bohol, western Leyte, ...
Cecchetti, Enrico: Italian ballet dancer and teacher noted for his method of instruction and for his part in training many distinguished artists.
Cecchi, Emilio: Italian essayist and critic noted for his writing style and for introducing Italian readers to valuable English and American writers.
Cech, Thomas Robert: American biochemist and molecular biologist who, with Sidney Altman, was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discoveries concerning RNA (ribonucleic acid).
Cecil: county, northeastern Maryland, U.S., lying at the head of Chesapeake Bay and bounded by Pennsylvania to the north, Delaware to the east, the Sassafras River to the south, and the Susquehanna River to the west. The county is drained by ...
Cecil Family: one of England's most famous and politically influential families, represented by two branches, holding respectively the marquessates of Exeter and Salisbury, both descended from William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth I's lord treasurer. Burghley's elder son, Thomas, was created Earl of ...
Cecil, Lord David: English biographer, literary critic, and educator, best known for his discerning, sympathetic, and elegantly written studies of many literary figures.
Cecil, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount: British statesman and winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1937. He was one of the principal draftsmen of the League of Nations Covenant in 1919 and one of the most loyal workers for the League until its supersession ...
Cecil, William, 1st Baron Burghley: principal adviser to England's Queen Elizabeth I through most of her reign. Cecil was a master of Renaissance statecraft, whose talents as a diplomat, politician, and administrator won him high office and a peerage.
Cecilia, Saint: patroness of music, one of the most famous Roman martyrs of the early church, and historically one of the most discussed. According to a late 5th-century legend, she was a noble Roman who had vowed her virginity to God as ...
cecropia: several species of tropical tree of the family Cecropiaceae common to the understory layer of disturbed forest habitats of Central and South America. It is easily recognized by its thin, white-ringed trunk and umbrella-like arrangement of large leaves at the ...
Cecrops: traditionally the first king of Attica in ancient Greece. He was said to have instituted the laws of marriage and property and a new form of worship. The introduction of bloodless sacrifice, the burial of the dead, and the invention ...
cecum: pouch or large tubelike structure in the lower abdominal cavity that receives undigested food material from the small intestine and is considered the first region of the large intestine. It is separated from the ileum (the final portion of the ...
cedar: any of four species of ornamental and timber evergreen conifers of the genus Cedrus (family Pinaceae), three native to mountainous areas of the Mediterranean region and one to the western Himalayas. Many other coniferous trees known as "cedars" resemble true ...
Cedar Breaks National Monument: a vast natural amphitheatre, with a diameter of more than 3 miles (5 km), eroded in a limestone escarpment (Pink Cliffs) 2,000 feet (600 metres) thick in southwestern Utah, U.S., 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Cedar City. Once a ...
Cedar City: city, Iron county, southwestern Utah, U.S., on the scarp of the Hurricane Fault, 5,800 feet (1,768 metres) above sea level. Founded in 1851, following the discovery of iron ore, it was named for the abundance of juniper trees (called cedar ...
Cedar Falls: city, Black Hawk county, east-central Iowa, U.S., on the Cedar River, just west of Waterloo. Settled in 1845 by William Sturgis and laid out in 1852, it was first called Sturgis Falls until 1849 when it was renamed for the ...
Cedar Rapids: city, seat (1919) of Linn county, east-central Iowa, U.S. It lies astride the Cedar River adjacent to the cities of Marion (northeast) and Hiawatha (north), about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Iowa City. The east bank, settled in the ...
Cedar River: nonnavigable stream in the north-central United States, flowing from southeastern Minnesota southeasterly across Iowa and joining the Iowa River about 20 miles (32 km) from the Mississippi River. Over the river's 329-mile (529-kilometre) course, it descends 740 feet (226 m). ...
cedar-apple rust: common disease in North America of red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), related Juniperus species, apple, and crab apple, caused by the fungus Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae. Both hosts, the junipers and the apples, are required for completion of the rust life cycle. Greenish-brown ...
Ceduna: town and port, west-central South Australia. It lies on Denial Bay along the Great Australian Bight, 340 miles (550 km) northwest of Adelaide. It was founded in 1896. Its name is of Aboriginal derivation and means "resting place," referring to ...
Cefalu: town and episcopal see, Palermo provincia, northern Sicily, Italy. It lies at the foot of a 1,233-foot (376-metre) promontory along the Tyrrhenian Sea, east of Palermo city. It originated as the ancient Cephalaedium, which was probably founded as an outpost ...
Ceglie Messapico: town, Brindisi provincia, Puglia (Apulia) regione, southern Italy, northeast of Taranto. It is an agricultural-trading centre and has a medieval castle with cylindrical towers. In the surrounding area are numerous trulli (one-room houses built from local limestone, without the use ...
ceiling: the overhead surface or surfaces covering a room, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are often used to hide floor and roof construction. They have been favourite places for decoration from the earliest times: either by ...
ceilometer: device for measuring the height of cloud bases. One important use of the ceilometer is to determine cloud ceilings at airports. The device works day or night by shining an intense beam of light (often ultraviolet), modulated at an audio ...
Cela, Camilo Jose: Spanish writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989. He is perhaps best known for his novel La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942; The Family of Pascual Duarte) and is considered to ...
celadon: Chinese, Korean, Siamese, and Japanese stoneware decorated with green glazes. To create this ware, artisans apply a wash of slip (liquefied clay), which contains a high proportion of iron, to the body of the stoneware before glazing. The iron interacts ...
Celaenae: ancient fortress city of Phrygia (in present Turkey), the starting point of the march of the "Ten Thousand" under Cyrus (401 BC) against Artaxerxes (recounted in Xenophon's Anabasis). In 333 Celaenae was conquered by Alexander the Great. The city was ...
Celan, Paul: poet who, though he never lived in Germany, gave its post-World War II literature one of its most powerful and regenerative voices. His poetry was influenced stylistically by French Surrealism, and its subject matter by his grief as a Jew.
celandine: any of several distinct flowering plants of similar appearance. The celandine proper, or greater celandine (Chelidonium majus), once a valued plant of the Old World herbalist, is now grown somewhat in wild gardens. A member of the poppy family (Papaveraceae), ...
Celastraceae: the staff-tree family, in the order Celastrales, comprising about 55 genera of woody vines, shrubs, and trees, native in tropical and temperate zones but best known for ornamental forms of the genera Euonymus and Celastrus (bittersweet). Fruit of the family ...
Celastrales: order of flowering plants, belonging to the class Magnoliopsida, or the dicotyledons (q.v.; characterized by two seed leaves). Its members are chiefly trees belonging to 12 families, 147 genera, and about 2,000 species. Four of the families-the Aquifoliaceae (holly), Celastraceae ...