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Celaya ... Celtic languages

Celaya: city, south-central Guanajuato estado ("state"), north-central Mexico. It is in the fertile Bajio region on the Mexican Plateau, 2.5 miles (4 km) north of the Laja River and 5,774 feet (1,760 m) above sea level. Founded as Purisima Concepcion de ...
Celaya, Battle of: (April 1915), decisive military engagement in the wars between revolutionary factions following the Mexican Revolution of 1911. One of the bloodiest battles in Mexican history, it was fought at Celaya, Gua najuato state, between the forces of Alvaro Obregon and ...
Celebes: one of the four Greater Sunda Islands, Indonesia. A curiously shaped island with four distinct peninsulas that form three major gulfs-Tomini (the largest) on the northeast, Tolo on the east, and Bone on the south-Celebes has a coastline of 3,404 ...
Celebes crested macaque: a mainly arboreal Indonesian monkey named for the narrow crest of hair that runs along the top of the head from behind the overhanging brow. The Celebes crested macaque is found only in the Minahasa region on the island of ...
Celebes Sea: sea of the western Pacific Ocean, bordered on the north by the Sulu Archipelago and Sea and Mindanao Island, on the east by the Sangi Islands chain, on the south by Celebes (Sulawesi), and on the west by Borneo. It ...
celery: (species Apium graveolens), herb of the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae). Native to the Mediterranean areas and the Middle East, celery was used as a flavouring by the ancient Greeks and Romans and as a medicine by the ancient Chinese. The ancient ...
celery cabbage: (Brassica pekinensis), species of mustard cultivated for its edible leaves. See Chinese cabbage.
celery-top pine: (species Phyllocladus asplenifolius), slow-growing ornamental and timber conifer of the family Podocarpaceae, native to temperate rain forests of Tasmania at elevations from sea level to 750 m (2,500 feet). The tree is shrubby at high elevations but may grow to ...
celesta: orchestral percussion instrument resembling a small upright piano, patented by a Parisian, Auguste Mustel, in 1886. It consists of a series of small metal bars (and hence is a metallophone) with a keyboard and a simplified piano action in which ...
celestial globe: representation of stars and constellations as they are located on the apparent sphere of the sky. Celestial globes are used for some astronomical or astrological calculations or as ornaments.
celestial mechanics: in the broadest sense, the application of classical mechanics to the motion of celestial bodies acted on by any of several types of forces. By far the most important force experienced by these bodies, and much of the time the ...
celestial navigation: use of the observed positions of celestial bodies to determine a navigator's position. At any moment some celestial body is at the zenith of any particular location on the Earth's surface. This location is called the ground position (GP). GP ...
celestial sphere: the apparent surface of the heavens, on which the stars seem to be fixed. For the purpose of establishing coordinate systems to mark the positions of heavenly bodies, it can be considered a real sphere at an infinite distance from ...
Celestina, La: Spanish dialogue novel, generally considered the first masterpiece of Spanish prose and the greatest and most influential work of the early Renaissance in Spain.
Celestine: pope who was elected in December 1124 but resigned a few days later and is not counted in the official list of popes.
Celestine I, Saint: pope from 422 to 432.
Celestine II: pope from 1143 to 1144.
Celestine III: pope from 1191 to 1198.
Celestine IV: pope from October 25 to November 10, 1241.
Celestine V, Saint: pope from July 5 to Dec. 13, 1294, the first pontiff to abdicate. He founded the Celestine order.
celestite: mineral that is a naturally occurring form of strontium sulfate (SrSO₄). It resembles barite, barium sulfate, but is much less common. Barium is interchangeable with strontium in the crystal structure; there is a gradation between celestite and barite. Celestite occurs ...
Celestius: one of the first and probably the most outstanding of the disciples of the British theologian Pelagius (q.v.).
celiac disease: a digestive disorder in which people cannot tolerate gluten, a protein constituent of wheat, barley, malt, and rye flours. The disease is characterized by the passage of foul, pale-coloured stools (steatorrhea), progressive malnutrition, multiple vitamin deficiencies, stunting of growth, abdominal ...
celibacy: the state of being unmarried and, therefore, sexually abstinent, usually in association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its narrow sense, the term is applied only to those for whom the unmarried state is the result ...
Celine, Louis-Ferdinand: French writer and physician. Celine received his medical degree in 1924 and travelled extensively on medical missions for the League of Nations. In 1928 he opened a practice in a suburb of Paris, writing in his spare time. He became ...
cell: in biology, the basic unit of which all living things are composed. As the smallest units retaining the fundamental properties of life, cells are the "atoms" of the living world. A single cell is often a complete organism in itself, ...
cell: in electricity, unit structure used to generate an electrical current by some means other than the motion of a conductor in a magnetic field. A solar cell, for example, consists of a semiconductor junction that converts sunlight directly into electricity. ...
cell culture: the maintenance and growth of the cells of multicellular organisms outside the body in specially designed containers and under precise conditions of temperature, humidity, nutrition, and freedom from contamination. In a broad sense, cells, tissues, and organs that are isolated ...
cell division: the process by which cells reproduce. See meiosis; mitosis.
cella: in Classical architecture, the body of a temple (as distinct from the portico) in which the image of the deity is housed. In early Greek and Roman architecture it was a simple room, usually rectangular, with the entrance at one ...
cellar: room beneath ground level, especially one for storing fruits and vegetables, both raw and canned, on a farm. A typical cellar may be beneath the house or located outdoors, partly underground, with the upper part mounded over with earth to ...
cellarette: small, movable wine cooler and, later, also a deep, metal-lined tray with compartments for holding bottles in a sideboard. The term was first used by 18th-century cabinetmakers. Most movable cellarettes were made of mahogany, and designs were varied, the shape ...
Celle: city, Lower Saxony Land (state), north-central Germany, on the Aller River, at the southern edge of the Luneburger Heide (Heath), northeast of Hannover. The old town, Altencelle, was founded about 1248, and Celle (founded 1292) was the residence (1371-1705) of ...
Cellini's halo: bright white ring surrounding the shadow of the observer's head on a dew-covered lawn with a low solar elevation angle. The low solar angle causes an elongated shadow, so that the shadow of the head is far from the observer, ...
Cellini, Benvenuto: Florentine sculptor, goldsmith, and writer, one of the most important Mannerist artists and, because of the lively account of himself and his period in his autobiography, one of the most picturesque figures of the Renaissance.
cello: bass musical instrument of the violin group, with four strings, pitched C-G-D-A upward from two octaves below middle C. The cello, about 27.5 inches (70 cm) long (47 inches [119 cm] with the neck), has proportionally deeper ribs and a ...
cellophane: regenerated cellulose extruded into thin, flat, transparent sheets. Extrusion through a small hole or spinneret produces a fibre, rayon. Highly impermeable to dry gases, grease, and bacteria, cellophane is used chiefly to package food and other perishables. It is frequently ...
cellular respiration: the process by which organisms combine oxygen with foodstuff molecules, diverting the chemical energy in these substances into life-sustaining processes and discarding, as waste products, carbon dioxide and water. Organisms that do not depend on oxygen degrade foodstuffs in a ...
celluloid: the first synthetic plastic material, developed by the American inventor John Wesley Hyatt in the late 1860s from a homogeneous colloidal dispersion of cellulose nitrate and camphor. A tough material, with great tensile strength, resistance to water, oils, and dilute ...
cellulose: a complex carbohydrate, or polysaccharide, consisting of 3,000 or more glucose units. The basic structural component of plant cell walls, cellulose comprises about 33 percent of all vegetable matter (90 percent of cotton and 50 percent of wood are cellulose) ...
cellulose acetate: man-made textile fibre produced from the plant substance cellulose, which is obtained from soft woods or the short fibres adhering to cotton seeds (linters) and treated with acetic acid and acetic anhydride, and then partially hydrolyzed so that the product, ...
Celosia: genus of about 60 species of herbaceous plants, of the amaranth family (Amaranthaceae), native to tropical America and Africa and characterized by alternate leaves and showy flowers in spikes, which in cultivated forms are often fasciated and form compact or ...
celsian: an uncommon feldspar mineral, barium aluminosilicate (BaAl₂Si₂O₈), that occurs as hard, light-coloured, glassy masses and crystals in association with manganese deposits in contact zones, as at Jakobsberg, Swed.; Tochigi prefecture, Japan; Rhiw, Wales; near the Omuramba Otjosondjou (dry riverbed), Namibia; ...
Celsius temperature scale: scale based on 0° for the freezing point of water and 100° for the boiling point of water. Invented in 1742 by the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius, it is sometimes called the centigrade scale because of the 100-degree interval between ...
Celsius, Anders: astronomer who invented the Celsius temperature scale (often called the centigrade scale).
Celsus, Aulus Cornelius: one of the greatest Roman medical writers, author of an encyclopaedia dealing with agriculture, military art, rhetoric, philosophy, law, and medicine, of which only the medical portion has survived. De medicina, now considered one of the finest medical classics, was ...
Celt: a member of an early Indo-European people who from the 2nd millennium BC to the 1st century BC spread over much of Europe. Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and northern Spain to as far east ...
celt: characteristic New Stone Age tool, a polished stone ax or adz head designed for attachment to a wooden shaft and probably mainly used for felling trees or shaping wood. Great numbers of celts have been discovered in sites in the ...
Celtiberia: an area in present north-central Spain occupied from the 3rd century BC onward by tribes of mixed Iberian and Celtic stock. These Celtiberians inhabited the hill country between the sources of the Tagus (Tajo) and Iberus (Ebro) rivers, including most ...
Celtic Church: the early Christian church in the British Isles, founded in the 2nd or 3rd century. Highly ascetic in character, it contributed to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in the 7th century, but its organization soon gave way to that of ...
Celtic languages: branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken throughout much of Western Europe in Roman and pre-Roman times and currently known chiefly in the British Isles and in the Brittany peninsula of northwestern France. On both geographic and chronological grounds, the ...