Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Decatur, Stephen ... Deer, The Book of

Decatur, Stephen: U.S. naval officer who held important commands in the War of 1812. Replying to a toast after returning from successful engagements abroad (1815), he replied with the famous words: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always ...
decay constant: proportionality between the size of a population of radioactive atoms and the rate at which the population decays, as expressed in the equation dN/dt = -lambdaN, in which dN is the decrement of the population, dt is the time increment, ...
Decazes, Elie, Duke, Duke Af Glucksberg: French political figure and leader of the moderate constitutional monarchists during the Bourbon Restoration.
Deccan: the entire southern peninsula of India south of the Narmada River, marked centrally by a high triangular tableland. The name derives from the Sanskrit daksina ("south"). The plateau is bounded on the east and west by the Ghats (q.v.), escarpments ...
Deccani painting: style of miniature painting that flourished from the late 16th century among the Deccani sultanates in peninsular India. The style is a sensitive, highly integrated blend of indigenous and foreign art forms. The elongated figures are seemingly related to Vijayanagar ...
Decebalus: king of the Dacians, a people who lived in the territory known presently as Romania.
deceleration injury: impact injury to a body within or upon a rapidly moving object caused by the forces exerted when the object is brought to a sudden halt. Deceleration injury can occur in high-speed vehicles when they stop or slow down abruptly ...
December: 12th month of the Gregorian calendar. Its name is derived from decem, Latin for "ten," indicating its position in the early Roman calendar. See month and the accompanying Table.
Decembrist: any of the Russian revolutionaries who led an unsuccessful uprising on Dec. 14 (Dec. 26, New Style), 1825, and through their martyrdom provided a source of inspiration to succeeding generations of Russian dissidents. The Decembrists were primarily members of the ...
decemviri: (Latin: "ten men"), in ancient Rome, any official commission of 10. The designation is most often used in reference to decemviri legibus scribundis, a temporary legislative commission that supplanted the regular magistracy from 451 to 449 BC. It was directed ...
Deception Bay: bay and resort town, southeastern Queensland, Australia. In 1823 the explorer John Oxley named the local stream the Deception River (now called the Caboolture River), because of the numerous shoals at its mouth. The river gave its name to the ...
Deception Island: one of the South Shetland Islands, in the Drake Passage, off the Antarctic Peninsula. It is a sunken volcano, the crater of which, about 10 miles (16 km) in diameter, forms one of the best anchorages in the Antarctic. The ...
Dechelette, Joseph: French archaeologist and author of an important work covering the entire field of the prehistory of France, Le Manuel d'archeologie prehistorique, celtique et gallo-romaine (1908-14; "Textbook of Prehistoric, Celtic, and Gallo-Roman Archaeology").
decibel: (dB), unit for expressing the ratio between two amounts of electric or acoustic power or for measuring the relative loudness of sounds. One decibel (0.1 bel) equals 10 times the common logarithm of the power ratio-i.e., doubling the intensity of ...
deciduous forest: vegetation composed primarily of broad-leaved trees that shed all their leaves during one season. Deciduous forest is found in three middle-latitude regions with a temperate climate characterized by a winter season and year-round precipitation: eastern North America, western Eurasia, and ...
decimal number system: in mathematics, positional numeral system employing 10 as the base and requiring 10 different numerals, the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It also requires a dot (decimal point) to represent decimal fractions. In this ...
Decin: city, Severocesky kraj (region), Czech Republic, in the gorge of the Elbe (Labe) River and near the German border. Dominated by its 18th-century castle on a 165-foot (50-metre) crag, it is the economic and cultural centre of a scenic tourist ...
decision problem: for a class of questions in mathematics and formal logic, the problem of finding, after choosing any question of the class, an algorithm or repetitive procedure that will yield a definite answer, "yes" or "no," to that question. The method ...
decision theory: in statistics, a set of quantitative methods for reaching optimal decisions. A solvable decision problem must be capable of being tightly formulated in terms of initial conditions and choices or courses of action, with their consequences. In general, such consequences ...
Decius, Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus: Roman emperor (249-251) who fought the Gothic invasion of Moesia and instituted the first organized persecution of Christians throughout the empire.
deck tennis: game for two or four players, designed for the limited space aboard ship and also played as a garden game. It combines lawn tennis and quoits. A rubber ring, or quoit, is thrown across a net. It must be caught ...
Decken, Karl Klaus von der: German explorer in eastern Africa and the first European to attempt to scale Mount Kilimanjaro.
Declaration of Independence: in U.S. history, document that was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and that announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. It explained why the Congress on July 2 "unanimously" by the ...
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: one of the basic charters of human liberties, containing the principles that inspired the French Revolution. Its 17 articles, adopted between August 20 and August 26, 1789, by France's National Assembly, served as the preamble to the Constitution of 1791. ...
Declaratory Act: (1766), declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in ...
declaratory judgment: in law, a judicial judgment intended to fix or elucidate litigants' rights that were previously uncertain or doubtful. A declaratory judgment is binding but is distinguished from other judgments or court opinions in that it lacks an executory process. It ...
declination: in astronomy, the angular distance of a body north or south of the celestial equator. Declination and right ascension, an east-west coordinate, together define the position of an object in the sky. North declination is considered positive and south, negative. ...
decompression sickness: physiological effects of the formation of gas bubbles in the body because of rapid transition from a high-pressure environment to one of lower pressure. Pilots of unpressurized aircraft, underwater divers, and caisson workers are highly susceptible to the sickness because ...
decongestant: any drug used to relieve swelling of the nasal mucosa accompanying such conditions as the common cold and hay fever. When administered in nasal sprays or drops or in devices for inhalation, decongestants shrink the mucous membranes lining the nasal ...
deconstruction: form of philosophical and literary analysis, derived mainly from work begun in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, that questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or "oppositions," in Western philosophy through a close examination of the language and logic ...
decor bois: (French: "wood decoration"), in decorative arts, trompe l'oeil decoration of porcelain and faience to simulate grained and knotted wood with the likeness of an engraving "nailed" to it. This device appeared in the mid-18th century on cups, plates, and jars ...
decorative art: any of those arts that are concerned chiefly with the design and decoration of objects that are chiefly prized for their utility, rather than for their purely aesthetic qualities. Ceramics, glassware, basketry, jewelry, metalware, furniture, textiles, clothing, and other such ...
decorum: in literary style, the appropriate rendering of a character, action, speech, or scene. The concept of literary propriety, in its simplest stage of development, was outlined by Aristotle. In later classical criticism, the Roman poet Horace maintained that to retain ...
decoupage: (French: "cutting out"), the art of cutting and pasting cutouts to simulate painting on a wood, metal, or glass surface. There are many variations in technique, but the four basic steps of decoupage generally are cutting out the pictures, arranging ...
Decoux, Jean: governor-general of French Indochina for the provisional (Vichy) French government during World War II (1940-45). His reforms, which were designed to undermine Japanese influence in the area, unwittingly helped lay the groundwork for Vietnamese nationalist resistance to French rule after ...
decretal: a reply in writing by the pope to a particular question of church discipline that has been referred to him. In modern usage, such a document is referred to as a rescript (reply). Decretals issued in response to particular questions ...
Decroly, Ovide: Belgian pioneer in the education of children, including those with physical disabilities. Through his work as a physician, Decroly became involved in a school for disabled children and consequently became interested in education. One outcome of this interest was his ...
decurio: in ancient Rome, the head of a group of 10. The title had two applications, one civil, the other military. In the first usage decurio was applied to a member of the local council or senate of a colonia (a ...
Dedekind, Richard: German mathematician who developed a major redefinition of irrational numbers in terms of arithmetic concepts. Although not fully recognized in his lifetime, his treatment of the ideas of the infinite and of what constitutes a real number continues to influence ...
Dedham: town (township), Norfolk county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S., on the Charles River, just southwest of Boston. One of the oldest inland settlements of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it was founded in 1635 and named for Dedham, Essex, England, and incorporated in ...
deduction: in logic, a rigorous proof, or derivation, of one statement (the conclusion) from one or more statements (the premises)-i.e., a chain of statements, each of which is either a premise or a consequence of a statement occurring earlier in the ...
Dedza: town, central Malawi, at the foot of Dedza Mountain (7,211 feet [2,198 m]). Situated in an area with a cool, healthy climate and a perennial supply of mountain water, the town is near the Mozambique border, on the traditional route ...
Dee, John: English mathematician, natural philosopher, and student of the occult.
Dee, River: river in northern Wales and England, approximately 70 miles (110 km) long. It rises in the county of Gwynedd on the slopes of Dduallt, in Snowdonia National Park, and falls rapidly to Bala Lake. Its valley then runs northeast to ...
Dee, River: river in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, rising at an elevation above 4,000 feet (1,250 metres) in the Cairngorm Mountains and flowing for about 90 miles (145 km) east to the North Sea at Aberdeen. Its headwaters flow turbulently in highland glens set ...
deep-scattering layer: horizontal zone of living organisms, usually schools of fish, occurring below the surface in many ocean areas, so called because the layer scatters or reflects sound waves, causing echoes in depth sounders. Originally mistaken by some for the ocean bottom, ...
deep-sea fish: in general, any species of fishes (class Osteichthyes) that are found at extreme ocean depths, usually more than 600 m and even to as much as 2,700 m (2,000 to 9,000 feet). The species, which represent more than a dozen ...
deep-sea trench: any long, narrow, steep-sided depression in the ocean bottom in which maximum oceanic depths (approximately 7,300 to more than 11,000 m [24,000 to 36,000 feet]) occur. The deepest known depression of this kind is the Mariana Trench, which lies east ...
deer: (family Cervidae), any of the ruminant mammals (order Artiodactyla) having two large and two small hooves on each foot and having antlers in the males of most species and in the females of some species. Indeed, the feature most commonly ...
deer mouse: any of 53 species of small rodents found in a variety of habitats from Alaska and northern Canada southward to western Panama. They have bulging eyes and large ears, weigh from 15 to 110 grams (0.5 to 3.9 ounces), and ...
Deer, The Book of: illuminated manuscript written in Latin, probably in the 9th century, at a monastery founded by St. Columba at Deer Abbey (now in Aberdeenshire, Scotland) and containing 12th-century additions in Latin and an early form of Scottish Gaelic. The Book of ...