Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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delusion ... demotic script

delusion: in psychology, a rigid system of beliefs with which a person is preoccupied and to which the person firmly holds, despite the logical absurdity of the beliefs and a lack of supporting evidence. Delusions are symptomatic of such mental disorders ...
Delvaux, Paul: Belgian Surrealist painter and printmaker whose canvases typically portray transfixed nudes and skeletons in mysterious settings.
Delvigne, Henri-Gustave: French army officer and inventor who designed innovative rifles and helped introduce the cylindrical bullet.
dema deity: any of several mythical ancestral beings of the Marind-Anim of southern New Guinea, the centre of a body of mythology called the dema deity complex. The decisive act in dema myths is the slaying of a dema (ancestral) deity by ...
Demades: Athenian orator and diplomat who rose from humble origins to a leading place in politics through his vigorous speeches and shrewd ability to fathom popular opinion. Demades opposed Demosthenes' attempt to arouse the Athenians against Philip II of Macedonia, but ...
demand curve: in economics, a graphic representation of the relationship between product price and the quantity of the product demanded. It is drawn with price on the vertical axis of the graph and quantity demanded on the horizontal axis. With few exceptions, ...
Demaratus: king of Sparta, together with Cleomenes I, who frustrated Cleomenes' designs on both Athens and Aegina. He was consequently dethroned by Cleomenes on a false charge of illegitimacy, upon which he fled to Persia and was given some small cities ...
Demavend, Mount: extinct volcanic peak of the Elburz Mountains, Iran, about 42 miles (68 km) northeast of Tehran. Estimates of its height vary from about 18,400 feet (5,600 m) to more than 19,000 feet (5,800 m), and it dominates the surrounding ranges ...
deme: in ancient Greece, country district or village, as distinct from a polis, or city-state. Demos also meant the common people (like the Latin plebs). In Cleisthenes' democratic reform at Athens (508/507 BC), the demes of Attica (the area around Athens) ...
dementia: chronic, usually progressive deterioration of intellectual capacity associated with the widespread loss of nerve cells and the shrinkage of brain tissue. Dementia is most commonly seen in the elderly (senile dementia), though it is not part of the normal aging ...
Demerara River: river in eastern Guyana that rises in the forests of central Guyana and flows northward without important tributaries for 215 miles (346 km) to the Atlantic Ocean at Georgetown. Its narrow estuary and rapid flow keep clear a direct channel ...
demesne: in English feudal law, that portion of a manor not granted to freehold tenants but either retained by the lord for his own use and occupation or occupied by his villeins or leasehold tenants. When villein tenure developed into the ...
Demeter: in Greek religion, daughter of the deities Cronus and Rhea, sister and consort of Zeus (the king of the gods), and goddess of agriculture. Her name may mean either "grain mother" or "mother earth."
Demetrios Of Alopeka: Greek sculptor, said by ancient critics to have been notable for the lifelike realism of his statues. His style was contrasted with that of Cresilas, an idealizing sculptor of the generation before. Demetrios mainly produced portrait statues, and his portrait ...
Demetrius: king of Bactria who was the son and successor of Euthydemus. The historical evidence for Demetrius' reign is slight and open to varying interpretations. According to some scholars, he ruled from about 190 to about 167, when he was killed ...
Demetrius Chalcondyles: Renaissance teacher of Greek and of Platonic philosophy.
Demetrius I Poliorcetes: king of Macedonia from 294 to 288 BC.
Demetrius I Soter: king of Syria from 162 to 150 BC. He was one of the line of rulers of the Seleucid dynasty, founded in 312 by a Macedonian successor of Alexander the Great.
Demetrius II: king of Macedonia from 239 to 229 BC.
Demetrius II Nicator: king of Syria from 145 to 139 and from 129 to 125 BC.
Demetrius Of Phaleron: Athenian orator, statesman, and philosopher who was appointed governor of Athens by the Macedonian general Cassander (317 BC). He favoured the upper classes and gave effect to the ideas of such earlier political theorists as Aristotle. When the old democracy ...
Demetz, Frederic-Auguste: French jurist and early advocate of the cottage reformatory for juvenile offenders, which anticipated the English system of Borstal reformatories established in the 20th century.
Demidov Family: Russian family that acquired great wealth in the 18th century, largely through iron production and mining, and became patrons of the arts and sciences.
DeMille, Cecil B.: American motion-picture producer-director, whose use of spectacle attracted vast audiences and made him a dominant figure in Hollywood for almost five decades.
Deming: city, seat (1901) of Luna county, southwestern New Mexico, U.S., about 55 miles (89 km) west of Las Cruces. The city is located in the broad valley of the Mimbres River (there flowing underground) and is surrounded by mountains. Deming ...
Deming, W. Edwards: American statistician, educator, and consultant whose advocacy of quality-control methods in industrial production aided Japan's economic recovery after World War II and its subsequent rise to global supremacy in many industries in the late 20th century.
Demirel, Suleyman: politician and civil engineer who served seven times as prime minister of Turkey and was president from 1993 to 2000.
Demiurge: in philosophy, a subordinate god who fashions and arranges the physical world to make it conform to a rational and eternal ideal. Plato adapted the term, which in ancient Greece had originally been the ordinary word for "craftsman," or "artisan" ...
democracy: literally, rule by the people. The term is derived from the Greek demokratia, which was coined from demos ("people") and kratos ("rule") in the middle of the 5th century BC to ...
Democratic Action: social-democratic political party of Venezuela.
Democratic Centralist: in the history of the Soviet Union, member of an opposition group within the Communist Party that objected to the growing centralization of power in party and government organs.
Democratic Constitutional Rally: Tunisian political party that led the movement for independence from France (1956) and ruled Tunisia thereafter.
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine: one of several organizations associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); it engaged in acts of terrorism in the 1970s and '80s and originally maintained a Marxist-Leninist orientation, believing the peasants and the working classes should be educated in socialism ...
Democratic Left: short-lived socialist party, organized in both Northern Ireland and the Irish republic, that broke away from the Workers' Party in 1992 and went on to serve in the government of the Irish republic between 1994 and 1997. In 1999 the ...
Democratic Party: South African political party established in 1989 by the merger of the Progressive Federal Party with two smaller liberal parties, the National Democratic Movement and the Independent Party. The Democratic Party supported full voting and other civil rights for South ...
Democratic Party: in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Republican Party. Historically, the Democratic Party has supported organized labour, ethnic minorities, and progressive reform. It tends to favour greater government intervention in the economy ...
Democratic Progressive Party: political party in the Republic of China (ROC; Taiwan). It was formed in September 1986 by those who initially sought self-determination for the Taiwanese people, democratic freedoms, the establishment of economic ties with the People's Republic of China, and a ...
Democratic Socialist Party: former Japanese political party that was formed in 1960 by moderate socialists who had broken away from the Japan Socialist Party the year before because of its alleged Marxist dogmatism and its definition of itself as a "class" party. The ...
Democratic Unionist Party: Unionist party in Northern Ireland, cofounded and led by Ian Paisley. It traditionally competes for votes among Northern Ireland's Unionist Protestant community with the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP).
Democratic-Republican Party: first opposition political party in the United States. Organized in 1792 as the Republican Party, its members held power nationally between 1801 and 1825. It was the direct antecedent of the present Democratic Party.
Democrats of the Left: Italian political party and historically western Europe's largest communist party.
Democritus: Greek philosopher, a central figure in the development of the atomic theory of the universe.
demography: statistical study of human populations, especially with reference to size and density, distribution, and vital statistics (births, marriages, deaths, etc.). Contemporary demographic concerns include the "population explosion," the interplay between population and economic development, the effects of birth control, urban ...
Demolder, Eugene: Belgian novelist, short-story writer, and art critic who was a member of the Jeune Belgique ("Young Belgium") literary renaissance of the late 19th century.
Demophoon: in Greek mythology, the son of Celeus, king of Eleusis. The goddess Demeter, wandering in search of her daughter Persephone, became Demophoon's nurse. As an act of kindness to those who had sheltered her, she attempted to immortalize him by ...
Demopolis: city, Marengo county, western Alabama, U.S. It is situated about 100 miles (160 km) west of Montgomery, at the confluence of the Tombigbee and Black Warrior rivers, which form a navigable waterway. Founded in 1817 by Napoleonic exiles who unsuccessfully ...
Demorest, Ellen Louise Curtis: American businesswoman, widely credited with the invention of the mass-produced paper pattern for clothing.
Demosthenes: Athenian general who proved to be an imaginative strategist during the Peloponnesian War (Athens versus Sparta, 431-404).
Demosthenes: Athenian statesman, recognized as the greatest of ancient Greek orators, who roused Athens to oppose Philip of Macedon and, later, his son Alexander the Great. His speeches provide valuable information on the political, social, and economic life of 4th-century Athens.
Demotic Greek language: a modern vernacular of Greece. In modern times it has been the standard spoken language and, by the 20th century, had become almost the sole language of Greek creative literature. In January 1976, by government order, it became the official ...
demotic script: until the 5th century AD. Demotic script derived from the earlier pictographic hieroglyphic inscriptions and the cursive hieratic script (q.v.), and it began to replace hieratic writing during the reign of Psamtik I (664-610 BC). By the 5th century BC, ...