Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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empyema ... endive

empyema: accumulation of pus in a cavity of the body, usually in the pleura, which are the serous membranes covering the lungs. Empyema is usually the result of a microbial, usually bacterial, infection in a body cavity. Thoracic empyema is characterized ...
Ems River: river, northwestern Germany. It rises on the south slope of the Teutoburger Forest and flows generally northwest and north through the Lander of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony to the east side of the Dollart (baylike enlargement of its estuary), ...
Ems telegram: report of an encounter between King William I of Prussia and the French ambassador; the telegram was sent from Ems (Bad Ems) in the Prussian Rhineland on July 13, 1870, to the Prussian chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. Its publication in ...
Emser, Hieronymus: German theologian, lecturer, editor, and polemicist who is remembered chiefly for his long public controversy with Martin Luther at the onset of the Reformation.
Emsland: region along the lower Ems River, in Lower Saxony Land (state), northwestern Germany. It lies on both sides of the river, from the town of Lingen to the Ems estuary. Comprising a belt about 60 miles (100 km) long from ...
emu: flightless bird of Australia and second largest living bird: the emu is more than 1.5 m (5 feet) tall and may weigh more than 45 kilograms (100 pounds). The emu is the sole living member of the family Dromaiidae (or ...
emu-wren: any of the three species of the Australian genus Stipiturus, of the songbird family Maluridae. In these tiny birds the narrow, cocked tail consists of six wispy feathers-in quality, like the feathers of the emu. The most widespread species, the ...
emulsifier: in foods, any of numerous chemical additives that encourage the suspension of one liquid in another, as in the mixture of oil and water in margarine, shortening, ice cream, and salad dressing. Closely related to emulsifiers are stabilizers, substances that ...
emulsion: in physical chemistry, mixture of two or more liquids in which one is present as droplets, of microscopic or ultramicroscopic size, distributed throughout the other. Emulsions are formed from the component liquids either spontaneously or, more often, by mechanical means, ...
Emydidae: family of hard-shelled turtles native to both the Old and New Worlds, primarily in the Northern Hemisphere. The emydid turtles comprise more than 25 genera and 85 living species-roughly one-half of all the genera and one-third of all the species ...
En Gedi: oasis, archaeological site, and kibbutz (communal settlement) in southeastern Israel on the west bank of the Dead Sea. Because of its spring in an otherwise totally arid country, the site has been inhabited from remote antiquity. Excavations in the 1960s ...
en resille: in the decorative arts, technique of enamelwork in which the design is incised on rock crystal or glass paste and the incisions lined first with gold and then with opaque or translucent enamel. After low-temperature firing, the surface is filed ...
enamel: in anatomy, the hardest tissue of the body, covering part or all of the crown of the tooth in mammals. Enamel, when mature, consists predominantly of apatite crystals containing calcium and phosphate. Enamel is not living and contains no nerves. ...
enamel miniature: portrait on a small opaque, usually white, enamel surface annealed to gold or copper plate and painted with metallic oxides. Since the pigments used are not vitreous enamels, this is not a true enamelling process. The metallic paints are slightly ...
enamelwork: technique of decoration whereby metal objects or surfaces are given a vitreous glaze that is fused onto the surface by intense heat to create a brilliantly coloured decorative effect. It is an art form noted for its brilliant, glossy surface, ...
enantiomorph: (from Greek enantios, "opposite"; morphe, "form"), also called Antimer, or Optical Antipode, either of a pair of objects related to each other as the right hand is to the left, that is, as mirror images that cannot ...
enargite: sulfosalt mineral, copper arsenic sulfide (Cu₃AsS₄), that is occasionally an important ore of copper. It occurs as heavy, metallic-gray crystals and masses in veins and replacement deposits. Economically valuable deposits have been found in the Balkans; at several places in ...
Encamp: village, Andorra, on a headstream of the Riu (river) Valira. Its agricultural economy is supplemented by tourism, especially skiing. Encamp has a broadcasting transmitter of Radio Andorra. Above the village is Engolasters Lake, accessible by cable car. There are facilities ...
Encarnacion: city, southeastern Paraguay. The city was founded in 1614 on the west bank of the Upper Parana River, opposite Posadas, Arg., to which it is linked by a bridge completed in 1987. Severely damaged by a tornado in 1926, it ...
encaustic painting: painting technique in which pigments are mixed with hot, liquid wax. After all of the colours have been applied to the painting surface, a heating element is passed over them until the individual brush or spatula marks fuse into a ...
Enceladus: second nearest of the major regular moons of Saturn and the brightest of all its moons. It was discovered in 1789 by the English astronomer William Herschel and named for one of the Giants (Gigantes) of Greek mythology.
Encephalartos: a genus of 20 or more species of palmlike cycads (plants of the family Cycadaceae), native to southern Africa and grown elsewhere as conservatory and house plants. The genus includes both tuberous and columnar varieties; they sometimes have spiny foliage. ...
encephalitis: from Greek enkephalos ("brain") and itis ("inflammation"), inflammation of the brain. Inflammation affecting the brain may also involve adjoining structures; encephalomyelitis is inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, and meningoencephalitis is inflammation of ...
enchanter's nightshade: any herbaceous perennial plant of the genus Circaea, in the evening primrose family (Onagraceae), that occurs in damp woodlands of the Northern Hemisphere. The plants have slender stems with opposite leaves. The small, white, two-petaled flowers grow in clusters, and ...
enchondroma: a solitary cartilaginous lesion that occurs mostly in the shafts of bones of the hands and feet, usually between adolescence and about age 50. Enchondromas are benign, slow-growing tumours. As they grow they expand and thin the cortex of the ...
Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti: (Italian: "Italian Encyclopaedia of Science, Letters, and Arts"), major encyclopaedia of Italy, containing 35 volumes of text and a one-volume index. Work on the encyclopaedia began in 1925 and the volumes were published serially from 1929 to 1936; appendixes have ...
Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeoamericana: encyclopaedia published in Madrid, an outstanding reference work of 70 volumes-published between 1905 and 1933-plus a series of supplements.
Encina, Juan del: playwright, poet, priest, and composer of secular vocal music, who was the first Spanish dramatist to write specifically for performance.
Encke's Comet: faint comet having the shortest orbital period (about 3.3 years) of any known; it was also only the second comet (after Halley's) to have its period established. The comet was first observed in 1786 by Pierre Mechain. Johann Franz Encke ...
Encke, Johann Franz: German astronomer who in 1819 established the period of the comet now known by his name (see Encke's Comet).
Enckell, Rabbe: Finnish poet, playwright, and critic, a leading representative of the Swedo-Finnish poetic revival that began in the 1920s.
enclosed rhyme: in poetry, the rhyming pattern abba found in certain quatrains, such as the first verse of Matthew Arnold's "Shakespeare":Others abide our question. Thou art free.We ask and ask-thou smilest and art still,Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,Who to the stars ...
enclosure: the division or consolidation of communal fields, meadows, pastures, and other arable lands in western Europe into the carefully delineated and individually owned and managed farm plots of modern times. Before enclosure, much farmland existed in the form of numerous, ...
encomienda: in colonial Spanish America, legal system by which the Spanish crown attempted to define the status of the Indian population in its American colonies. It was based upon the practice of exacting tribute from Muslims and Jews during the Reconquista ...
encomium: a prose or poetic work in which a person, thing, or abstract idea is glorified. Originally an encomium was a Greek choral song honouring the hero of the Olympic Games and sung at the victory celebration at the end of ...
Encratite: member of an ascetic Christian sect led by Tatian, a 2nd-century Syrian rhetorician. The name derived from the group's doctrine of continence (Greek: enkrateia). The sect shunned marriage, the eating of flesh, and the drinking of intoxicating beverages, even substituting ...
encyclical: pastoral letter written by the pope for the whole Roman Catholic church on matters of doctrine, morals, or discipline. Although formal papal letters for the entire church were issued from the earliest days of the church, the first commonly called ...
encyclopaedia: reference work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or that treats a particular branch of knowledge in a comprehensive manner.
Encyclopaedia Britannica: the oldest and largest English-language general encyclopaedia. The Encyclopaedia Britannica has been published since 1768, when its first edition began to appear in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Encyclopedia Americana, The: American general encyclopaedia, published in Danbury, Conn., by Grolier, Inc., the second largest encyclopaedia in English and the first major multivolume encyclopaedia published in the United States.
Encyclopedie: (French: "Encyclopaedia, or Classified Dictionary of Sciences, Arts, and Trades"), the 18th-century French encyclopaedia that was one of the chief works of the Philosophes, men dedicated to the advancement of science and secular thought and the new tolerance and open-mindedness ...
end rhyme: in poetry, a rhyme that occurs in the last syllables of verses, as in stanza one of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening": Whose woods these are I think I know,His house is in the village, though;He ...
end stop: in prosody, a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse, as in these lines from Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism:A little learning is a dangerous thing;Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.There shallow draughts intoxicate ...
end-plate potential: chemically induced change in electric potential of the motor end plate, the portion of the muscle-cell membrane that lies opposite the terminal of a nerve fibre at the neuromuscular junction. The end-plate membrane is electrically polarized, the inside being negative ...
endangered species: any species of plant or animal that is threatened with extinction.
Endecott, John: colonial governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, under whose leadership the new colony made rapid progress.
Ender, Kornelia: East German swimmer who was the first woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics.
Ender, Otto: statesman and government official who served as chancellor of Austria during the early months of the Great Depression.
Enderby Land: region of Antarctica, bordering on the Indian Ocean and extending from Prince Olav Coast of Queen Maud Land (west) to Edward VIII Bay and Kemp Coast (east). Primarily a barren, ice-capped plateau in the interior sections, it rises to rugged ...
Enders, John Franklin: American virologist and microbiologist who, with Frederick C. Robbins and Thomas H. Weller, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for 1954 for his part in cultivating the poliomyelitis virus in nonnervous-tissue cultures, a preliminary step to the ...
endive: (Cichorium endivia), edible annual leafy plant of the family Asteraceae, variously believed to have originated in Egypt and Indonesia and cultivated in Europe since the 16th century. Its many varieties form two groups, the curly-leaved, or narrow-leaved, endive (crispa), and ...