Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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eponym ... Erdogan, Recep Tayyip

eponym: one for whom or which something is or is believed to be named. The word can refer, for example, to the usually mythical ancestor or totem animal or object that a social group (such as a tribe) holds to be ...
Epping Forest: district, administrative and historic county of Essex, England, at the northeastern edge of London. The name also refers to an ancient tract of woodland that crosses through the district. The original forest was a royal hunting ground that was gradually ...
Epsilon Aurigae: binary star system including one of the largest known stars and having one of the longest periods (27 years) among eclipsing binaries. The diameter of Epsilon Aurigae B, a cool yellow star, has been estimated as thousands of times that ...
Epsom and Ewell: borough (district), administrative and historic county of Surrey, England, at the foot of the North Downs, on the southwestern periphery of Greater London. It became important with the discovery (c. 1618) of mineral springs (from which Epsom salts were named). ...
epsomite: a common sulfate mineral, hydrated magnesium sulfate (MgSO₄·7H₂O). Its deposits are formed by evaporation of mineral waters, as at Epsom, Surrey, Eng., where it was discovered in 1695. It also is found as crusts and efflorescences in coal or metal ...
Epstein, Sir Jacob: one of the leading portrait sculptors of the 20th century whose work, though seldom innovative, is widely heralded for its perceptive depiction of character and its modelling technique.
Epstein-Barr virus: virus of the Herpesviridae family that is the major cause of acute infectious mononucleosis, a common syndrome characterized by fever, sore throat, extreme fatigue, and swollen lymph glands.
epyllion: brief narrative poem in dactylic hexameter of ancient Greece, usually dealing with mythological and romantic themes. It is characterized by lively description, scholarly allusion, and an elevated tone similar to the elegy. Such poems were especially popular during the Greek ...
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: government agency established on July 2, 1965, by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to "ensure equality of opportunity by vigorously enforcing federal legislation prohibiting discrimination in employment"-particularly discrimination on the basis of religion, race, sex, colour, ...
equal protection: in United States law, the constitutional guarantee that no person or group will be denied the protection under the law that is enjoyed by similar persons or groups. In other words, persons similarly situated must be similarly treated. Equal protection ...
Equal Rights Amendment: a proposed but unratified amendment to the U.S. Constitution that was designed mainly to invalidate many state and federal laws that discriminate against women; its central underlying principle was that sex should not determine the legal rights of men or ...
equal temperament: in music, tuning system in which the octave is divided into 12 semitones of equal size. Because it enables keyboard instruments to play in all keys, the system replaced earlier tuning systems in France and Germany by the late 18th ...
equal-field system: official institution of land distribution and tax collection in traditional China and Japan. The system originated in China in AD 485 by order of the emperor Hsiao-wen ti of the Northern Wei dynasty. It provided for the assignment of agricultural ...
equator: great circle around the Earth that is everywhere equidistant from the geographic poles and lies in a plane perpendicular to the Earth's axis. This geographic, or terrestrial, equator divides the Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres and forms the ...
equatorial countercurrent: current phenomenon noted near the equator, an eastward flow of oceanic water in opposition to and flanked by the westward equatorial currents of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Lying primarily between latitude 3° and 10° N, the countercurrents shift ...
equatorial current: ocean current flowing westward near the equator, predominantly controlled by the winds. Characteristically, equatorial-current systems consist of two westward-flowing currents approximately 600 miles (1,000 km) wide (North and South equatorial currents) separated by an eastward-flowing countercurrent only 300 miles (480 ...
Equatorial Guinea: country located on the west coast of Africa. It consists of Rio Muni (also called Mbini), on the continent, and five islands: Bioko (formerly Fernando Po), Corisco, Great Elobey (Elobey Grande), Little Elobey (Elobey Chico), and Annobon. A fragmented country, ...
eques: in ancient Rome, a knight, originally a member of the cavalry and later of a political and administrative class as well as of the equestrian order. In early Rome the equites were drawn from the senatorial class and were called ...
Equiano, Olaudah: self-proclaimed West African sold into slavery and later freed. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789), with its strong abolitionist stance and detailed description ...
equilibrium: in physics, condition in which the resultant or vector sum of all forces acting upon a particle is zero. A rigid body (by definition distinguished from a particle in having the property of extension) is considered to be in equilibrium ...
equine: one of the mammal family of Equidae (order Perissodactyla) that includes the modern horses, zebras, and asses, as well as more than 60 species known only from fossils.
equine encephalitis: severe viral disease of horses and mules. It sometimes affects birds, reptiles, and humans.
equine infectious anemia: viral disease of horses. Symptoms, which appear about two weeks after exposure, include fever and rapid breathing; the animal shifts its weight from one leg to another because of weakness during an attack. An attack lasts three to five days. ...
equine respiratory disease: a complex of infections of viral origin, including equine viral rhinopneumonitis (viral abortion), equine viral arteritis, equine influenza and parainfluenza, and equine rhinovirus infection. The diseases are clinically indistinguishable. All cause fever, coughing, and respiratory difficulty; some cause abortion in ...
equinoctial storm: severe storm that, in the United Kingdom and North America, is popularly believed to accompany the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The equinoxes do not actually cause any storms, but sometimes unusually violent weather does occur at those times of the ...
equinox: either of the two moments in the year when the Sun is exactly above the equator and day and night are of equal length; also, either of the two points in the sky where the ecliptic (the Sun's annual pathway) ...
equinoxes, precession of the: motion of the equinoxes along the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth's orbit) caused by the cyclic precession of the Earth's axis of rotation.
equity: in Anglo-American law, the custom of courts outside the common law or coded law. Equity provided remedies in situations in which precedent or statutory law might not apply or be equitable.
equivalence: in classical prosody, the principle that one long syllable is equal to two short ones. The principle is used as the basis for substitution in quantitative verse.
equivalence: in logic and mathematics, the formation of a proposition from two others which are linked by the phrase "if, and only if." The equivalence formed from two propositions p and q also may be defined by the statement "p is ...
equivalence principle: fundamental law of physics that states that gravitational and inertial forces are of a similar nature and often indistinguishable. In the Newtonian form it asserts, in effect, that, within a windowless laboratory freely falling in a uniform gravitational field, experimenters ...
equivalent weight: in chemistry, the quantity of a substance that exactly reacts with, or is equal to the combining value of, an arbitrarily fixed quantity of another substance in a particular reaction. Substances react with each other in stoichiometric, or chemically equivalent, ...
era: a very long span of geological time; in formal usage, a portion of geological time of the greatest magnitude. Three eras are recognized: Paleozoic Era, Mesozoic Era, and Cenozoic Era. Because of the difficulties involved in establishing accurate chronologies, the ...
Erard, Sebastien: French piano and harp maker whose improvements in both instruments were largely responsible for their modern forms.
eraser: piece of rubber or other material used to rub out marks made by ink, pencil, or chalk. The modern eraser is usually a mixture of vegetable oil, fine pumice, and sulfur bonded with rubber. The mix is processed, extruded, and ...
Erasistratus Of Ceos: Greek anatomist and physician in Alexandria, regarded by some as the founder of physiology.
Erasmus, Desiderius: humanist who was the greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance, the first editor of the New Testament, and also an important figure in patristics and classical literature.
Erasmus, Saint: early Christian bishop, martyr, and one of the patron saints of sailors, who is romantically associated with Saint Elmo's fire (the glow accompanying the brushlike discharges of atmospheric electricity that appears as a tip of light on the masts of ...
Erastianism: doctrine that the state is superior to the church in ecclesiastical matters. It is named after the 16th-century Swiss physician and Zwinglian theologian Thomas Erastus, who never held such a doctrine. He opposed excommunication as unscriptural, advocating in its stead ...
Erastus, Thomas: Swiss physician and religious controversialist whose name is preserved in Erastianism, a doctrine of church-state relationship that he himself never taught.
Erato: in Greek religion, one of the nine Muses, the patron of lyric and erotic poetry or hymns. She is often depicted playing a lyre. See also Muse.
Eratosthenes Of Cyrene: Greek scientific writer, astronomer, and poet, the first man known to have calculated the Earth's circumference.
Eratosthenes, sieve of: systematic procedure for finding prime numbers that begins by arranging all of the natural numbers (1, 2, 3, &elipsis;) in numerical order. After striking out the number 1, simply strike out every second number following the number 2, every third ...
erbium: (Er), chemical element, rare-earth metal of transition Group IIIb of the periodic table. Erbium is a grayish silver element that also occurs as a series of pink compounds. It had limited commercial uses until the age of fibre-optic telecommunications, when ...
Ercilla y Zuniga, Alonso de: Spanish soldier and poet, author of La Araucana (1569-89), the most celebrated Spanish Renaissance epic poem and the first epic poem about America.
Ercker, Lazarus: important German writer on early metallurgy.
Erckmann-Chatrian: two of the first French regionalist novelists in the 19th century.
Ercles vein: a rousing, somewhat bombastic manner of public speaking or writing. In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act I, scene 2), "Ercles' vein" is Bottom's expression for the style of speech he considers appropriate to the character of "Ercles," i.e., ...
Ercolano: town, Napoli provincia, Campania regione, southern Italy. It lies at the western foot of Mount Vesuvius, on the Gulf of Naples, just southeast of the city of Naples. The medieval town of Resina was built on the lava ...
Erdenet: city, northern Mongolia. It lies in a valley between the Selenge and Orhon rivers about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Ulaanbaatar. Erdenet is a major industrial centre that was organized in 1973 and built in the mid-1970s as a ...
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip: Turkish politician, who became prime minister of Turkey in 2003.