Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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fighter aircraft ... fin stabilizer

fighter aircraft: aircraft designed primarily to secure control of essential airspace by destroying enemy aircraft in combat. The opposition may consist of fighters of equal capability or of bombers carrying protective armament. For such purposes fighters must be capable of the highest ...
Fighting Harada: Japanese professional boxer, world flyweight and bantamweight champion.
Figner, Vera Nikolayevna: leader in the Russian Revolutionary Populist (Narodnik) movement.
Figueira da Foz: seaport and concelho (township), Coimbra distrito ("district"), west-central Portugal, at the mouth of the Mondego River on the Atlantic Ocean, west of Coimbra city. Little is known of its origin, save that it received the title and privileges of a ...
Figueiredo, Joao Baptista de Oliveira: four-star general and president of Brazil from 1979 to 1985.
Figueres Ferrer, Jose: moderate socialist Costa Rican statesman who served as president in 1948-49, 1953-58, and 1970-74.
Figuig: town, northeastern Morocco, located at the juncture of the Hauts ("High") Plateaux and the northwestern edge of the Sahara. It is an oasis town, surrounded on three sides by the Algerian border. Consisting of seven ksars (walled villages), Figuig lies ...
Figulus, Publius Nigidius: Roman savant and writer, next to Marcus Terentius Varro the most learned Roman of his age.
figure: in logic, the classification of syllogisms according to the arrangement of the middle term, namely, the term (subject or predicate of a proposition) that occurs in both premises but not in the conclusion. There are four figures:
figure skating: sport in which ice skaters, singly or in pairs, perform freestyle movements of jumps, spins, lifts, and footwork in a graceful manner. Its name derives from the patterns (or figures) skaters make on the ice, an element that was a ...
figurehead: ornamental symbol or figure formerly placed on some prominent part of a ship, usually at the bow. A figurehead could be a religious symbol, a national emblem, or a figure symbolizing the ship's name.
figwort: (genus Scrophularia), any of about 200 species of coarse plants of the figwort or snapdragon family (Scrophulariaceae), native to open woodlands in the Northern Hemisphere. The common name refers to an early use of these plants in treating hemorrhoids, an ...
Fiji: country and archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean. It surrounds the Koro Sea about 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometres) north of Auckland, N.Z. The archipelago consists of some 300 islands and 540 islets scattered over about 1,000,000 square miles (3,000,000 square ...
Fijian language: Melanesian language of the Eastern, or Oceanic, branch of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family. In the late 20th century, it was spoken by about 366,000 persons on the islands of Fiji as either a first or a second language.
filament lamp: variety of incandescent lamp (q.v.) in which the light source is a fine electrical conductor heated by the passage of current.
Filangieri, Carlo, Prince Di Satriano, Duke Di Taormina: general in command of the forces of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Naples) during the bloody suppression of the Sicilian revolution of 1848. He also served a brief term as premier of the Two Sicilies (1859).
Filarete: architect, sculptor, and writer, who is chiefly important for his Trattato d 'architettura ("Treatise on Architecture"), which described plans for an ideal Renaissance city.
filarial worm: any of a group of parasitic worms of the class Nematoda (phylum Aschelminthes) that usually require two hosts, an arthropod (the intermediate host) and another animal (the primary host), to complete the life cycle. The larval phase occurs within the ...
filariasis: a group of infectious disorders caused by threadlike nematodes of the superfamily Filarioidea, that invade the subcutaneous tissues and lymphatics of mammals, producing reactions varying from acute inflammation to chronic scarring. In the form of heartworm, it may be fatal ...
filbert: any of about 15 species of shrubs and trees constituting the genus Corylus in the birch family (Betulaceae) and the edible nuts they produce. The former common name for the genus was hazel; various species were termed filbert, hazelnut, or ...
Filchner Ice Shelf: large body of floating ice, lying at the head of the Weddell Sea, which is itself an indentation in the Atlantic coastline of Antarctica. It is more than 650 feet (200 m) thick and has an area of 100,400 square ...
Filchner, Wilhelm: scientist and explorer who led the German Antarctic expedition of 1911-12.
file: powdered leaves of the sassafras tree, used as a spice and as a thickener for soups and sauces. Its use originated with the Choctaw Indians in the American South. File is an essential ingredient of Louisiana gumbo and other Creole ...
file: in hardware and metalworking, tool of hardened steel in the form of a bar or rod with many small cutting edges raised on its longitudinal surfaces; it is used for smoothing or forming objects, especially of metal. The cutting or ...
file snake: (Mehelya), any of about 15 species of snakes belonging to the family Colubridae. They are named for their triangular body cross section and rough-keeled (ridged) scales. All are rather large and plain. They are active by night on the ground. ...
filefish: any of the shore-frequenting marine fishes of the family Monacanthidae, found in warm seas around the world. Close relatives of the triggerfishes, they are sometimes included with them in the family Balistidae.
Filene's: a Boston department store that pioneered a number of retailing innovations. It was founded in 1881 by Prussian immigrant William Filene and his sons, Edward and Lincoln.
Filene, Edward A.: American department-store entrepreneur, philanthropist, and social reformer.
Filene, Lincoln: American merchant and philanthropist, chairman of the department store William Filene's Sons Company in Boston and of the chain of Federated Department Stores.
filet lace: (from French filet, "network"), knotted netting, either square or diamond mesh, that has been stretched on a frame and embroidered, usually with cloth or darning stitch. Of ancient origin, it was called opus araneum in the 14th century, lacis in ...
fili: professional poet in ancient Ireland whose official duties were to know and preserve the tales and genealogies and to compose poems recalling the past and present glory of the ruling class. The filid constituted a large aristocratic class, expensive to ...
filial piety: in Confucianism, the virtue of devotion to one's parents. See hsiao.
filibuster: in legislative practice, the parliamentary tactic used in the United States Senate by a minority of the senators-sometimes even a single senator-to delay or prevent parliamentary action by talking so long that the majority either grants concessions or withdraws the ...
filibustering: originally, in U.S. history, the attempt to take over countries at peace with the United States via privately financed military expeditions, a practice that reached its peak during the 1850s. In U.S. legislative usage, the term refers to obstructive delaying ...
filigree: delicate, lacelike ornamental openwork composed of intertwined wire threads of gold or silver, widely used since antiquity for jewelry. The art consists of curling, twisting, or plaiting fine, pliable metal threads and soldering them at their points of contact with ...
Filion, Herve: harness-race driver, trainer, and owner who became the most successful North American harness-racing driver.
Filioque: (Latin: "and from the Son"), phrase added to the text of the Christian creed by the Western church in the Middle Ages and considered one of the major causes of the schism between the Eastern and Western churches. See Nicene ...
fillet: (from Latin filum, "thread"), in architecture, the characteristically rectangular or square ribbonlike bands that separate moldings and ornaments. Fillets are common in classical architecture (in which they also may be found between the flutings of columns) and in Gothic architecture. ...
filling: in woven fabrics, the widthwise, or horizontal, yarns carried over and under the warp, or lengthwise, yarns and running from selvage to selvage. Filling yarns are generally made with less twist than are warp yarns because they are subjected to ...
Fillmore: city, seat (1851) of Millard county, west-central Utah, U.S. It lies just west of the Pahvant Range (at an elevation of 5,061 feet [1,543 metres]), 95 miles (153 km) south-southwest of Provo. Settled in 1851, the city was named for ...
Fillmore, Abigail: American first lady (1850-53), the wife of Millard Fillmore, 13th president of the United States.
Fillmore, Millard: 13th president of the United States (1850-53), whose insistence on federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 alienated the North and led to the destruction of the Whig Party. Elected vice president in 1848, he became chief executive ...
Fillmore, Myrtle Page: American religious leader, founder, with her husband, of the Unity School of Christianity, a movement that propounded a pragmatic healing and problem-solving faith.
film festival: gathering, usually annual, for the purpose of evaluating new or outstanding motion pictures. Sponsored by national or local governments, industry, service organizations, experimental film groups, or individual promoters, the festivals provide an opportunity for filmmakers, distributors, critics, and other interested ...
film noir: style of filmmaking characterized by elements such as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and an underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era.
Filmer, Sir Robert: English theorist who promoted an absolutist concept of kingship.
filter: in photography, device used to selectively modify the component wavelengths of mixed (e.g., white) light before it strikes the film. Filters may be made of coloured glass, plastic, gelatin, or sometimes a coloured liquid in a glass cell. They are ...
filter feeding: in zoology, a form of food procurement in which food particles or small organisms are randomly strained from water. Filter feeding is found primarily among the small- to medium-sized invertebrates but occurs in a few large vertebrates (e.g., flamingos, baleen ...
filter-pressing: process that occurs during the crystallization of intrusive igneous bodies in which the interstitial liquid is separated from the crystals by pressure. As crystals grow and accumulate in a magmatic body, a crystal mesh may be formed, with the remaining ...
fin de siecle: of, relating to, characteristic of, or resembling the late 19th-century literary and artistic climate of sophistication, escapism, extreme aestheticism, world-weariness, and fashionable despair. When used in reference to literature, the term essentially describes the movement inaugurated by the Decadent poets ...
fin stabilizer: fin or small wing mounted on a ship or aircraft in such a way as to oppose unwanted rolling motions of the vehicle and thus contribute to its stability. The term also refers to the tail protuberances on bombs, artillery ...