Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Icarus ... Id al-Fitr

Icarus: asteroid that has a more eccentric orbit and also approaches nearer the Sun (within 30 million km [19 million miles]) than does any other known body in the solar system except comets. It was discovered in 1949 by Walter Baade ...
Icaza, Jorge: Ecuadorean novelist and playwright whose brutally realistic portrayals of the exploitation of his country's Indians brought him international recognition as a spokesman for the oppressed.
ice: solid substance produced by the freezing of water vapour or liquid water. At temperatures below 0° C (32° F), water vapour develops into frost at ground level and snowflakes (each of which consists of a single ice crystal) in clouds. ...
ice age: any geologic period during which thick ice sheets cover vast areas of land. Such periods of large-scale glaciation may last several million years and drastically reshape surface features of entire continents. A number of major ice ages have occurred throughout ...
ice bug: any insect of the small order Grylloblattodea (about 15 species). This rare and primitive insect is found in the mountains of Japan, western North America, and eastern Siberia. A pale, wingless creature between 15 and 30 mm (0.6 and 1.2 ...
ice cave: cavity in ice or an underground cave that has permanent ice deposits. The two types of ice cave are wholly unrelated.
ice cream: frozen dairy food made from cream or butterfat, milk, sugar, and flavourings. Frozen custard and French-type ice creams also contain eggs. Hundreds of flavours have been devised, the most popular being vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.
ice formation: any mass of ice that occurs on the Earth's continents or surface waters. Such masses form wherever substantial amounts of liquid water freeze and remain in the solid state for some period of time. Familiar examples include glaciers, icebergs, pack ...
ice hockey: game between two teams, each usually having six players, who wear skates and compete on an ice rink. The object is to propel a vulcanized rubber disk, the puck, past a goal line and into a net guarded by a ...
ice in lakes and rivers: a sheet or stretch of ice forming on the surface of lakes and rivers when the temperature drops below freezing (0° C [32° F]). The nature of the ice formations may be as simple as a floating layer that gradually ...
ice plant: (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum), low-growing annual plant, of the carpetweed family (Aizoaceae) and one of about 75 species commonly called fig-marigolds, constituting the genus Mesembryanthemum. Most are fleshy-leaved desert herbs native to the Old World. Ice plant is the most commonly grown ...
ice shelf: thick mass of floating ice that is attached to land, formed from and fed by tongues of glaciers extending outward from the land into sheltered waters. Where there are no strong currents, the ice becomes partly grounded on the sea ...
ice skating: the recreation and sport of gliding across an ice surface on blades fixed to the bottoms of shoes (skates). The activity of ice skating has given rise to two distinctive sports: figure skating, which involves the performance of various jumps, ...
iceberg: floating mass of freshwater ice that has broken from the seaward end of a glacier or a polar ice sheet. Icebergs are typically found in open seas, especially around Greenland and Antarctica. They form mostly during the spring and summer, ...
iceboating: a winter sport of sailing and racing on ice in modified boats. An iceboat is basically a sailboat that travels on thin blades, or runners, on the surface of the ice. An iceboat consists first of a single fore-and-aft spar, ...
icefish: any of several different fishes, among them certain members of the family Channichthyidae, or Chaenichthyidae (order Perciformes), sometimes called crocodile icefish because of the shape of the snout. They are also called white-blooded fish, because they lack red blood cells ...
Iceland: island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Iceland moss: (Cetraria islandica), a fruticose (branched, bushy) lichen with an upright thallus usually attached in one place. It varies in colour from deep brown to grayish white and may grow to a height of 7 cm (3 inches). The trough-shaped branches ...
Iceland spar: a transparent calcite used for polariscope prisms. See calcite.
Icelanders' sagas: the class of heroic prose narratives written 1200-20 about the great families who lived in Iceland from 930 to 1030. Among the most important such works are the Njals saga and the Gisla saga (qq.v.). The family sagas are a ...
Icelandic language: national language of Iceland. It belongs (with Norwegian and Faeroese) to the West Scandinavian group of North Germanic languages and developed from the Norse speech brought by settlers from western Norway in the 9th and 10th centuries. Old Icelandic, usually ...
Icelandic literature: body of writings in Icelandic, including those from Old Icelandic (also called Old Norse) through Modern Icelandic. It is best known for the richness of its classical period, which is equivalent in time to the early and medieval periods in ...
Icelandic low: large atmospheric low-pressure centre that forms between Iceland and southern Greenland. It causes many of the strong winter winds over the North Atlantic Ocean. In winter, the ocean is considerably warmer than the continents, and this difference is responsible for ...
Iceman: the oldest mummified human body ever found intact. It was found by a German tourist, Helmut Simon, on the Similaun Glacier in the Tirolean Otztal Alps, on the Italian-Austrian border, on September 19, 1991. Radiocarbon-dated to 3300 BC, the body ...
Iceni: in ancient Britain, a tribe that occupied the territory of modern Norfolk and Suffolk and, under its queen Boudicca (Boadicea), revolted against Roman rule.
Ichihara: city, Chiba ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies on the east coast of Tokyo Bay. The city was formed by the amalgamation of the towns of Ichihara, Goi, Sanwa, Shizu, and Anegasaki in 1962. Except for the trade centre and ...
Ichikawa: city, Chiba ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies along the Edo River east of Tokyo. The city is composed of the three towns of Ichikawa, Yawata, and Nakayama, which were salt-producing post towns on the Chiba Highway (Chiba-kaido) during the ...
Ichikawa Family: kabuki actors flourishing in Edo (modern Tokyo) from the 17th century to the present. The most famous names are Danjuro, Ebizo, Danzo, and Ebijuro, and, according to kabuki convention, these names were assumed by a natural or adopted son of ...
Ichikawa Kon: Japanese motion-picture director who introduced sophisticated Western-style comedy to Japan in the 1950s. Later he became concerned with more serious subjects such as antiwar sentiment and modern man's search for identity.
Ichinomiya: city, Aichi ken (prefecture), central Honshu, Japan. It developed in the 7th century around the principal Shinto temple of the locality, the Masumida Shrine. During the Tokugawa period (1603-1867) it was an important transport centre on the Gifu Highway. Ichinomiya ...
ichneumon: small carnivorous mammal, a species of mongoose (q.v.).
ichneumon: any member of the family Ichneumonidae (order Hymenoptera), a large and widely distributed insect group of considerable economic importance. The name sometimes refers to any member of the superfamily Ichneumonoidea, which includes the families Stephanidae, Braconidae, and Ichneumonidae. The Stephanidae, ...
ichthyology: scientific study of fishes, including, as is usual with a science that is concerned with a large group of organisms, a number of specialized subdisciplines: e.g., taxonomy, anatomy (or morphology), behavioral science (ethology), ecology, and physiology. Because of the great ...
Ichthyornis: extinct seabirds of the Late Cretaceous Period (99 million to 65 million years ago) found as fossils in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Kansas, and Texas. Ichthyornis somewhat resembled present-day gulls and terns and may even have ...
ichthyosaur: any member of an extinct group of aquatic reptiles, most of which were very similar to porpoises in appearance and habits. These distant relatives of lizards and snakes (lepidosaurs) were the most highly specialized aquatic reptiles, but ichthyosaurs were not ...
ichthyosis: a hereditary condition involving dryness and scaliness of the skin brought about by excessive growth of the horny outermost covering of the skin. The dead cells of this horny layer do not slough off at the normal rate but tend ...
Ichthyostega: genus of extinct animals, closely related to tetrapods (four-legged land vertebrates) and found as fossils in rocks in eastern Greenland from the late Devonian Period (about 370 million years ago). Ichthyostega was about one metre (three feet) ...
icicle fish: (Salanx), any of several semitransparent fishes, family Salangidae, found in freshwaters and salt waters of eastern Asia and considered a delicacy by the Chinese. The numerous species are slender and troutlike in form, scaleless or finely scaled, and seldom more ...
Ickes, Harold L: U.S. social activist who became a prominent member of the New Deal Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Icknield Way: famous prehistoric trackway across England from Norfolk to Wiltshire, following dry ground along the East Anglian ridge, the Chiltern Hills, and the Berkshire Downs. In Wiltshire are the great foci of the prehistoric occupation of the county at Stonehenge and ...
icon: in literature, a description of a person or thing, usually using a figure of speech. To semioticians, icons are signs, verbal or otherwise, with extra-systemic resemblances to the persons or things they denote. The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning ...
icon: in Eastern Christian tradition, a representation of sacred personages or events in mural painting, mosaic, or wood. After the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th-9th century, which disputed the religious function and meaning of icons, the Eastern Church formulated the doctrinal ...
Iconoclastic Controversy: a dispute over the use of religious images (icons) in the Byzantine Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Iconoclasts (those who rejected images) objected to icon worship for several reasons, including the Old Testament prohibition against images in ...
iconography: the science of identification, description, classification, and interpretation of symbols, themes, and subject matter in the visual arts. The term can also refer to the artist's use of this imagery in a particular work. The earliest iconographical studies, published in ...
iconostasis: in Eastern Christian churches of Byzantine tradition, a solid screen of stone, wood, or metal, usually separating the sanctuary from the nave. The iconostasis had originally been some sort of simple partition between the altar and the congregation; it then ...
ictalurid: any fish of the family Ictaluridae, which includes about 35 species of North and Central American freshwater catfishes. Ictalurids are "typical" catfishes, with large, wide heads, tapering, scaleless bodies, and eight prominent mouth barbels. The family includes the channel and ...
Icteridae: songbird family, order Passeriformes, consisting of 88 species of great diversity in size, habits, and diet, found throughout the Americas.
Ictinus: Greek architect, one of the most celebrated of Athens, known for his work on the Parthenon on the Acropolis, the Temple of the Mysteries at Eleusis, and the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae.
id: in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, one of the three agencies of the human personality, along with the ego and superego (qq.v.). The oldest of these psychic realms in development, it contains the psychic content related to the primitive instincts of the ...
Id al-Adha: the second of two great Muslim festivals, the other being 'Id al-Fitr. 'Id al-Adha marks the culmination of the hajj (pilgrimage) rites at Mina, Saudi Arabia, near Mecca, but is celebrated by Muslims throughout the world. As with 'Id al-Fitr, ...
Id al-Fitr: first of two canonical festivals of Islam. 'Id al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, and is celebrated during the first three days of Shawwal, the 10th month of the Islamic calendar (though the Muslim ...