Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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law, philosophy of ... Lazarus, Emma

law, philosophy of: the formulation of concepts and theories to aid in understanding the nature of law, the sources of its authority, and its role in society. In English-speaking countries the term "jurisprudence" is often used synonymously and is invariably used in reference ...
Law, William: English author of influential works on Christian ethics and mysticism.
Lawes, Henry: English composer noted for his continuo songs.
Lawes, Lewis Edward: U.S. penologist whose introduction of novel penal administrative policies helped to emphasize a rehabilitative role for prisons.
Lawes, Sir John Bennet, 1st Baronet: English agronomist who founded the artificial fertilizer industry and Rothamsted Experimental Station, the oldest agricultural research station in the world.
Lawes, William: English composer, prominent during the early Baroque period, noted for his highly original instrumental music.
Lawler, Ray: actor, producer, and playwright whose Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is credited with changing the direction of modern Australian drama.
lawn: fine-textured turf (q.v.) of grass that is kept mowed.
Lawrance, Charles Lanier: American aeronautical engineer who designed the first successful air-cooled aircraft engine, used on many historic early flights.
Lawrence: county, western Pennsylvania, U.S., bordered to the west by Ohio. It consists of a hilly region on the Allegheny Plateau that is drained by the Shenango, Mahoning, and Beaver rivers. McConnell's Mill State Park is located along Slippery Rock Creek.
Lawrence: city, Essex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies along the Merrimack River, 26 miles (42 km) north of Boston. The site at Bodwell's Falls (the source of abundant waterpower) was promoted for industry in 1845 by the Essex Company, formed ...
Lawrence: city, seat (1855) of Douglas county, eastern Kansas, U.S. It lies on the Kansas River. It was founded in 1854 by antislavery radicals who had come to Kansas under the auspices of the New England Emigrant Aid Company to outvote ...
Lawrence of Brindisi, Saint: doctor of the church and one of the leading polemicists of the Counter-Reformation in Germany.
Lawrence, Abbott: American merchant and philanthropist who was a major developer of the New England textile industry. He led in founding the town of Lawrence, Mass., named in his honour, and built several mills there, making it a textile centre.
Lawrence, D.H.: English author of novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, and letters. His novels Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915), and Women in Love (1920) made him one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century.
Lawrence, Ernest Orlando: American physicist, winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize for Physics for his invention of the cyclotron, the first particle accelerator to achieve high energies.
Lawrence, Gertrude: English actress noted for her performances in Noel Coward's sophisticated comedies and in musicals.
Lawrence, Jacob: American painter whose works portray scenes of black life and history with vivid, stylized realism.
Lawrence, James: U.S. naval officer of the War of 1812 whose dying words, "Don't give up the ship," became one of the U.S. Navy's most cherished traditions.
Lawrence, John Laird Mair Lawrence, 1st Baron: British viceroy and governor-general of India whose institution in the Punjab of extensive economic, social, and political reforms earned him the sobriquet "Saviour of the Punjab."
Lawrence, Mary Wells: American businesswoman whose successful work in advertising was marked by creativity and humour.
Lawrence, Saint: one of the most venerated Roman martyrs, celebrated for his Christian valour.
Lawrence, Sir Henry Montgomery: English soldier and administrator who applied a keen sense of Indian politics in helping to consolidate British rule in the Punjab.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas: painter and draftsman who was the most fashionable English portrait painter of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Lawrence, Stringer: British army captain whose transformation of irregular troops into an effective fighting force earned him credit as the real founder of the Indian army under British rule.
Lawrence, T E: British archaeological scholar, military strategist, and author best known for his legendary war activities in the Middle East during World War I and for his account of those activities in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926).
lawrencium: (Lr), synthetic chemical element, the 14th member of the actinide series in Group IIIb of the periodic table, atomic number 103. Not occurring in nature, lawrencium (as the isotopes lawrencium-257, lawrencium-258, and lawrencium-259) was produced (1961) by Albert Ghiorso, T. ...
laws, conflict of: the existence worldwide of a multiplicity of different sets of courts and different sets of privat law (i.e., the law governing relations between private individuals or between an individual and the state considered as an individual without ...
Lawson, Andrew Cowper: Canadian-U.S. geologist who made important discoveries of Precambrian rock structures (more than 570,000,000 years old) and headed the commission appointed to investigate the disastrous California earthquake of 1906.
Lawson, Fremont: newspaper editor and publisher, one of the first in the United States to assign correspondents to live and gather news in major cities outside the country. Before this innovation (1898) American newspapers relied on dispatches from British or other foreign ...
Lawson, Henry: Australian writer of short stories and balladlike verse noted for his realistic portrayals of bush life.
Lawson, John Howard: U.S. playwright, screenwriter, and member of the "Hollywood Ten," who was jailed (1948-49) and blacklisted for his refusal to tell the House Committee on Un-American Activities about his political allegiances.
Lawton: city, seat (1907) of Comanche county, southwestern Oklahoma, U.S., on the Cache Creek. Originally part of the Choctaw-Chickasaw lands in the Indian Territory, the area was settled in 1869 by the Kiowa and Comanche Indians. A settlement near Fort Sill, ...
lawyer: one trained and licensed to prepare, manage, and either prosecute or defend a court action as an agent for another and who also gives advice on legal matters that may or may not require court action.
laxative: any drug used in the treatment of constipation to promote the evacuation of feces. Laxatives produce their effect by several mechanisms. Contact purgatives act directly on the muscles of the intestine, stimulating the wavelike muscular contractions (peristalsis) that result in ...
Laxdaela saga: one of the Icelanders' sagas. The tale, written about 1245 by an anonymous author (possibly a woman), is the tragic story of several generations of an Icelandic warrior family descended from Ketill Flatnose. One of the best English translations was ...
Laxness, Halldor: Icelandic novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. He is considered the most creative Icelandic writer of the 20th century.
lay: in medieval French literature, a short romance, usually written in octosyllabic verse, that dealt with subjects thought to be of Celtic origin. The earliest lay narratives were written in the 12th century by Marie De France; her works were largely ...
Lay, Elzy: western American outlaw, a member of the Wild Bunch (q.v.) and the favourite friend and ally of Butch Cassidy in train and bank robberies.
Lay, Horatio Nelson: British diplomat who organized the Maritime Customs Bureau for the Chinese government in 1855.
Lay-Osborn flotilla: fleet of ships bought for China in the mid-19th century by a British consular official, Horatio Nelson Lay, which created a tremendous controversy when Lay falsely assumed that the Chinese government would transmit all orders to the fleet through him. ...
Layamon: early Middle English poet, author of the romance-chronicle the Brut (c. 1200), one of the most notable English poems of the 12th century, when English was nearly eclipsed by French and Latin as a literary language. It ...
Layard, Sir Austen Henry: English archaeologist whose excavations greatly increased knowledge of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.
Laye, Camara: one of the first African writers from south of the Sahara to achieve an international reputation.
laying house: in animal husbandry, a building or enclosure for maintaining laying flocks of domestic fowl, usually chickens, containing nests, lighting, roosting space, waterers, and feed troughs. Feeders and waterers may be automatic. In the largest houses, feed storage, egg room, and ...
Layton, Irving: Romanian-born poet, who treated the Jewish Canadian experience with rebellious vigour.
Laz language: unwritten language spoken along the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia and in the adjacent areas of Turkey. Some scholars believe Laz and the closely related Mingrelian language to be dialects of the Svan language rather than independent languages.
Lazarev, Pyotr Petrovich: Soviet physicist and biophysicist known for his physicochemical theory of the movement of ions and the consequent theory of excitation in living matter, which attempts to explain sensation, muscular contraction, and the functions of the central nervous system.
Lazarsfeld, Paul Felix: Austrian-born American sociologist whose studies of the mass media's influence on society became classics in his field.
Lazarus: ("God Has Helped"), either of two figures mentioned in the New Testament.
Lazarus, Emma: American poet and essayist best known for her sonnet "The New Colossus," written to the Statue of Liberty.