Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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liege ... lightship

liege: (probably from German ledig, "empty" or "free"), in European feudal society, an unconditional bond between a man and his overlord. Thus, if a tenant held estates of various overlords, his obligations to his liege lord (usually the lord of his ...
Liege: capital of Liege province, eastern Belgium, on the Meuse River at its confluence with the Ourthe. (The grave accent in Liege was officially approved over the acute in 1946.) The site was inhabited in prehistoric times and was known to ...
Liege, State University of: state-financed, partially autonomous coeducational French-language institution of higher learning in Liege, Belg., founded in 1816 under King William I of The Netherlands. Following Belgian independence (1831), the university was designated a state university in 1835. It has faculties of philosophy ...
lien: in property law, claim or charge upon property securing the payment of some debt or the satisfaction of some obligation or duty. Although the term is of French derivation, the lien as a legal principle was a recognized property right ...
Lien-yun-kang: city and seaport in northern Kiangsu sheng (province), China. The city is situated near the mouth of the Ch'ang-wei River and at the northern end of a network of canals centred on the Yun-yen River, associated with the innumerable salt ...
Lienz: town, Bundesland (federal state) Tirol, southern Austria, on the Drava (Drau) and Isel rivers at the northern end of the rugged Lienzer Dolomiten. The ruined Aguntum, which is situated immediately to the east, was the site of an Illyrian settlement ...
Liepa, Maris-Rudolf Eduardovich: Soviet ballet dancer who performed with the Bolshoi Ballet for more than 20 years.
Liepaja: city and port, Latvia, on the west (Baltic Sea) coast at the northern end of Lake Liepaja. First recorded in 1253, when it was a small Kurish settlement, Liepaja was the site of a fortress built by the Knights of ...
Lier: commune, Antwerp province, northern Belgium, at the junction of the Great and Little Nete rivers, southeast of Antwerp. Probably settled in the 8th century, it developed around the Chapel of St. Peter (1225) on the site of an earlier wooden ...
Liesegang ring: in physical chemistry, any of a series of usually concentric bands of a precipitate (an insoluble substance formed from a solution) appearing in gels (coagulated colloid solutions). The bands strikingly resemble those occurring in many minerals, such as agate, and ...
Liestal: capital (since 1833) of the half canton of Basel-Landschaft (Bale-Campagne), northern Switzerland. It lies along the Ergolz River, southeast of Basel. First mentioned as a village in 1189, it passed to the bishop of Basel in 1305 and to the ...
Lietz, Hermann: German educational reformer.
Lietzmann, Hans: German scholar and Lutheran church historian noted for his investigations of Christian origins.
lieutenant: company grade officer, the lowest rank of commissioned officer in most armies of the world. The lieutenant normally commands a small tactical unit such as a platoon.
Lievens, Jan: versatile painter and printmaker whose style derived from both the Dutch and Flemish schools of Baroque art.
Liezi: one of the three primary philosophers who developed the basic suppositions of Daoist thought, and the presumed author of the Daoist work Liezi (also known as Chongxu zhide zhenjing ["True Classic of the Perfect Virtue of Simplicity and Emptiness"]).
Lifar, Serge: Russian-born French dancer, choreographer, and ballet master (1929-45, 1947-58) of the Paris Opera Ballet who enriched its repertoire, reestablished its reputation as a leading ballet company, and enhanced the position of male dancers in a company long dominated by ballerinas.
life: the state of a material complex or individual characterized by the capacity to perform certain functional activities, including metabolism, growth, reproduction, and some form of responsiveness and adaptation. Life is further characterized by the presence of complex transformations of organic ...
Life: weekly picture magazine (1936-72) published in New York City. Life was a pioneer in photojournalism and one of the major forces in that field's development. It was long one of the most popular and widely imitated of ...
life cycle: in biology, the series of changes that the members of a species undergo as they pass from the beginning of a given developmental stage to the inception of that same developmental stage in a subsequent generation.
life insurance: method by which large groups of individuals equalize the burden of financial loss from death by distributing funds to the beneficiaries of those who die. Life insurance is most developed in wealthy countries, where it has become a major channel ...
life span: the period of time between the birth and death of an organism.
life-support system: any mechanical device that enables a person to live and usually work in an environment such as outer space or underwater in which he could not otherwise function or survive for any appreciable amount of time. Life-support systems provide all ...
life-world: in Phenomenology, the world as immediately or directly experienced in the subjectivity of everyday life, as sharply distinguished from the objective "worlds" of the sciences, which employ the methods of the mathematical sciences of nature; although these sciences originate in ...
lifeboat: watercraft especially built for rescue missions. There are two types, the relatively simple versions carried on board ships and the larger, more complex craft based on shore. Modern shore-based lifeboats are generally about 40-50 feet (12-15 metres) long and are ...
lifesaving: any activity related to the saving of life in cases of drowning, shipwreck, and other accidents on or in the water and to the prevention of drowning in general.
Liffey, River: river in Counties Wicklow, Kildare, and Dublin, Ireland, rising in the Wicklow Mountains, about 20 mi (32 km) southwest of Dublin. Following a tortuous course laid out in preglacial times, it flows in a generally northwesterly direction from its source ...
Lifou, Ile: largest (462 sq mi [1,196 sq km]) and most populous of the Loyalty Islands in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, southwestern Pacific Ocean. It is the central island of the group. Lifou rises no higher than 200 ft ...
ligament: tough fibrous band of connective tissue that serves to support the internal organs and hold bones together in proper articulation at the joints. A ligament is composed of dense fibrous bundles of collagenous fibres and spindle-shaped cells known as fibroblasts, ...
ligand: in chemistry, any atom or molecule attached to a central atom, usually a metallic element, in a coordination or complex compound. The atoms and molecules used as ligands are almost always those that are capable of functioning as the electron-pair ...
ligand field theory: in chemistry, one of several theories that describe the electronic structure of coordination or complex compounds, notably transition metal complexes, which consist of a central metal atom surrounded by a group of electron-rich atoms or molecules called ligands. The ligand ...
ligase: any one of a class of about 50 enzymes that catalyze reactions involving the conservation of chemical energy and provide a couple between energy-demanding synthetic processes and energy-yielding breakdown reactions. They catalyze the joining of two molecules, deriving the needed ...
Ligdan: last of the paramount Mongol khans (ruled 1604-34).
liger: offspring of a lion and a tigress. The liger is a zoo-bred hybrid, as is the tigon, the result of mating a tiger with a lioness. It is probable that neither the liger nor the tigon occurs in the wild, ...
Ligeti, Gyorgy: a leading composer of the branch of avant-garde music concerned principally with shifting masses of sound and tone colours.
Liggett Group Inc.: U.S. conglomerate with major interests in making tobacco products, spirits and wines, and pet foods. Headquarters are in Durham, N.C.
light: electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye. In terms of wavelength, electromagnetic radiation occurs over an extremely wide range, from gamma rays with a wavelength of 3 10⁻¹⁴ centimetre to long radio waves measured in millions of ...
light: electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye. In terms of wavelength, electromagnetic radiation occurs over an extremely wide range, from gamma rays with a wavelength of 3 × 10^-14 centimetre to long radio waves measured in millions ...
light bulb: electric incandescent lamp based on a glowing metallic filament enclosed within a glass shell filled with an inert gas such as nitrogen. See incandescent lamp; lamp.
light curve: in astronomy, graph of the changes in brightness with time of a star, particularly of the variable type. The light curves of different kinds of variable stars differ in the degree of change in magnitude (i.e., the amount of light ...
light rail transit: system of railways usually powered by overhead electrical wires and used for medium-capacity local transportation in metropolitan areas. Light rail vehicles (LRVs) are a technological outgrowth of streetcars (trams). Light rail transit lines are more segregated from street traffic than ...
light verse: poetry on trivial or playful themes that is written primarily to amuse and entertain and that often involves the use of nonsense and wordplay. Frequently distinguished by considerable technical competence, wit, sophistication, and elegance, light poetry constitutes a considerable body ...
Light, Francis: British naval officer who was responsible for acquiring Penang (Pinang) Island in the Strait of Malacca as a British naval base.
light-emitting diode: in electronics, a semiconductor device that emits infrared or visible light when charged with an electric current. Visible LEDs are used in many electronic devices as indicator lamps, in automobiles as rear-window and brake lights, and on billboards and signs ...
light-year: in astronomy, the distance traveled by light moving in a vacuum in the course of one year, at its accepted velocity of 299,792,458 metres per second (186,282 miles per second). A light-year equals about 9.46053 × 10¹² km (5.878 × ...
Lightbody, Jim: American athlete, a preeminent middle-distance runner of the early 20th century. At the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis he won four medals, including three gold medals, and he added two more medals in the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens.
lighter: shallow-draft boat or barge, usually flat-bottomed, used in unloading (lightening) or loading ships offshore. Use of lighters requires extra handling and thus extra time and expense and is largely confined to ports without enough traffic to justify construction of piers ...
lighthouse: structure, usually with a tower, built onshore or on the seabed to serve as an aid to maritime coastal navigation, warning the mariner of hazards, establishing his position, and guiding him to his destination. From the sea a lighthouse may ...
lightning: the visible discharge of electricity that occurs when a region of a cloud acquires an excess electrical charge, either positive or negative, that is sufficient to break down the resistance of air.
lightning rod: metallic rod (usually copper) that protects a structure from lightning damage by intercepting flashes and guiding their currents into the ground. Because lightning tends to strike the highest object in the vicinity, rods are typically placed at the apex of ...
lightship: marine navigation and warning beacon stationed where lighthouse construction is impractical. The first lightship was the Nore (1732), stationed in the estuary of the River Thames in England. Modern lightships are small, unattended vessels equipped with fog signals, radio beacons, ...