Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Orlov, Grigory Grigoryevich, Graf ... Orsi, Paolo

Orlov, Grigory Grigoryevich, Graf: military officer and lover of Catherine II, empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. He organized the coup d'etat that placed Catherine on the Russian throne and subsequently was her close adviser.
Orlov, Nikolay Alekseyevich, Knyaz: Russian diplomat notable for his humanitarian interest in his country's internal affairs.
Orm: Augustinian canon, author of an early Middle English book of metrical homilies on the Gospels, to which he gave the title Ormulum, "because Orm made it." The work (dated on linguistic evidence c. 1200) is of little literary interest but ...
Ormandy, Eugene: Hungarian-born American conductor who was identified with the Late Romantic and early 20th-century repertoire.
Ormoc: chartered city, western Leyte, Philippines. The city lies at the head of Ormoc Bay, an inlet of the Camotes Sea. It serves the only commercial sugarcane district in the eastern Visayas. Rice, copra, and sugar are exported, and sugar, rice, ...
ormolu: (from French dorure d'or moulu: "gilding with gold paste"), gold-coloured alloy of copper, zinc, and sometimes tin, in various proportions but usually containing at least 50 percent copper. Ormolu is used in mounts (ornaments on borders, edges, and as angle ...
Ormond Beach: city, Volusia county, northeastern Florida, U.S. It lies on the Atlantic Ocean and the Halifax River (a lagoon separated from the Atlantic by barrier beaches), adjacent to Daytona Beach to the south. Primarily a resort, it has several miles of ...
Ormonde, James Butler, 12th earl and 1st duke of: Anglo-Irish Protestant who was the leading agent of English royal authority in Ireland during much of the period from the beginning of the English Civil War to the Glorious Revolution (1688-89).
Ormonde, James Butler, 2nd duke of: Irish general, one of the most powerful men in the Tory administration that governed England from 1710 to 1714.
Ormonde, Piers Butler, 8th earl of, Earl Of Ossory: leading member of the Butler family in Ireland; he claimed the earldom in 1515, seized the estates, and revived the Butler influence.
Ormonde, Thomas Butler, 10th earl of: Irish nobleman who sided with the English in the rebellions in the mid-16th century.
Ormsby-Gore, William George Arthur, 4th Baron Harlech: British politician and scholar who was active in promoting education in the British colonies.
ornament: in architecture, any element added to an otherwise merely structural form, usually for purposes of decoration or embellishment. Three basic and fairly distinct categories of ornament in architecture may be recognized: mimetic, or imitative, ornament, the forms of which have ...
ornamentation: in music, the embellishment of a melody, either by adding notes or by modifying rhythms. In European music, ornamentation is added to an already complete composition in order to make it more pleasing. This concept is foreign to ancient and ...
Orne River: river, Basse-Normandie region, northern France. It is 94 miles (152 km) long and flows through Orne and Calvados departements to empty into the English Channel 8 miles (13 km) north-northeast of Caen. It rises in the Perche Hills, east of ...
ornithischian: any member of the large taxonomic group of herbivorous dinosaurs comprising Triceratops and all dinosaurs more closely related to it than to birds. The ornithischians (meaning "bird-hipped") are one of the two major groups of dinosaurs, the other being the ...
Ornithogalum: genus of plants in the family Liliaceae, consisting of about 100 species of bulbous herbs, native to Eurasia and Africa. The leaves are grouped at the base of the plant, and the white or yellow bell- or star-shaped flowers are ...
Ornitholestes: small, lightly built carnivorous dinosaur found as fossils from the Late Jurassic Period (159 million to 144 million years old) in North America. Ornitholestes is known from a nearly complete skeleton found in Wyoming, U.S. It was about 2 metres ...
ornithology: a branch of zoology dealing with the study of birds. Most of the early writings on birds are more anecdotal than scientific, but they represent a broad foundation of knowledge, including much folklore, on which later work was based. In ...
Ornithomimus: ostrichlike dinosaurs found as fossils in Mongolian, European, and North American deposits dating from 65 million to 125 million years ago (Early and Late Cretaceous periods).
ornithopod: any member of the group of ornithischian dinosaurs characterized by a two-legged (bipedal) stance, from which the group's name, meaning "bird-foot," is derived.
Ornskoldsvik: city in the lan (county) of Vasternorrland, northern Sweden, on the Gulf of Bothnia. It was founded in 1842. In 1892 the railroad arrived, and the next year Ornskoldsvik received city status. Wood pulp is the major industrial product and ...
Orodes II: king of Parthia (reigned c. 57-37/36 BC) who helped his brother Mithradates III murder their father, Phraates III, and in turn supplanted Mithradates.
orogeny: mountain-building event, generally one that occurs in geosynclinal areas. In contrast to epeirogeny, an orogeny tends to occur during a relatively short time in linear belts and results in intensive deformation. Orogeny is usually accompanied by folding and faulting of ...
orographic precipitation: rain, snow, or other precipitation produced when moist air is lifted as it moves over a mountain range. As the air rises and cools, orographic clouds form and serve as the source of the precipitation, most of which falls upwind ...
Oromo: one of the two largest ethnolinguistic groups of Ethiopia, constituting nearly one-third of the population and speaking a language of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) family. Originally confined to the southeast of the country, they migrated in ...
Oron: town, Akwa Ibom state, southeastern Nigeria. It lies at the mouth of the Cross River and is the terminus of roads from Uyo and Opobo. Oron is a coastal trade centre for the yams, cassava, fish, and palm oil and ...
Orono: town, Penobscot county, east-central Maine, U.S. It lies along the Penobscot River 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Bangor. Settled about 1775, it was known as Deadwater and Stillwater Plantation before acquiring in 1840 its present name honouring Joseph Orono, ...
Orontes River: river in southwestern Asia, draining a large part of the northern Levant into the Mediterranean Sea. From its source in Al-Biqa' (i.e., the Bekaa Valley) of central Lebanon, the river flows northward between the parallel ranges of the Lebanon and ...
oropendola: any of several bird species of the blackbird family (Icteridae) that are common to the canopy of New World tropical forests and known (along with the caciques) for their hanging nests, which may measure up to 2 metres (6.6 feet) ...
Oroquieta: city, northwestern Mindanao, Philippines. The city fronts on Iligan Bay (east) and the Bohol (Mindanao) Sea (northeast). It was a municipality until designated a city in 1969. Oroquieta is an important coconut-growing area and a major agricultural trading centre, and ...
Orosius, Paulus: defender of early Christian orthodoxy, theologian, and author of the first world history by a Christian.
Oroville: city, seat (1856) of Butte county, north-central California, U.S. It lies along the Feather River, in the Sacramento Valley, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, about 75 miles (120 km) north of Sacramento. The city originated in 1850 as ...
Oroville Dam: earth-fill dam on the Feather River, California, U.S. Completed by the state of California in 1968, it is the highest dam in the United States and one of the highest embankment dams in the world. The dam, 770 feet (235 ...
Orozco, Jose Clemente: Mexican painter, considered the most important 20th-century muralist to work in fresco.
Orpen, Sir William: British painter, best known for his vigorously characterized portraits; he also worked as an official war artist during World War I.
Orpheus: ancient Greek legendary hero endowed with superhuman musical skills. He became the patron of a religious movement based on sacred writings said to be his own.
Orphism: in the visual arts, an artistic trend derived from Cubist painting that gave priority to colour. The movement was named in 1912 by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire.
orphrey: highly elaborate embroidery work, or a piece of such embroidery. More specifically orphrey is an ornamental border, or embroidered band, especially as used on ecclesiastical vestments. Orphreys often utilized cloth of gold, gold trimming, or gold and silk weft, or ...
orpiment: the transparent yellow mineral arsenic sulfide (As₂S₃), formed as a hot-springs deposit, an alteration product (especially from realgar), or as a low-temperature product in hydrothermal veins. It is found in Copalnic, Romania; Andreas-Berg, Ger.; Valais, Switz.; and Colemerik, Tur. The ...
Orr, Bobby: Canadian-American professional National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey player, who was the first defenseman to lead the NHL in scoring.
Orr, Sir John Boyd: see Boyd-Orr of Brechin Mearns, John Boyd Orr, Baron.
Orrefors glass: fine 20th-century glass produced by a glasshouse at Orrefors in the south of Sweden. In 1916 and 1917 the Orrefors glasshouse hired the painters Simon Gate and Edvard Hald, respectively, to become the first artists engaged directly in glass design. ...
orrery: mechanical model of the solar system used to demonstrate the motions of the planets about the Sun, probably invented by George Graham (d. 1751) under the patronage of Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery. In use for several centuries, the ...
Orrery, Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of, Lord Boyle, Baron Of Broghill: Irish magnate and author prominent during the English Civil Wars, Commonwealth, and Restoration periods.
orris oil: yellowish, semisolid, fragrant essential oil obtained from the roots of the Florentine iris (Iris florentina) and used as a flavouring agent, in perfume, and medicinally. The use of orris oil to flavour candies, soft drinks, and gelatin desserts, once common, ...
Orry, Jean: French economist whose broad financial and governmental reforms in early 18th-century Spain helped to further the implementation of centralized and uniform administration in that country.
Ors y Rovira, Eugenio d': Catalan essayist, philosopher, and art critic who was a leading ideologue of the Catalan cultural renaissance of the early 20th century.
Orsay Museum: museum of Paris, France. It is housed in the former Orsay Railway Station (Gare d'Orsay), a large, ornate structure built in the Beaux Arts style and completed in 1900; it sits on the Left Bank of the Seine River opposite ...
Orsha: city, Vitebsk oblast (province), east-central Belarus. It lies about 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Smolensk on the Dnieper River. First mentioned in 1067, it has always been a major focus of trade routes and has frequently been attacked and ...
Orsi, Paolo: archaeologist who pioneered in the excavation and research of sites, from the prehistoric to the Byzantine, in Sicily and southern Italy.