Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Oberlin ... ocean

Oberlin: city, Lorain county, northern Ohio, U.S., 35 mi (56 km) west-southwest of Cleveland. In 1833 the Rev. John L. Shipherd, a Presbyterian minister, and Philo P. Steward, a former missionary to the Choctaw Indians, founded the community and established the ...
Oberlin College: private coeducational institution of higher learning at Oberlin, Ohio, offering programs in liberal arts and music. It was founded in 1833 as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute to educate ministers and schoolteachers for the West. It was named for the Alsatian ...
Oberlin, Johann Friedrich: Lutheran pastor and philanthropist, who spent his life transforming desperately poor parishes in the Vosges region of France into materially as well as spiritually flourishing communities.
Oberon: outermost of the five major satellites of Uranus. It was discovered in 1787 by the English astronomer Sir William Herschel, who had found Uranus in 1781. The mean distance of the satellite from the centre of Uranus is about 583,520 ...
Oberon: king of the elves, or of the "faerie," in the French medieval poem Huon de Bordeaux. In this poem Oberon is a dwarf-king, living in the woodland, who by magic powers helps the hero to accomplish a seemingly impossible task. ...
Oberon, Merle: British and American film actress who appeared in more than 30 motion pictures. Her most notable portrayal was that of the beautiful Cathy, who tormented and rejected Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier) in the 1939 classic Wuthering Heights.
Oberosterreich: Bundesland (federal state), northern Austria. It borders Germany and the Czech Republic on the west and north and is bounded by Bundeslander Niederosterreich (Lower Austria) on the east and Steiermark (Styria) and Salzburg on the south. Oberosterreich lies between the ...
Oberth, Hermann: German scientist who is considered to be one of the founders of modern astronautics.
Oberto I: marquis of eastern Liguria and count of Luni, powerful feudal lord of 10th-century Italy under King Berengar II and the Holy Roman emperor Otto I. His descendants, the Obertinghi, founded several famous Italian feudal clans.
obesity: excessive accumulation of body fat, usually caused by the consumption of more calories than the body can use. The excess calories are then stored as fat, or adipose tissue. Overweight, if moderate, is not necessarily obesity, particularly in muscular or ...
Obey River: river in north-central Tennessee, U.S., formed by the East Fork Obey and West Fork Obey rivers in southern Pickett county. It flows north and west to join the Cumberland River at Celina after a course of about 60 miles (100 ...
obi: wide sash or belt made of satin or a stiff silk material, worn since ancient times in Japan to secure the kimono. A woman's obi is about 12 feet (370 cm) long and 10 inches (25 cm) wide; a man's ...
Obi Islands: group of the northern Moluccas, Maluku Utara (North Moluccas) provinsi (province), Indonesia. They lie south of Halmahera Island, north of Ceram Island, and east of the Sula Islands. The principal island of the group is Obi Island, ...
obia: in west African folklore, a gigantic animal that steals into villages and kidnaps girls on the behalf of witches. In certain cultures of the Caribbean, the term denotes forms of sorcery and witchcraft, usually overpowering and extremely evil. Potent or ...
Obidos: town and river port, west-central Para estado (state), northern Brazil. It was founded in 1697 as a fortified town. Obidos overlooks the left (north) bank of the Amazon River 70 miles (110 km) upstream from Santarem near ...
Obihiro: city, southern Hokkaido, Japan, on the Tokachi River. Founded in 1883, it became a regional administrative centre in 1897. The arrival of two railway lines in the early 1900s made Obihiro a trade centre of agricultural products grown in the ...
object language: in semantics and logic, the ordinary language used to talk about things or objects in the world-as contrasted with metalanguage, an artificial language used by linguists and others to analyze or describe the sentences or elements of object language itself. ...
objectivism: the theory or practice of objective art or literature. The term was used by the poet William Carlos Williams in the 1930s to describe a movement in which emphasis was placed on viewing poems as objects that could be considered ...
oblate: (from Latin oblatus, "one offered up"), in Roman Catholicism, a lay person connected with a religious order or institution and living according to its regulations; a minor dedicated by his parents to become a monk according to the Benedictine Rule; ...
Obodrite: member of a people of the Polab group, the northwesternmost of the Slavs in medieval Europe. The Obodrites (sometimes called the Bodryci, from bodry, "brave") inhabited the lowland country between the lower Elbe River and the Baltic Sea, the area ...
oboe: treble woodwind instrument with a conical bore and double reed. Though used chiefly as an orchestral instrument, it also has a considerable solo repertoire.
Obolus: genus of extinct brachiopod, or lamp shell, of the Cambrian Period (from 540 to 505 million years ago). Obolus was a small animal with a spherical shape; one valve, or shell, was larger than the other. Unlike the shells of ...
Obote, Milton: politician who was prime minister (1962-70) and twice president (1966-71, 1980-85) of Uganda. He led his country to independence in 1962, but his two terms in office (both of which were ended by military coups) were consumed by struggles between ...
Obraztsov, Sergey Vladimirovich: puppet master who established puppetry as an art form in the Soviet Union and who is considered to be one of the greatest puppeteers of the 20th century.
Obrecht, Jakob: composer who, with Jean d'Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez, was one of the leading composers in the preeminently vocal and contrapuntal Franco-Flemish, or Franco-Netherlandish, style that dominated Renaissance music.
Obregon, Alvaro: soldier, statesman, and reformer who, as president, restored order to Mexico after a decade of political upheavals and civil war that followed the revolution of 1910.
Obrenovic dynasty: family that provided Serbia with five rulers between 1815 and 1903. Their succession was broken by a rival dynasty, the Karadjordjevic. Milos, who founded the dynasty, was prince of Serbia from 1815 to 1839 and again from 1858 to 1860; ...
Obscene Publications Act: in British law, either of two codifications of prohibitions against obscene literature adopted in 1857 and in much revised form in 1959. The earlier act, also called Lord Campbell's Act (one of several laws named after chief justice and chancellor ...
obscenity: in general, that which offends the public sense of decency. Its social importance lies in the history of censorship and legislation for the suppression of obscene acts, especially the publication of sexually explicit or indecent matter. That obscenity, like beauty, ...
Observer, The: Sunday newspaper established in 1791, the first Sunday paper published in Britain. It is one of England's quality newspapers, long noted for its emphasis on foreign coverage. The paper devotes extensive space to the arts, government, education, and politics, and ...
obsessive-compulsive disorder: a type of mental disorder in which an individual experiences obsessions or compulsions or both. Either the obsessive thought or the compulsive act may occur singly, or both may appear in sequence.
obsidian: natural glass of volcanic origin that is formed by the rapid cooling of viscous lava. Obsidian is extremely rich in silica (about 35 to 80 percent), is low in water, and has a chemical composition similar to rhyolite. Obsidian has ...
obstetrics and gynecology: medical/surgical specialty concerned with the care of women from pregnancy until after delivery and with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the female reproductive tract.
Obstfelder, Sigbjorn: Norwegian Symbolist poet whose unrhymed verse and atmospheric, unfocused imagery marked Norwegian poets' decisive break with naturalistic verse.
Obuasi: town, southern Ghana. Its growth was stimulated by the discovery of a large gold deposit in 1897 and the building of the railway from Sekondi in 1902. The Asante gold mine at Obuasi has continued as the country's major producer ...
Obuchi Keizo: Japanese politician who was prime minister from July 1998 to April 2000 and is credited with reversing Japan's economic downturn.
obversion: in syllogistic, or traditional, logic, transformation of a categorical proposition (q.v.), or statement, into a new proposition in which (1) the subject term is unchanged, (2) the predicate is replaced by its contradictory, and (3) the quality of the proposition ...
Obwalden: half canton, central Switzerland, formerly part of the canton of Unterwalden. The half canton is drained by the Sarner River and occupies the western part of former Unterwalden canton. Obwalden means "above the forest" and refers to the great forest ...
Ocala: city, seat (1846) of Marion county, north-central Florida, U.S., about 35 miles (55 km) southeast of Gainesville. It developed around Fort King (established in 1827), an important post during the Seminole Wars. The city's name was derived from Ocali, the ...
Ocana: city, Norte de Santander departamento, northern Colombia, in the Hacari valley. Founded (c. 1570) as Nueva Madrid by Francisco Fernandez, the city was renamed for Ocana in New Castile, Spain. An independence convention that was held there in 1828 is ...
ocarina: globular flute, a late 19th-century musical development of traditional Italian carnival whistles of earthenware, often bird-shaped and sounding only one or two notes. It is an egg-shaped vessel of clay or metal or, as a toy, of plastic and is ...
occasionalism: a version of Cartesian metaphysics that flourished in the last half of the 17th century, in which all interaction between mind and body is mediated by God. It is posited that unextended mind and extended body do not interact directly. ...
Occidental Petroleum Corporation: major American oil- and gas-producing company. Headquarters are in Los Angeles.
occipital: bone forming the back and back part of the base of the cranium, the part of the skull that encloses the brain. It has a large oval opening, the foramen magnum, through which the medulla oblongata passes, linking the spinal ...
Occitan language: a Romance language spoken by about 1,500,000 people in southern France. All Occitan speakers use French as their official and cultural language, but Occitan dialects are used for everyday purposes and show no signs of extinction. The name Occitan is ...
occultation: obscuring of the light of an astronomical body, most commonly a star, by another astronomical body, such as a planet or a satellite. Hence, a solar eclipse is the occultation of the Sun by the Moon. By carefully measuring the ...
occultism: various theories and practices involving a belief in and knowledge or use of supernatural forces or beings. Such beliefs and practices-principally magical or divinatory-have occurred in all human societies throughout recorded history, with considerable variations both in their nature and ...
occupational disease: any illness associated with a particular occupation or industry. Such diseases result from a variety of biological, chemical, physical, and psychological factors that are present in the work environment or are otherwise encountered in the course of employment. Occupational medicine ...
occupational therapy: use of self-care and work and play activities to promote and maintain health, prevent disability, increase independent function, and enhance development. This form of therapy evolved from the recognition that work helps to restore the mentally and physically ill, particularly ...
Ocean: county, east-central New Jersey, U.S., bounded by the Metedeconk River to the north, the Manasquan River to the northeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. It comprises a coastal lowland area and, in addition to the Metedeconk and Manasquan, ...
ocean: continuous body of salt water that is contained in enormous basins on the Earth's surface.