Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Parsons, Talcott ... Paschal II

Parsons, Talcott: American sociologist and scholar whose theory of social action influenced the intellectual bases of several disciplines of modern sociology. His work is concerned with a general theoretical system for the analysis of society rather than with narrower empirical studies. He ...
Partapgarh: district, Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Part of the Ganges alluvial plain, it is 1,440 sq mi (3,730 sq km) in area and is bounded on the southwest by the Ganges River and drained by one of its tributaries, the ...
Partapgarh: town, Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan state, northwestern India. The town was founded in 1689 and was the capital of the former princely state of Partabgarh (founded in the 15th century), which became part of the state of Rajasthan in 1948. Historic ...
partbook: usual form in which vocal or instrumental polyphonic music was handwritten or printed in the 15th and 16th centuries. Each partbook contained the notation of only one voice, or part. The parts of madrigals, however, were sometimes published crosswise on ...
Partch, Harry: visionary and eclectic composer and instrument builder, largely self-taught, whose compositions are remarkable for the complexity of their scores (each instrument has its own characteristic notation, often involving 43 tones to each octave) and their employment of unique instruments of ...
Parteciaco family: noted Venetian family that produced seven doges between 810 and 942, as well as many bishops and church officials.
parterre: the division of garden beds in such a way that the pattern is itself an ornament. It is a sophisticated development of the knot garden, a medieval form of bed in which various types of plant were separated from each ...
Parthenius Of Nicaea: Greek poet and grammarian, described as the "last of the Alexandrians."
parthenocarpy: development of fruit without fertilization. The fruit resembles a normally produced fruit but is seedless. Varieties of the pineapple, banana, cucumber, grape, orange, grapefruit, persimmon, and breadfruit exemplify naturally occurring parthenocarpy. Seedless parthenocarpic fruit can be induced in nonparthenocarpic varieties ...
parthenogenesis: biological reproduction that involves development of a female (rarely a male) gamete (sex cell) without fertilization. It occurs commonly among lower plants and invertebrate animals, particularly rotifers, aphids, ants, wasps, and bees. An egg produced parthenogenetically may be either haploid ...
Parthenon: chief temple of the Greek goddess Athena on the hill of the Acropolis at Athens, Greece. It was built in the mid-5th century BC and is generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order, the ...
Parthenopean Republic: short-lived republic in Naples proclaimed on Jan. 23, 1799, after a popular uprising of pro-French republicans resulted in the ouster of King Ferdinand IV. A counterrevolution the same year, aided by a papal army and an English fleet under Horatio ...
Parthia: ancient land corresponding roughly to the modern region of Khorasan in Iran. The term is also used in reference to the Parthian empire (247 BC-AD 224). The first certain occurrence of the name is as Parthava in the Bisitun inscription ...
Parthian language: Middle Iranian language that originated in the ancient province of Parthia (the northeastern portion of modern Iran) and became the official language of the Arsacid period of Persian dynastic history (2nd century BC-3rd century AD). Among the earliest records of ...
Parti Quebecois: provincial Canadian political party founded in 1968 by journalist Rene Levesque and other French Canadian separatists in the largely French-speaking province of Quebec. It has dominated provincial elections in Quebec since the mid-1970s.
Parti Rouge: (French: "Red Party"), radical party formed in Lower Canada (now in Quebec) about 1849 and inspired primarily by the French-Canadian patriot Louis Joseph Papineau. In general the Parti Rouge advocated a more democratic system of government, with a broadly based ...
particle accelerator: any device that produces a beam of fast-moving, electrically charged atomic or subatomic particles. Physicists use accelerators in fundamental research on the structure of nuclei, the nature of nuclear forces, and the properties of nuclei not found in nature, such ...
particularism: school of anthropological thought associated with the work of Franz Boas and his students (among them Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and A.L. Kroeber), whose studies of culture emphasized the integrated way of life distinctive of a people. As a philosophy, ...
partimen: a lyric poem of dispute composed by Provencal troubadours in which one poet stated a proposition and a second disputed it. The first poet then defended his position, and the debate continued, usually for three rounds, after which the question ...
parting: in metallurgy, the separation of gold and silver by chemical or electrochemical means. Gold and silver are often extracted together from the same ores or recovered as by-products from the extraction of other metals. A solid mixture of the two, ...
Partisan: member of a guerrilla force led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia during World War II against the Axis powers, their Yugoslav collaborators, and a rival resistance force, the royalist Chetniks.
partition: in mathematics and logic, division of a set of objects into a family of subsets that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive; that is, no element of the original set is present in more than one of the subsets, and ...
Partizansk: city, Primorsky kray (region), far eastern Russia. It lies in the valley of the Partizanskaya River. It was formed in 1932 by the amalgamation of mining settlements that developed near mine shafts in a bituminous coal basin. A thermal power ...
partnership: voluntary association of two or more persons for the purpose of managing a business enterprise and sharing its profits or losses. In the usual partnership each general partner has full power to act for the firm in carrying on its ...
Parton, Sara Payson Willis: American novelist and newspaper writer, one of the first woman columnists, known for her satiric commentary on contemporary society.
partridge: any of many small game birds native to the Old World and belonging to the family Phasianidae (order Galliformes). They are larger than quails, with stronger bills and feet. (For New World birds erroneously called partridges, see grouse; quail. For ...
Partridge, Eric: New Zealand-born English lexicographer, best known for his A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937).
partridgeberry: (Mitchella repens), North American plant of the madder family (Rubiaceae), growing in dry woods from southwestern Newfoundland to Minnesota and southward to Florida and Texas. It is evergreen, with nearly round, 18-millimetre (0.7-inch) leaves, often variegated with white lines; a ...
parturition: process of bringing forth a child from the uterus, or womb. (The prior development of the child in the womb is described in the article human embryology.)
Paru River: river, northern Brazil, rising on the southern slopes of the Tumuc-Humac Mountains, on the Suriname border, and flowing for about 500 miles (800 km) south-southeastward through Para state. It empties into the Lower Amazon River just above Almeirim. The Paru ...
Parulidae: the songbird family of birds, order Passeriformes, consisting of the woodwarblers and bananaquits. The Parulidae comprise about 119 species of small, active birds, notable for their bright spring plumage and dazzling snatches of song, that live in the forests of ...
parure: matched set of jewelry consisting of such pieces as earrings, bracelet, brooch, necklace, and ring. By the mid-17th century, jewels had ceased to be created as individual works of art expressing some idea or fancy and had instead become mere ...
Parvati: (Sanskrit: "Daughter of the Mountain"), wife of the Hindu god Siva (Shiva). Parvati is the benevolent aspect of the goddess Sakti and is sometimes identified with Uma. The legendary account of her marriage relates that she won Siva's notice only ...
Parys: resort town, northern Free State province, South Africa. It is situated on the southern bank of the Vaal River. Parys was founded in 1873 and most likely named by a German surveyor named Schilbach, who had fought in the siege ...
Paryusana: a popular eight-day festival in Jainism, a religion of India. It generally is celebrated by members of the Svetambara sect from the 13th day of the dark half of the month Bhadrapada (August-September) to the 5th day of the bright ...
pas d'elevation: (French: "high steps"), all jumping and leaping movements in classical ballet. The steps are admired for the height at which they are performed and for the dancer's ability to ascend without apparent effort and to land smoothly. Dancers famed for ...
pas de deux: (French: "step for two"), dance for two performers. The strictly classical balletic pas de deux followed a fixed pattern: a supported adagio, a solo variation for the male dancer, a solo variation for the female dancer, and a coda in ...
Pasadena: city, Los Angeles county, southern California, U.S. It is located in the San Gabriel Valley, at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The area was part of Rancho el Rincon de San Pasqual, a northeast section of the San ...
Pasadena: city, Harris county, southeastern Texas, U.S. It borders Houston (west) between the Houston Ship Channel and the Clear Lake area. It was founded in 1895 by J.H. Burnett and named after Pasadena, California. Several oil refineries had been built in ...
Pasadena Playhouse: theatre in Pasadena, California, that was one of the first community theatres in the United States. It was founded in 1917-18 when Gilmor Brown organized a semiprofessional acting company known as the Pasadena Community Playhouse Association. The group obtained its ...
Pasargadae: first dynastic capital of the Achaemenian Empire, situated northeast of Persepolis in modern southwestern Iran. Traditionally, Cyrus II the Great (reigned 559-c. 529 BC) chose the site because it lay near the scene of his victory over Astyages the Mede ...
Pasay: city, central Luzon, Philippines, situated on the eastern shore of Manila Bay. A major residential suburb of Manila (immediately north), it is well known for the nightclubs that line the waterfront along Roxas (formerly Dewey) Boulevard. Pasay is densely populated ...
Pascagoula: city, seat (1812) of Jackson county, southeastern Mississippi, U.S. It is situated on Pascagoula Bay of Mississippi Sound (an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico), at the mouth of the Pascagoula River adjacent to Moss Point (north) and Gautier (west), ...
pascal: unit of pressure in the metre-kilogram-second system. (See the International System of Units.) It was named in honour of the French mathematician-physicist Blaise Pascal (1623-62). A pascal is a pressure of one newton per square metre; this unit is inconveniently ...
Pascal's principle: in fluid (gas or liquid) mechanics, statement that in a fluid at rest in a closed container a pressure change in one part is transmitted without loss to every portion of the fluid and to the walls of the container. ...
Pascal, Blaise: French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as Pascal's law of pressure, and propagated a religious doctrine that taught the experience of ...
Paschal: antipope from 1164 to 1168.
Paschal: antipope against both the rival antipope Theodore and the legitimate pope St. Sergius I during 687.
Paschal controversies: in the Christian Church, disputes concerning the correct date for observing Easter (Greek Pascha). The earliest controversy was over the question of whether Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday or on the actual day of the Jewish lunar ...
Paschal I, Saint: pope from 817 to 824.
Paschal II: pope from 1099 to 1118.