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Paschal lamb ... Pasta, Giuditta

Paschal lamb: in Judaism, the lamb sacrificed at the first Passover, on the eve of the Exodus from Egypt, the most momentous event in Jewish history. According to the story of the Passover (Exodus, chapter 12), the Jews marked their doorposts with ...
Paschasius Radbertus, Saint: French abbot, theologian, and author whose monograph De corpore et sanguine Christi ("Concerning Christ's Body and Blood") later became the dominant interpretation of the Eucharist.
Pascin, Jules: Bulgarian-born painter, renowned for his delicate draftsmanship and sensitive studies of women.
Pasco: department (formed 1944) of central Peru, stretching from the Andes eastward to the Amazon Basin. It occupies an area of 8,438 sq mi (21,854 sq km). Western Pasco, a mountainous and rugged area, is drained by the headwaters of the ...
Pasco: city, seat (1889) of Franklin county, southeastern Washington, U.S., situated at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers, opposite Kennewick and immediately southeast of Richland. Established on the site of a prehistoric Indian village in 1880, when the Northern ...
Pascoli, Giovanni: Italian classical scholar and poet whose graceful and melancholy Italian lyric poems, perfect in form, rhythmic in style, and innovative in wording, were an important influence on the crepuscolari ("twilight poets"; see crepuscolarismo).
Pasek, Jan Chryzostom: Polish soldier best remembered for his memoirs, which provide an excellent example of Polish Baroque prose.
Pasewalk: town, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania Land (state), northeastern Germany, on the Ucker River about 18 miles (29 km) south of Ueckermunde and about 24 miles (39 km) west of Szczecin (Stettin), Poland. Pasewalk is a rail junction, and the town's economic activities ...
pasha: title of a man of high rank or office in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. It was the highest official title of honour in the Ottoman Empire, always used with a proper name, which it followed. It was given ...
Pashto language: Eastern Iranian language spoken by the Pashtun in eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Its dialects fall into two main divisions: the southern, which preserves the ancient sh (as in "Pashto") and zh sounds, and the northern, which has kh (as ...
Pashtun: Pashto-speaking people of southeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They constitute the majority of the population of Afghanistan and bore the exclusive name of Afghan before that name came to denote any native of the present land area of Afghanistan.
Pashupati: town, central Nepal, situated in the Kathmandu Valley on the Baghmati River, just east of Kathmandu. Regarded as the holiest place in Nepal, it is the site of an ancient Saivite (i.e., devoted to the Hindu god Siva) temple of ...
Pasic, Nikola: prime minister of Serbia (1891-92, 1904-05, 1906-08, 1909-11, 1912-18) and prime minister of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1918, 1921-24, 1924-26). He was one of the founders, in 1918, of the kingdom that would later (from 1929 to ...
Pasig River: river draining Laguna de Bay, the largest lake in the Philippines, into Manila Bay at Manila. It flows north-northwest through the market town of Pasig and bisects Manila, then enters the bay between the North and South harbours. Its length ...
Pasinetti, Francesco: Italian motion picture director, historian, critic, comedy writer, screenwriter, and film scholar.
Pasiteles: Greek sculptor notable for having written a book, in five volumes, about works of art throughout the world. None of Pasiteles' own sculpture has survived.
Paskevich, Ivan Fyodorovich, Graf Yerevansky, Knyaz Varshchavsky: military officer and administrator in the Russian government who suppressed the Polish insurrection of 1830-31.
Paso, Fernando del: Mexican novelist and artist known for his long, experimental, often humorous novels covering the breadth and history of Mexican culture.
Pasolini, Pier Paolo: Italian motion-picture director, poet, and novelist, noted for his socially critical, stylistically unorthodox films.
Paspalum: genus of annual and perennial grasses of the family Poaceae, containing about 400 species distributed throughout warm regions of the world. Some are valuable forage grasses. P. dilatatum, a South American species, is also grown in Australian and North American ...
Pasquier, Etienne: French lawyer and man of letters who is known for his Recherches de la France, 10 vol. (1560-1621), which is not only encyclopaedic but also an important work of historical scholarship.
Pasquier, Etienne, duc de: French statesman and the last chancellor of France.
pasquinade: brief and generally anonymous satirical comment in prose or verse that ridicules a contemporary leader or national event. Pasquinade is derived from "Pasquino," the popular name for the remains of an ancient Roman statue unearthed in Rome in 1501. "Pasquino," ...
Pass Christian: city, Harrison county, southern Mississippi, U.S., just west-southwest of Gulfport, on Mississippi Sound (an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico). It is named for the nearby deepwater channel known as Christian's Pass, which runs through the sound along the Gulf ...
passacaglia: (Italian, from Spanish passacalle, or pasacalle: "street song"), musical form of continuous variation in 34 time; and a courtly dance. The dance, as it first appeared in 17th-century Spain, was of unsavoury reputation and possibly quite fiery. In the French ...
passage rite: any of numerous ceremonial events, existing in all historically known societies, that mark the passage of an individual from one social or religious status to another. Many of the most important and common rites are connected with the biological stages ...
Passaic: county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., bordered by New York state to the north and the Pequannock and Pompton rivers to the south; the Passaic River, which crosses the southeastern portion of the county, forms part of the southern and eastern ...
Passaic: city, Passaic county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., on the Passaic River, 9 miles (14 km) north of Newark. It was established by the Dutch in 1678 as a fur-trading post. In 1685 Hartman Michielson purchased the site, then called Acquackanonk, ...
Passaic River: river, rising near Morristown, southeastern Morris county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. It flows south past Millington, then north and east to Paterson and its Great Falls (70 feet [21 metres] high), at which point it turns south and east past ...
Passamaquoddy: Algonkian-speaking Indians who lived on Passamaquoddy Bay, the St. Croix River, and Schoodic Lake on the boundary between what are now Maine and New Brunswick. They belonged to the Abenaki confederacy, and their language was closely related to that of ...
Passamaquoddy Bay: inlet of the Bay of Fundy (Atlantic Ocean), between southwestern New Brunswick, Can., and southeastern Maine, U.S., at the mouth of the St. Croix River. Deer Island and Campobello Island are in its southern part. The bay has an immense ...
Passarowitz, Treaty of: (July 21, 1718), pact signed at the conclusion of the Austro-Turkish (1716-18) and the Venetian-Turkish (1716-18) wars at Passarowitz (now Pozerevac, Yugos.). By its terms the Ottoman Turks lost substantial territories in the Balkans to Austria, thus marking the end ...
Passau: city, Bavaria Land (state), southeastern Germany. It lies at the confluence of the Danube, Inn, and Ilz rivers, on the Austrian border.
passenger pigeon: (Ectopistes migratorius), migratory bird hunted to extinction by man. Billions of these birds inhabited eastern North America in the early 1800s; migrating flocks darkened the skies for days. As settlers pressed westward, however, passenger pigeons were slaughtered by the million ...
passepied: lively dance of Brittany adopted c. 1650 by French and English aristocrats, who, during the century of its popularity, frequently danced it dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses. As a court dance the passepied lost its original chain formations and became, ...
Passerat, Jean: French poet, author of some elegant and tender verse, and one of the contributors to the "Satire Menippee," the manifesto of the moderate Royalist party in support of Henry of Navarre's claim to the throne.
Passeres: bird suborder (order Passeriformes) that includes all songbirds. Birds belonging to the suborder Passeres are also referred to as oscines. See songbird.
Passeridae: sparrow weaver family of small gregarious birds, based on the genus Passer, the well-known sparrows. In this work these birds are classified as a subfamily (Passerinae) in the weaverfinch family (Ploceidae), order Passeriformes.
passeriform: any member of the order Passeriformes, the largest order of birds and the dominant avian group on Earth today. The passeriform birds are true perching birds, with four toes, three directed forward and one backward. Considered the most highly evolved ...
Passifloraceae: the passion-flower family within the order Violales, containing about 20 genera and 600 species of herbaceous or woody vines, shrubs, and trees, mostly of warm regions. The family is most highly developed in the tropical Americas and in Africa. The ...
Passion music: musical setting of the suffering and Crucifixion of Christ, based either on biblical texts or poetic elaborations. Dating from the 4th century onward, they range from unaccompanied plainsong to compositions for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. In the medieval Passion the ...
Passion play: religious drama of medieval origin dealing with the suffering, death, and Resurrection of Christ. Early Passion plays (in Latin) consisted of readings from the Gospel with interpolated poetical sections on the events of Christ's Passion and related subjects, such as ...
passion-flower: any of about 400 species of tendril-bearing, herbaceous vines comprising the genus Passiflora (family Passifloraceae), with characteristic flowers. Some are important as ornamentals; others are grown for their edible fruits.
Passionist: a religious order of men in the Roman Catholic church, founded by Paolo Francesco Danei (now known as St. Paul of the Cross) in Italy in 1720 to spread devotion to the sufferings and death on the Cross of Jesus ...
Passo Fundo: city, northern Rio Grande do Sul estado ("state"), southern Brazil. The city lies near the headwaters of the Passo Fundo River at 2,326 feet (709 m) above sea level. It was founded in 1857 and given city status in 1890. ...
Passos: city, southwestern Minas Gerais estado ("state"), Brazil. Passos lies along the Bocaina River near the Rio Grande, at 2,388 feet (728 m) above sea level. It was made a seat of a municipality in 1848 and became a city 10 ...
Passover: in Judaism, holiday commemorating the Hebrews' liberation from slavery in Egypt and the "passing over" of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, when the Lord "smote the land of Egypt" on the eve ...
passport: a formal document or certification issued by a national government identifying a traveler as a citizen or national with a right to protection while abroad and a right to return to the country of citizenship. Passports, letters of transit, and ...
Passy, Frederic: French economist and advocate of international arbitration who was cowinner (with Jean-Henri Dunant) of the first Nobel Prize for Peace in 1901.
pasta: any of several starchy food preparations (pasta alimentaria) frequently associated with Italian cuisine and made from semolina, the granular product obtained from the endosperm of a type of wheat called durum, and containing a large proportion of gluten (elastic protein). ...
Pasta, Giuditta: reigning Italian soprano of her time, acclaimed for her vocal range and expressiveness.