Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

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paste: heavy, very transparent flint glass that simulates the fire and brilliance of gemstones because it has relatively high indices of refraction and strong dispersion (separation of white light into its component colours). From a very early period the imitation of ...
pastel: dry drawing medium executed with fragile, finger-size sticks. These drawing crayons, called pastels, are made of powdered pigments combined with a minimum of nongreasy binder, usually gum tragacanth or, from the mid-20th century, methyl cellulose. Made in a wide range ...
Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich: Russian poet whose novel Doctor Zhivago helped win him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 but aroused so much opposition in the Soviet Union that he declined the honour. An epic of wandering, spiritual isolation, and love amid the ...
Pasteur, Louis: French chemist and microbiologist whose contributions were among the most varied and valuable in the history of science and industry. It was he who proved that microorganisms cause fermentation and disease; he who originated and was the first to use ...
Pasteurella: genus of rod-shaped bacteria that causes several serious diseases in domestic animals and milder infections in humans. The genus was named after Louis Pasteur. Its species are microbiologically characterized as gram-negative, nonmotile, facultative anaerobes (not requiring oxygen) that have a ...
pasteurization: heat-treatment process that destroys pathogenic microorganisms in certain foods and beverages. It is named for the French scientist Louis Pasteur, who in the 1860s demonstrated that abnormal fermentation of wine and beer could be prevented by heating the beverages to ...
Pasto: city, capital of Narino department, southwestern Colombia, situated 8,291 feet (2,527 m) above sea level at the base of Galeras Volcano (14,029 feet [4,276 m]). Founded in 1539, Pasto was a royalist stronghold during the revolution against Spain. Although now ...
Paston Letters: the largest surviving collection of 15th-century English correspondence. It is invaluable to historians and philologists and is preserved mainly in the British Museum. Part is derived from the circle of the career soldier Sir John Fastolf (c. 1378-1459), and part ...
Pastor, Ludwig, Freiherr Von Campersfelden: German author of one of the monumental papal histories, Geschichte der Papste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, 16 vol. (1886-1933; History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages).
Pastor, Tony: impresario and comic singer, considered the father of vaudeville in the United States.
Pastora Gomez, Eden: Nicaraguan guerrilla leader and legendary fighter.
pastoral literature: class of literature that presents the society of shepherds as free from the complexity and corruption of city life. Many of the idylls written in its name are far remote from the realities of any life, rustic or urban. Among ...
Pastorius, Francis Daniel: German educator, humanitarian, author, and public official who helped settle Pennsylvania and was founder of Germantown, Pa.
Pastoureaux: (French: "Shepherds"), the participants in two popular outbreaks of mystico-political enthusiasm in France in 1251 and 1320. The first Pastoureaux were peasants in northeastern France who were aroused in 1251 by news of reverses suffered by King Louis IX in ...
Pastrone, Giovanni: pioneer Italian motion picture director and producer.
pastry: stiff dough made from flour, salt, a relatively high proportion of fat, and a small proportion of liquid. It may also contain sugar or flavourings. Most pastry is leavened only by the action of steam, but Danish pastry is raised ...
Pastry War: (1838-39), brief and minor conflict between Mexico and France, arising from the claim of a French pastry cook living in Tacubaya, near Mexico City, that some Mexican army officers had damaged his restaurant. A number of foreign powers had pressed ...
Pasupata: perhaps the earliest Hindu sect to worship the god Siva (Shiva) as the supreme deity; it gave rise in turn to numerous subsects that flourished in Gujarat and Rajasthan, at least until the 12th century, and also travelled to Java ...
Pasuruan: city, Jawa Timur (East Java) provinsi (province), Java, Indonesia, on Madura Strait. The Dutch first established a fort at Pasuruan in 1707. It was the capital of a residency from 1811 to 1934, which, by transferring to ...
Patagonia: semiarid scrub plateau that covers nearly all of the southern portion of mainland Argentina. With an area of about 260,000 square miles (673,000 square kilometres), it constitutes a vast area of steppe and desert that extends from latitude 37° to ...
Patan: town, northern Gujarat state, west-central India. It is situated on the Saraswati River in the lowlands between the Aravalli Range and the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) . Once capital of the Chavada and Solanki dynasties (720-1242), it was sacked in ...
Patangoro: Indian people of western Colombia, apparently extinct since the late 16th century. They spoke a language of the Chibchan family. The Patangoro were agricultural, raising corn (maize), sweet manioc (yuca), beans, avocados, and some fruit. Land was cleared by slash-and-burn ...
Patanjali: author or one of the authors of two great Hindu classics: the first, Yoga-sutras, a categorization of Yogic thought arranged in four volumes with the titles "Psychic Power," "Practice of Yoga," "Samadhi" (transcendental state induced by trance), and "Kaivalya" (liberation); ...
Patarine: member of a medieval group of lay craftsmen, tradesmen, and peasants organized in Milan about 1058 to oppose clerical concubinage and marriage; the group later widened its attack to oppose generally the papacy's moral corruption and temporal powers. The Patarine ...
patas monkey: long-limbed and predominantly ground-dwelling primate found in the grass and scrub regions of West and Central Africa and southeast to the Serengeti plains.
patch box: small, usually rectangular, sometimes oval box used mostly as a receptacle for beauty patches, especially in the 18th century. During the days of Louis XV, black patches of gummed taffeta were popular with fashionable women (and sometimes men) who wanted ...
patch test: controlled application of biological or chemical substances to the skin in order to detect if the subject has an allergic hypersensitivity to one of them. The test was originally developed to test new chemical compounds for their allergic potential on ...
Patchen, Kenneth: American experimental poet, novelist, painter, and graphic designer.
patchwork: the process of joining strips, squares, triangles, hexagons, or other shaped pieces of fabric (also called patches), by either hand or machine stitching, into square blocks or other units. It is one of the primary construction techniques of quilting and ...
pate: (French: "paste"), in French cuisine, a filled pastry, analogous to the English pie. The term pate is also used, with modifiers, to denote two other distinct preparations: pate en terrine, a meat, game, or fish mixture wrapped in suet or ...
pate-sur-pate: (French: "paste on paste"), method of porcelain decoration in which a relief design is created on an unfired, unglazed body by applying successive layers of white slip (liquid clay) with a brush. The technique was first employed by the Chinese ...
Pategi: town, Kwara state, west-central Nigeria. It lies on the south bank of the Niger River opposite the town of Mureji and the mouth of the Kaduna River. Founded in the late 16th century by the king of the Nupe peoples, ...
Patel, Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai: Indian barrister and statesman, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress during the struggle for Indian independence. During the first three years of Indian independence after 1947, he served as deputy prime minister, minister of home affairs, minister ...
patent: a government grant to an inventor of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention, usually for a limited period. Patents are granted for new and useful machines, manufactured products, and industrial processes and for significant ...
patent ductus arteriosus: persistence of a channel that shunts blood between the pulmonary artery and the aorta. Normally, after birth, the pulmonary artery carries blood depleted of oxygen and laden with carbon dioxide from the right lower chamber of the heart to the ...
patent theatre: any of several London theatres that, through government licensing, held a monopoly on legitimate dramatic production there between 1660 and 1843. In reopening the theatres that had been closed by the Puritans, Charles II issued Letters Patent to Thomas Killigrew ...
Pater, Walter: English critic, essayist, and humanist whose advocacy of "art for art's sake" became a cardinal doctrine of the movement known as Aestheticism.
Paterna ware: tin-glazed earthenware produced in the 14th and 15th centuries at Paterna, near Valencia, in eastern Spain. Although pottery was produced in Paterna as early as the 12th century under the Almohads, it was not famous until the reign of the ...
Paterno: town, Catania provincia, eastern Sicily, Italy, situated at the southwestern foot of Mount Etna, overlooking the Simeto River, just northwest of Catania. Paterno is believed to occupy the site of the ancient Siculian town of Hybla Major or Hybla Geleatis. ...
Paterson: city, seat (1837) of Passaic county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., situated on the Passaic River, 11 miles (18 km) northwest of New York City. It was founded after the American Revolution by advocates of American industrial independence from Europe (including ...
Paterson, A B: Australian poet and journalist noted for his composition of the internationally famous song "Waltzing Matilda." He achieved great popular success in Australia with The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses (1895), which sold more than 100,000 copies before his ...
Paterson, Sir Alexander: penologist who modified the progressive Borstal system of English reformatories for juvenile offenders to emphasize its rehabilitative aspects.
Paterson, William: Irish-born jurist, one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. senator (1789-90) and governor of New Jersey (1790-93). He also served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1793 to 1806.
Paterson, William: Scottish founder of the Bank of England, writer on economic issues, and the prime mover behind an unsuccessful Scottish settlement at Darien on the Isthmus of Panama.
Pathe, Charles: French pioneer motion-picture executive who controlled a vast network of production and distribution facilities that dominated the world film market during the first years of the 20th century.
Pathein: city, southern Myanmar (Burma). It lies on the Bassein River, which is the westernmost distributary of the Irrawaddy River and is navigable by ships up to 10,000 tons. The city is a deepwater port and has several rice mills; rice ...
Pathet Lao: left-oriented nationalist group in Laos that took control of the country in 1975. Founded in 1950, the Pathet Lao (Lao Country) movement joined with the Viet Minh, the Communist-oriented Vietnamese nationalist organization, in armed resistance to French rule in Indochina. ...
pathetic fallacy: poetic practice of attributing human emotion or responses to nature, inanimate objects, or animals. The practice is a form of personification that is as old as poetry, in which it has always been common to find smiling or dancing flowers, ...
pathology: medical specialty concerned with the determining causes of disease and the structural and functional changes occurring in abnormal conditions. Early efforts to study pathology were often stymied by religious prohibitions against autopsies, but these gradually relaxed during the late Middle ...
Pathum Thani: town and changwat (province) in the Central region of Thailand. The provincial capital, Pathum Thani town, is a rice-collecting and milling centre north of Bangkok on the west bank of the Mae Nam (river) Chao Phraya. The province, with an ...
Patiala: city, administrative headquarters of Patiala district, Punjab state, northwestern India. The city lies on a major rail line, as well as on a branch of the Sirhind Canal. Founded in 1763 as the capital of the princely state of Patiala, ...