Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Palermo Stone ... Palmas

Palermo Stone: one of the basic sources of information about the chronology and cultural history of Egypt during the first five dynasties (c. 2925-c. 2325 BC). Named for the Sicilian city where it has been preserved since 1877, the black basalt stone ...
Pales Matos, Luis: Puerto Rican lyric poet who enriched the vocabulary of Spanish poetry with words, themes, and rhythms of African and Afro-American folklore and dance.
Palestine: area of the eastern Mediterranean region, comprising parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip (along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea) and the West Bank (the area west of the Jordan River).
Palestine Liberation Organization: umbrella political organization claiming to represent the world's estimated eight million Palestinians-those Arabs, and their descendants, who lived in mandated Palestine before the creation there of the State of Israel in 1948. It was formed in 1964 to centralize the ...
Palestinian Authority: governing body of the emerging Palestinian autonomous regions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip established in 1994 as part of the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Palestinian Talmud: one of two compilations of Jewish religious teachings and commentary that was transmitted orally for centuries prior to its compilation by Jewish scholars in Palestine. The other such compilation, produced in Babylon, is called the Babylonian Talmud, or Talmud Bavli.
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da: Italian Renaissance composer of more than 105 masses and 250 motets, a master of contrapuntal composition.
Paley, Grace: American short-story writer and poet known for her realistic seriocomic portrayals of working-class New Yorkers and for her political activism.
Paley, William: English Anglican priest, Utilitarian philosopher, and author of influential works on Christianity, ethics, and science, among them the standard exposition in English theology of the teleological argument for the existence of God.
Paley, William S.: American broadcaster who served as the Columbia Broadcasting System's president (1928-46), chairman of the board (1946-83), founder chairman (1983-86), acting chairman (1986-87), and chairman (1987-90). For more than half a century he personified the power and influence of CBS.
Palghat: town, central Kerala state, southwestern India. The town lies on the Ponnani River in a break in the Western Ghats range known as the Palghat Gap. Its location has always given the town strategic and commercial importance. It is a ...
Palghat Gap: major break in the Western Ghats mountain range, in southwestern India. Located between the Nilgiri Hills (north) and the Anaimalai Hills (south), it is about 20 miles (32 km) wide and straddles the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, serving as a major ...
Palgrave, Francis Turner: English critic and poet, editor of the influential anthology The Golden Treasury.
Pali: town, central Rajasthan state, northwestern India, just north of the Bandi River, a tributary of the Luni. A trade centre in ancient times, Pali is divided into an ancient and modern quarter; it has several historic temples. Now chiefly an ...
Pali language: sacred language of the Theravada Buddhist canon, a Middle Indo-Aryan language of north Indian origin. On the whole, Pali seems closely related to the Old Indo-Aryan Vedic and Sanskrit dialects but is apparently not directly descended from either of these.
Pali literature: body of canonical texts and commentaries in the sacred Pali language of Theravada Buddhism. See Tipitaka.
Palime: town, major commercial centre in the Plateaux region, southwestern Togo, western Africa, situated about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Lome, the national capital. The town lies in a mountainous area important for cultivation of coffee, cacao, and oil palms. ...
palimpsest: manuscript in roll or codex form carrying a text erased, or partly erased, underneath an apparent additional text. The underlying text is said to be "in palimpsest," and, even though the parchment or other surface is much abraded, the older ...
palindrome: word, number, sentence, or verse that reads the same backward or forward. The term derives from the Greek palin dromo ("running back again").
Palio, The: ("Course of the Banner"), festival of medieval origin conducted annually in certain Italian cities and featuring bareback horse races. Best known to foreigners is the Palio of Siena. Horse racing in Siena dates from 1232. The Palio was first held ...
Palisa, Johann: Silesian astronomer best known for his discovery of 120 asteroids. He also prepared two catalogs containing the positions of almost 4,700 stars.
Palisades, The: basalt bluffs 200-540 feet (60-165 metres) high along the west side of the Hudson River, southeastern New York and northeastern New Jersey, U.S. Rising vertically from near the water's edge, they are characterized by uplifts, faults, and columnar structure developed ...
Palissy, Bernard: French Huguenot potter and writer, particularly associated with decorated rustic ware, a type of earthenware covered with coloured lead glazes sometimes mistakenly called faience (tin-glazed earthenware).
Palk Strait: inlet of the Bay of Bengal, between southeastern India and northern Sri Lanka and bounded on the south by Pamban Island (India), Adam's (Rama's) Bridge (a chain of shoals), and Mannar Island (Sri Lanka). The strait is 40-85 miles (64-137 ...
Palkonda Hills: series of ranges in southern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. The hills trend northwest to southeast and form the central part of the Eastern Ghats. Geologically they are relics of ancient mountains formed during the Cambrian Period (570 to 505 ...
pall-mall: (from Italian pallamaglio, palla, "ball," and maglio, "mallet"), obsolete game of French origin, resembling croquet. An English traveler in France mentions it early in the 17th century, and it was introduced into England in the second quarter of that century. ...
Palladian window: in architecture, three-part window composed of a large, arched central section flanked by two narrower, shorter sections having square tops. This type of window, popular in 17th- and 18th-century English versions of Italian designs, was inspired by the so-called Palladian ...
Palladianism: style of architecture based on the writings and buildings of the humanist and theorist from Vicenza, Andrea Palladio (1508-80), perhaps the greatest architect of the latter 16th century and certainly the most influential. Palladio felt that architecture should be governed ...
Palladio, Andrea: Italian architect, regarded as the greatest architect of 16th-century northern Italy. His designs for palaces (palazzi) and villas, notably the Villa Rotonda (1550-51) near Vicenza, and his treatise I quattro libri dell'architettura (1570; The Four Books of Architecture) made him ...
palladium: (Pd), chemical element, lightest and lowest-melting of the platinum metals of Group VIII of the periodic table, used especially as a catalyst (a substance that speeds up chemical reactions without changing their products) and in alloys. A precious, gray-white metal, ...
Palladium: in Greek religion, image of the goddess Pallas (Athena), especially the archaic wooden statue of the goddess that was preserved in the citadel of Troy as a pledge of the safety of the city. As long as the statue was ...
Palladius: Galatian monk, bishop, and chronicler whose Lausiac History, an account of early Egyptian and Middle Eastern Christian monasticism, provides the most valuable single source for the origins of Christian asceticism.
Pallas: second largest known asteroid and the second such object to be discovered. It was detected in 1802 by the German astronomer and physician Wilhelm Olbers following the discovery of Ceres, the largest asteroid, the year before. It was named after ...
Pallas's cat: (Felis manul), small, long-haired cat (family Felidae) native to deserts and rocky, mountainous regions from Tibet to Siberia. It was named for the naturalist Peter Simon Pallas. The Pallas's cat is a soft-furred animal about the size of a house ...
Pallas, Peter Simon: German naturalist who advanced a theory of mountain formation and, by the age of 15, had outlined new classifications of certain animal groups.
pallasite: any stony iron meteorite containing about 50 percent olivine as well as kamacite, plessite, taenite, and troilite. The olivine is present as single crystals larger than those in any other meteorite type and may form aggregates. The olivine is usually ...
Pallava Dynasty: early 4th-century to late 9th-century southern Indian line of rulers whose members originated as indigenous subordinates of the Satavahanas in the Deccan, moved into Andhra, and then to Kanci (Kanchipuram in modern Tamil Nadu state, India), where they became rulers. ...
Pallenberg, Max: actor, an exponent of the Austrian tradition of extempore farce, whose talents contributed to the evolution of German theatrical practice.
pallium: liturgical vestment worn over the chasuble by the pope, archbishops, and some bishops in the Roman Catholic church. It is bestowed by the pope on archbishops and bishops having metropolitan jurisdiction as a symbol of their participation in papal authority. ...
palm: any member of the Arecaceae, or Palmae, the single family of monocotyledonous flowering plants of the order Arecales, subclass Arecidae.
Palm Bay: city, Brevard county, east-central Florida, U.S. It lies along the Indian River, a lagoon (part of the Intracoastal Waterway) which at that point is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the long and narrow southern peninsula of Merritt Island, adjacent ...
Palm Beach: town, Palm Beach county, southeastern Florida, U.S., on a narrow barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean (east) and Lake Worth (west). The latter, actually a lagoon (part of the Intracoastal Waterway), is bridged to West Palm Beach. In 1878 a ...
palm chestnut: edible nut of the peach palm (Bactris gasipaes, or in some classifications Guilielma gasipaes), family Arecaceae (Palmae), that is grown extensively from Central America as far south as Ecuador. The typical 18-metre (60-foot) mature peach palm bears up to five ...
Palm Springs: city, Riverside county, southern California, U.S. It lies in the Coachella Valley, at the foot of Mount San Jacinto, which rises to 10,804 feet (3,293 metres). The area originally was inhabited by Cahuilla Indians; it was known to the Spanish ...
Palm Sunday: in the Christian tradition, first day of Holy Week and the Sunday before Easter, commemorating Jesus Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is associated in the Roman Catholic church (and others) with the blessing and procession of palms (leaves of ...
palm-chat: (species Dulus dominicus), songbird of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and nearby Gonave Island, which may belong in the waxwing family (Bombycillidae) but which is usually separated as the family Dulidae. This 19-centimetre (7.5-inch) bird has a stout bill, ...
Palma: capital of the Balearic Islands comprising Baleares provincia and comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), Spain, in the western Mediterranean Sea. The city lies on the southwestern coast of the island of Majorca in the centre of the 10-mile- (16-kilometre-) wide Palma ...
Palma, Jacopo: Venetian painter of the High Renaissance, noted for the craftsmanship of his religious and mythological works. He may have studied under Giovanni Bellini, the originator of the Venetian High Renaissance style.
Palma, Ricardo: Peruvian writer best known for his collected legends of colonial Peru, one of the most popular collections in Spanish American literature.
Palmares: autonomous republic within Alagoas state in northeastern Brazil during the period 1630-94; it was formed by the coalescence of as many as 10 separate communities (called quilombos, or mocambos) of fugitive black slaves that had sprung up in the locality ...
Palmas: city, capital of Tocantins estado (state), north-central Brazil. It lies at the centre of the state, east of the Tocantins River. When Tocantins state was created in 1989, its provisional capital was Miracema do Tocantins, which lies north of Palmas ...