Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Pandarus ... Pansaers, Clement

Pandarus: in Greek legend, son of Lycaon, a Lycian. In Homer's epic poem the Iliad, Pandarus broke the truce between the Trojans and the Greeks by treacherously wounding Menelaus, the king of Sparta; he was finally slain by the warrior Diomedes. ...
Pandavas: in Hindu legend, the five sons of the dynastic hero Pandu who were victorious in the great epic war with their cousins, the Kauravas. See Mahabharata.
Pandects: collection of passages from the writings of Roman jurists, arranged in 50 books and subdivided into titles according to the subject matter. In AD 530 the Roman emperor Justinian entrusted its compilation to the jurist Tribonian with instructions to appoint ...
Panderma rug: any of several types of floor coverings handwoven at Panderma (now Bandirma), a town in Turkey on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmora, usually as imitations of Ghiordes prayer-rug designs. The enterprise was begun early in the 20th ...
Pandharpur: town, southern Maharashtra state, western India. It lies along the Bhima River, west of Sholapur city. Easily reached by road and rail, it is a religious town visited throughout the year by thousands of Hindu pilgrims. Four major annual festivals ...
Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi: Indian political leader and diplomat, one of the world's leading women in public life in the 20th century.
Pandolfi, Vito: Italian critic, theatrical scholar, and director known for his adherence to traditional forms of Italian drama.
Pandora: (Greek: "All-Giving"), in Greek mythology, the first woman. After Prometheus, a fire god and divine trickster, had stolen fire from heaven and bestowed it upon mortals, Zeus, the king of the gods, determined to counteract this blessing. He accordingly commissioned ...
Pandulph: papal legate to England and bishop of Norwich who was deeply involved in English secular politics.
Panduro, Leif: Danish novelist and dramatist, a social critic who wrote in a satirical, humorous vein.
Pandya Dynasty: Tamil rulers in the extreme south of India of unknown antiquity (they are mentioned by Greek authors in the 4th century BC). The Roman emperor Julian received an embassy from a Pandya about AD 361. The dynasty revived under Kadungon ...
panegyric: eulogistic oration or laudatory discourse that originally was a speech delivered at an ancient Greek general assembly (panegyris), such as the Olympic and Panathenaic festivals. Speakers frequently took advantage of these occasions, when Greeks of various cities were gathered together, ...
panegyris: in Greek religion, an ancient assembly that met on certain fixed dates for the purpose of honouring a specific god. The gatherings varied in size from the inhabitants of a single town to great national meetings, such as the Olympic ...
panel painting: painting executed on a rigid support-ordinarily wood or metal-as distinct from painting done on canvas. Before canvas came into general use at the end of the 16th century, the panel was the support most often used for easel painting. A ...
paneling: in architecture and design, decorative treatment of walls, ceilings, doors, and furniture consisting of a series of wide, thin sheets of wood, called panels, framed together by narrower, thicker strips of wood. The latter are called styles (the external vertical ...
Paneth's cell: specialized type of epithelial cell found in the mucous-membrane lining of the small intestine and of the appendix, at the base of tubelike depressions known as Lieberkuhn glands. Named for the 19th-century Austrian physiologist Joseph Paneth, the cell has one ...
Paneth, Friedrich Adolf: Austrian chemist who with George Charles de Hevesy introduced radioactive tracer techniques (1912-13).
Panevezys: city, north-central Lithuania, on the Nevezis River. First mentioned in 1503, it was chartered as a district town in 1842 and became a regional economic centre.
Pang-pu: city, north-central Anhwei sheng (province), China. The name is mentioned in the early 1st millennium BC in connection with myths surrounding the cultural hero Emperor Yu. Throughout most of Chinese history, however, it was only a small market town and ...
Pangaea: (from Greek pangaia, "all earth"), hypothetical protocontinent proposed by the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1912 as a part of his theory of continental drift (q.v.). According to this theory, Pangaea was composed of continental sial (granitic rock), which was ...
Pangaion, Mount: mountain, at the mouth of the Struma River, northeastern Kavalla nomos (department), Macedonia, Greece. Its highest point is 6,417 feet (1,956 m). The upper slopes are formed by fracturing of marble rock; gold and silver mineral deposits are found at ...
Pangalos, Theodoros: soldier and statesman who for eight months in 1926 was dictator of Greece.
Pangani: historic town, northeastern Tanzania. It lies at the mouth of the Pangani River, on the Pemba Channel of the Indian Ocean. The town was formerly a slave-trading depot at the terminus of Arab caravan routes from the interior. It is ...
Pangasinan: eighth largest cultural-linguistic group of the Philippines. Numbering about 1,540,000 in the late 20th century, the Pangasinan occupy the west-central area of the island of Luzon. They are predominantly Roman Catholic. There has been considerable intermarriage with the Ilocanos from ...
Pangkalpinang: kotamadya (municipality) and chief settlement of Bangka island and capital of Bangka-Belitung propinsi (province), Indonesia, located in the east-central part of the island. It is a major port on the Java Sea and has ...
Pangkor Engagement: (1874), treaty between the British government and Malay chiefs in Perak, the first step in the establishment of British dominion over the Malay states. In January 1874, Governor Andrew Clarke of the Straits Settlements, prompted by the local trading community, ...
pangolin: any of the armoured placental mammals of the order Pholidota. Pangolin, from the Malayan meaning "rolling over," refers to this animal's habit of curling into a ball when threatened. About eight species of pangolins, usually considered to be of the ...
Panguitch: city, seat (1882) of Garfield county, south-central Utah, U.S. Located at an altitude of 6,666 feet (2,032 metres) in the fertile Panguitch Valley and bounded by mountains and the Sevier River, the city takes its name from a Paiute Indian ...
Panguna: mining town and site of a large open-pit copper mine in the south-central interior of Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd., a mining company, began prospecting for copper in the Crown Prince Range at Panguna in ...
Panhard, Rene: French automobile engineer and manufacturer who, with Emile Levassor, produced the first vehicle with an internal-combustion engine mounted at the front of the chassis rather than under the driver's seat. Their vehicle became the prototype of the modern automobile. It ...
panic: in economics, acute financial disturbance, such as widespread bank failures, feverish stock speculation followed by a market crash, or a climate of fear caused by economic crisis or the anticipation of such crisis. The term is applied only to the ...
panicum: any of nearly 600 species of forage and cereal grasses in the genus Panicum (family Poaceae), distributed throughout tropical and warm temperate regions. These plants are annuals and perennials; many are tufted or have underground stems.
Panihati: city, south-central West Bengal state, northeastern India. It is located just east of the Hooghly (Hugli) River, part of the Kolkata (Calcutta) urban agglomeration. Connected by road and rail with Kolkata, it is a rice-trading centre; its major industries include ...
Panikkar, Kavalam Madhava: Indian statesman, diplomat, and scholar.
Panin, Nikita Ivanovich, Graf: statesman who served as a chief diplomatic adviser to Catherine II the Great of Russia (reigned 1762-96).
Panipat: city, Haryana state, northwestern India. It is connected by road and rail with Delhi (south) and Ambala (north). The plain of Panipat was the site of three decisive battles in Indian history in the 16th and 18th centuries. Wool and ...
Panipat, Battles of: (1526, 1556, 1761), three military engagements, important in North Indian history, fought at Panipat, a level plain suitable for cavalry movements, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Delhi. The first battle (April 21, 1526) was between the Mughal chief ...
Panizzi, Sir Anthony: Italian patriot and man of letters who became famous as a librarian at the British Museum and played a part in the unification of Italy.
Panj River: headstream of the Amu Darya in Central Asia. It is 700 miles (1,125 km) long and constitutes part of the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The Panj River is formed between the Hindu Kush and the Pamir Mountains by the ...
Panjgur: town, Balochistan province, Pakistan. Situated on the south bank of the Rakhshan River in the Siahan Range, the town is a market centre and in summer is a temporary administrative seat. It is connected by road to Turbat and Pasni ...
Panjnad River: river in Punjab province, Pakistan, formed just below Uch by successive junctions of the Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, Jhelum, and Chenab rivers. The Panjnad (literally "Five Rivers") flows 44 miles (71 km) southwest to its junction with the Indus River near ...
Pankhurst, Dame Christabel Harriette: suffragist leader credited with organizing the tactics of the militant British suffrage movement.
Pankhurst, Emmeline: militant champion of woman suffrage whose 40-year campaign achieved complete success in the year of her death, when British women obtained full equality in the voting franchise. Her daughter Christabel Harriette (afterward Dame Christabel) Pankhurst (1880-1958) also was prominent in ...
Panna: town, northern Madhya Pradesh state, central India. The town grew in importance when Chhatrasal, ruler of Bundelkhand, made it his capital in 1675. It is a trade centre for agricultural products, timber, and cloth fabrics; handloom weaving is the major ...
Pannini, Giovanni Paolo: the foremost painter of Roman topography in the 18th century. His real and imaginary views of the ruins of ancient Rome embody precise observation and tender nostalgia, combining elements of late classical Baroque art with those of incipient Romanticism.
Pannonia: province of the Roman Empire, corresponding to present western Hungary and parts of eastern Austria, Slovenia, and northern Serbia and Montenegro (Vojvodina). The Pannonians were mainly Illyrians, but there were some Celts in the western part of the province. The ...
Panofsky, Erwin: German American art historian who gained particular prominence for his studies in iconography (the study of symbols and themes in works of art).
panorama: in the visual arts, continuous narrative scene or landscape painted to conform to a flat or curved background, which surrounds or is unrolled before the viewer. Panoramas are usually painted in a broad and direct manner, akin to scene, or ...
panpipe: wind instrument consisting of cane pipes of different lengths tied in a row or held together by wax (metal, clay, or wood instruments are also made) and generally closed at the bottom. They are blown across the top, each providing ...
panpsychism: (from Greek pan, "all"; psyche, "soul"), a philosophical theory asserting that a plurality of separate and distinct psychic beings or minds constitute reality. Panpsychism is distinguished from hylozoism (all matter is living) and pantheism (everything is God). For Gottfried Wilhelm ...
Pansaers, Clement: Belgian poet and Dadaist whose reputation was resurrected some 50 years after his death.