Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

readerly and writerly ... Recklinghausen, Friedrich Daniel von

readerly and writerly: opposite types of literary text, as defined by the French critic Roland Barthes in his book S/Z (1970). Barthes used the terms lisible ("readerly") and scriptible ("writerly") to distinguish, respectively, between texts that are straightforward and demand no special effort ...
Reading: city, seat (1752) of Berks county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., on the Schuylkill River, 51 miles (82 km) northwest of Philadelphia. Laid out in 1748 by Nicholas Scull and William Parsons on land owned by Thomas and Richard Penn (sons of ...
Reading: town and unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Berkshire, southern England, 38 miles (61 km) west of London. It is an important junction of railways running west from London and south from the Midlands, and the Kennet and Avon ...
Reading Company: American railroad in Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware, absorbed into the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in 1976. At its peak in the first half of the 20th century, it was the largest American carrier of anthracite coal.
Reading, Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of, Earl Of Reading, Viscount Erleigh Of Erleigh, Viscount Reading Of Erleigh, Baron Reading Of Erleigh: politician, lord chief justice of England, and diplomat.
ready-made: everyday object selected and designated as art; the name was coined by the French artist Marcel Duchamp.
Reagan, Nancy: American first lady (1981-89), the wife of Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, and an actress, noted for her efforts to discourage drug use by American youths.
Reagan, Ronald W.: 40th president of the United States (1981-89), noted for his conservative Republicanism, his fervent anticommunism, and his appealing personal style, characterized by a jaunty affability and folksy charm. The only movie actor ever to become president, he had a remarkable ...
reagin: type of antibody found in the serum and skin of allergically hypersensitive persons and in smaller amounts in the serum of normally sensitive persons. Most reaginic antibodies are the immunoglobulin E (IgE) fraction in the blood. Reagins are easily destroyed ...
Reagon, Bernice Johnson: African American musician and historian whose work ranged from African spirituals to militant civil rights anthems.
real: monetary unit of Brazil. Each real (plural: reais) is divided into 100 centavos. The Central Bank of Brazil (Banco Central do Brasil) has the exclusive authority to issue banknotes and coins in Brazil. Coins are issued in denominations ranging from ...
real and personal property: a basic division of property in English common law, roughly corresponding to the division between immovables and movables in civil law. At common law most interests in land and fixtures (such as permanent buildings) were classified as real-property interests. Leasehold ...
Real Cuerpo de Mineria: (Spanish: "Royal Mining Company"), guild of mine owners in the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The guild was set up by royal decree in 1777 in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico) to reorganize and to provide capital for technological ...
real number: in mathematics, a quantity that can be expressed as an infinite decimal expansion. Real numbers are used in measurements of continuously varying quantities such as size and time, in contrast to the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, &elipsis;, arising from ...
real tennis: racket sport that is descended from and almost identical to the medieval tennis game jeu de paume ("game of the palm"). Real tennis has been played since the Middle Ages, but the game has become almost completely obscured by its ...
Real, Cordillera: major mountain system, the easternmost of the two in Bolivia. It extends generally north-south for about 750 miles (1,200 km) through the length of the country. The Cordillera Real separates the lowlands of the Amazon River basin to the east ...
realgar: an important ore of arsenic, a red or orange mineral containing both arsenic and sulfur. Typically it is a minor constituent of ore veins in association with orpiment (into which it disintegrates on long exposure to light). Realgar has been ...
realism: in the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances. As such, realism in its broad sense has comprised many artistic currents in ...
Realism: in philosophy, the viewpoint that accords to the objects of knowledge an existence that is independent of whether anyone is perceiving or thinking about them. Though it may seem strange to the unphilosophical layman that the independent existence of objects ...
realschule: German secondary school with an emphasis on the practical that evolved in the mid-18th century as a six-year alternative to the nine-year gymnasium. It was distinguished by its practical curriculum (natural science and chemistry) and use of chemistry laboratories and ...
Ream, Vinnie: American sculptor, who is best remembered for her sculpture of Abraham Lincoln in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
reamer: rotary cutting tool of cylindrical or conical shape used for enlarging and finishing to accurate dimensions holes that have been drilled, bored, or cored. A reamer cannot be used to originate a hole. All reamers are provided with longitudinal flutes ...
Reaney, James Crerar: Canadian poet and playwright whose works, dealing with Ontario small-town life, transcend their manifest content to move into areas of symbol and dream.
reanimation rite: in Egyptian religion, rite to prepare the deceased for afterlife, performed on statues of the deceased, the mummy itself, or statues of a god located in a temple. An important element of the ceremony was the ritual opening of the ...
reaper: any farm machine that cuts grain. Early reapers simply cut the crop and dropped it unbound, but modern machines include harvesters, combines, and binders, which also perform other harvesting operations. A patent for a reaper was issued in England to ...
reason: in philosophy, the faculty or process of drawing logical inferences. The term "reason" is also used in several other, narrower senses. Reason is in opposition to sensation, perception, feeling, desire, as the faculty (the existence of which is denied by ...
Reaumur temperature scale: scale established in 1730 by the French naturalist Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), with its zero set at the freezing point of water and its 80° mark at the boiling point of water at normal atmospheric pressure. Use of the ...
Reaumur, Rene-Antoine Ferchault de: French scientist and foremost entomologist of the early 18th century who conducted research in widely varied fields.
rebate: retroactive refund or credit given to a buyer after he has paid the full list price for a product or for a service such as transportation. Rebating was a common pricing tactic during the 19th century and was often used ...
rebec: bowed, stringed musical instrument of European medieval and early Renaissance music. It was originally called a rubebe, developed about the 11th century from the similar Arab rabab, and was carried to Spain with Muslim culture. Like the rabab, the rebec ...
Rebecca Riots: disturbances that occurred briefly in 1839 and with greater violence from 1842 to 1844 in southwestern Wales. The rioting was in protest against charges at the tollgates on the public roads, but the attacks were symptomatic of a much wider ...
Rebelo, Jorge: African poet, lawyer, and journalist.
Reber, Grote: U.S. astronomer and radio engineer who built the first radio telescope and was largely responsible for the early development of radio astronomy, which opened an entirely new research front in the study of the universe.
Rebmann, Johannes: German missionary and explorer, the first European to penetrate Africa from its Indian Ocean coast. Rebmann and his associate, Johann Ludwig Krapf, also were the discoverers of Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya and paved the way for the great East African ...
rebus: representation of a word or syllable by a picture of an object the name of which resembles in sound the represented word or syllable. Several rebuses may be combined-in a single device or successively-to make a phrase or sentence. Literary ...
recall: in psychology, the spontaneous remembering or repetition of something learned earlier, such as a poem, the image of an old friend, or a free association of words, ideas, and images. Tests of recall have long been a primary method used ...
Recamier, Julie, dame de: French hostess of great charm and wit whose salon attracted most of the important political and literary figures of early 19th-century Paris.
receivership: in law, the judicial appointment of a person, a receiver, to collect and conserve certain assets and to make distributions in accordance with judicial authorization. A receivership is properly an intermediate or incidental step toward some other principal objective and ...
receptor: in biology, a specialized cell or group of cells that translates a certain type of stimulus, received from the environment or from within the organism, into nerve impulses that aid the organism in effecting future behavioral or physiological changes.
recession: in economics, a downward trend in the business cycle characterized by a decline in production and employment, which in turn causes the incomes and spending of households to decline. Even though not all households and businesses experience actual declines in ...
recessiveness: in genetics, the failure of one of a pair of genes (alleles) present in an individual to express itself in an observable manner because of the greater influence, or dominance, of its opposite-acting partner. Both alleles affect the same inherited ...
Rechabite: member of a conservative, ascetic Israelite sect that was named for Rechab, the father of Jehonadab. Jehonadab was an ally of Jehu, a 9th-century-BC king of Israel, and a zealous antagonist against the worshippers of Baal, a Canaanite fertility deity. ...
Rechitsa: city and centre of Rechitsa rayon (sector), Gomel oblast (province), Belarus, a port on the Dnieper River. The city dates from at least the 12th century, and it became an administrative centre in 1796. Rechitsa has furniture and engineering industries, ...
Rechy, John: American novelist whose semiautobiographical works explore the worlds of sexual and social outsiders and occasionally draw on his Mexican-American heritage.
recidivism: tendency toward chronic criminal behaviour leading to numerous arrests and re-imprisonment. Studies of the yearly intake of prisons, reformatories, and jails in the United States and Europe show that from one-half to two-thirds of those imprisoned have served previous sentences ...
Recife: capital of Pernambuco state, northeastern Brazil, and centre of an area that includes several industrial towns. It is an Atlantic seaport located at the confluence of the Capibaribe and Beberibe rivers. Recife has been called the Venice of Brazil because ...
reciprocity: in international trade, the granting of mutual concessions in tariff rates, quotas, or other commercial restrictions. Reciprocity implies that these concessions are neither intended nor expected to be generalized to other countries with which the contracting parties have commercial treaties. ...
recit: a brief novel, usually with a simple narrative line. One of the writers who consciously used the form was Andre Gide. Both L'Immoraliste (1902; The Immoralist) and La Porte etroite (1909; Strait Is the Gate) are examples of the recit. ...
recitative: style of monody (accompanied solo song) that emphasizes the rhythms and accents of spoken language. The earliest significant form of monody, recitative developed in the late 1500s in opposition to the polyphonic, or many-voiced, style of 16th-century choral music.
Recklinghausen: city, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), western Germany. The city is situated on the northern edge of the Ruhr industrial region, north of Essen, and has port facilities on the Rhine-Herne Canal. Originally a Saxon settlement that became ...
Recklinghausen, Friedrich Daniel von: German pathologist, best known for his descriptions of two disorders, each called Recklinghausen's disease: multiple neurofibromatosis (1882), characterized by numerous skin tumours associated with areas of pigmentation, and osteitis fibrosa cystica (1891), a degeneration of the skeleton caused by a ...