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Encyclopedias since 1768

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Renouvier, Charles-Bernard ... Resende, Garcia de

Renouvier, Charles-Bernard: French neocritical idealist philosopher who rejected all necessary connection between universal laws and morality. Never an academic, Renouvier wrote prolifically and with great influence. He accepted Kant's critical philosophy as a starting point but drew vastly different conclusions. He held, ...
Renovated Church: federation of several reformist church groups that took over the central administration of the Russian Orthodox church in 1922 and for over two decades controlled many religious institutions in the Soviet Union. The term Renovated Church is used most frequently ...
Renshaw, William; and Renshaw, Ernest: twin English brothers who dominated Wimbledon tennis competition in the 1880s. With their warm personalities and exciting, competitive play, the Renshaws are often credited with transforming tennis into a spectator sport.
Rensselaer: city, Rensselaer county, eastern New York, U.S. It is situated along the east bank of the Hudson River, opposite Albany. Settled by the Dutch in the 17th century, it was the site of the most successful of the patroonships (estates) ...
Rensselaer: county, eastern New York state, U.S., bounded by the Hudson River to the west and Vermont and Massachusetts to the east. The land rises from the low hills of the Hudson valley to the Taconic Range along the county's eastern ...
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Troy, New York, U.S. It includes schools of architecture, engineering, humanities and social sciences, management and technology, and science. In addition to undergraduate studies, all five schools offer master's degree programs and four ...
Rensselaeria: genus of extinct brachiopods (lamp shells) found as fossils in Lower Devonian marine rocks (387 to 408 million years old). The shell is large and elongated. Its surface markings include fine costae (i.e., lines that radiate from the narrow apex ...
rent: in economics, the income derived from the ownership of land and other free gifts of nature. The neoclassical economist Alfred Marshall, and others after him, chose this definition for technical reasons, even though it is somewhat more restrictive than the ...
Renton: city, King county, western Washington, U.S., on the flats of the Cedar River at its mouth on Lake Washington, 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Seattle. Settled on the site of a Duwamish Indian village in the 1850s and platted ...
Renville Agreement: (Jan. 17, 1948), treaty between The Netherlands and the Republic of Indonesia concluded on the U.S. warship Renville, anchored in the harbour of Djakarta (now Jakarta). It was an attempt, albeit unsuccessful, to mediate disputes left unresolved by an earlier ...
Renwick, James: last of the prominent Covenanter martyrs of Scotland.
Renwick, James: one of the most successful, prolific, and versatile American architects in the latter half of the 19th century.
reovirus: any of a group of ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses constituting the family Reoviridae, a small group of animal and plant viruses. The virions of reoviruses (the name is a shortening of respiratory enteric orphan viruses) lack an outer envelope, appear ...
repartimiento: in colonial Spanish America, a system by which the crown allowed certain colonists to recruit Indians for forced labour. The repartimiento system, frequently called the mita in Peru and the cuatequil in New Spain (Mexico), was in operation as early ...
repeating rifle: firearm designed for use with a magazine of cartridges, each of which is fed into the chamber or breech by lever or bolt action or other means. Before the invention of the cartridge that contained powder, ball, and primer, a ...
repertory theatre: system of play production in which a resident acting company keeps a repertory of plays that are always ready for performance, often presenting a different one each night of the week, supplemented by the preparation and rehearsal of new plays. ...
Repin, Ilya Yefimovich: Russian painter of historical subjects known for the power and drama of his works.
replacement deposit: in geology, mineral deposit formed by chemical processes that dissolve a rock and deposit a new assemblage of minerals in its place. See metasomatic replacement.
Replacements, the: American rock band that combined the intensity of punk with melodic hooks and heartfelt lyrics, in the process providing an important bridge from the punk movement of the late 1970s to the alternative rock of the late 1980s. The principal ...
replevin: a form of lawsuit in common-law countries, such as England, Commonwealth countries, and the United States, for return of personal property wrongfully taken and for compensation for resulting loss. Replevin is one of the oldest legal actions, dating to the ...
Repnin, Nikolay Vasilyevich, Prince: diplomat and military officer who served Catherine II the Great of Russia by greatly increasing Russia's influence over Poland before that country was partitioned. He later distinguished himself in Russia's wars against the Turks.
repousse: method of decorating metals in which parts of the design are raised in relief from the back or the inside of the article by means of hammers and punches; definition and detail can then be added from the front by ...
representation: in government, method or process of enabling the citizenry, or some of them, to participate in the shaping of legislation and governmental policy through deputies chosen by them.
representationism: philosophical theory of knowledge based on the assertion that the mind perceives only mental images (representations) of material objects outside the mind, not the objects themselves. The validity of human knowledge is thus called into question because of the need ...
Representatives, House of: one of the two houses of the bicameral United States Congress, established in 1789 by the Constitution of the United States.
repression: in metabolism, a control mechanism in which a protein molecule, called a repressor, prevents the synthesis of an enzyme by binding to-and thereby impeding the action of-the deoxyribonucleic acid that controls the process by which the enzyme is synthesized. Although ...
reproduction: process by which organisms replicate themselves.
reproductive behaviour: any activity directed toward perpetuation of a species. The enormous range of animal reproductive modes is matched by the variety of reproductive behaviour.
reproductive system disease: any of the diseases and disorders that affect the human reproductive system. They include abnormal hormone production coming from the ovaries or the testes or from other endocrine glands, such as the pituitary, thyroid, and adrenals. Such diseases can also ...
reproductive system, animal: any of the organ systems by which animals reproduce.
reproductive system, human: organ system by which humans reproduce.
reproductive system, plant: any of the systems, sexual or asexual, by which plants reproduce. In plants, as in animals, the end result of reproduction is the continuation of a given species, and the ability to reproduce is, therefore, rather conservative, or given to ...
reptile: any member of the class Reptilia, a group of air-breathing vertebrates that have internal fertilization and scaly bodies rather than hair or feathers. They occupy an intermediate position in evolutionary development between amphibians and warm-blooded vertebrates, the birds and mammals. ...
Repton: village ("parish"), South Derbyshire district, administrative and historic county of Derbyshire, England. The famous independent boys' school of Repton was founded in 1556, and its buildings incorporate parts (restored) of an Augustinian priory established in 1172. Pop. (1991) 2,012.
Repton, Humphry: English landscape designer who became the undisputed successor to Lancelot Brown as improver of grounds to the landed gentry of England. Of a well-to-do family, he was intended for a mercantile career but, failing in that, retired to the country, ...
Republican Party: unofficial English name of the Irish political party Fianna Fail (q.v.).
Republican Party: in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Party. The Republican Party traditionally has supported laissez-faire capitalism, low taxes, and conservative social policies. The party acquired the acronym GOP, widely understood as ...
Republican Party: French political party formed in May 1977 when the former National Foundation of Independent Republicans (Federation Nationale des Republicains Independents)-founded in 1966 by Valery Giscard d'Estaing-was merged with other small groups. It is conservative in domestic social and economic policies ...
Republican Party: in U.S. history, political party formed from the nucleus of the Anti-Federalists and the country's first opposition party. Formed in 1792 by supporters of Thomas Jefferson in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton, the party developed into the ...
Republican River: river formed by the confluence of the North Fork of the Republican River and the Arikaree River near Haigler, Neb., U.S. It flows eastward through Swanson Lake (behind Trenton Dam) past the towns of McCook, Red Cloud, and Superior and ...
Republicans, The: German ultranationalist political party, founded in West Germany in 1983. Although they reject the label, many observers regard the party as neo-fascist.
Requena: city, Valencia provincia (province) and comunidad autonoma (autonomous community), eastern Spain. Overlooking the left bank of the Magro River, the city, 2,270 feet (692 metres) above sea level, commands the Utiel plain. Settlement of ...
Requesens y Zuniga, Luis de: Spanish governor of the Netherlands during one phase (1573-76) of the Dutch revolt called the Eighty Years' War. Succeeding the tyrannical Fernando Alvarez, duque de Alba, he tried unsuccessfully to compromise with the rebellious provinces.
Requests, Court of: in England, one of the prerogative courts that grew out of the king's council (Curia Regis) in the late 15th century. The court's primary function was to deal with civil petitions from poor people and the king's servants.
requiem mass: musical setting of the Mass for the Dead (missa pro defunctis), named for the beginning of the Latin of the Introit "Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine" ("Give them eternal rest, O Lord"). The polyphonic composition for the requiem mass differs ...
Rerum Novarum: encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 and considered by many conservative Roman Catholics to be extremely progressive. It enunciated the late 19th-century Roman Catholic position on social justice, especially in relation to the problems created by the Industrial ...
res judicata: (Latin: "a thing adjudged"), a thing or matter that has been finally juridically decided on its merits and cannot be litigated again between the same parties. The term is often used in reference to the maxim that repeated reexamination of ...
rescue mission: Christian religious organization established to provide spiritual, physical, and social assistance to the poor and needy. It originated in the city mission movement among evangelical laymen and ministers early in the 19th century. The work of rescue missions resembles that ...
research and development: in industry, two intimately related processes by which new products and new forms of old products are brought into being through technological innovation.
Resende: city, western Rio de Janeiro estado (state), eastern Brazil. It is situated on the Paraiba do Sul River, opposite Agulhas Negras, at 1,296 feet (395 metres) above sea level. Dairying, meat and coffee processing, and talc pulverizing ...
Resende, Garcia de: Portuguese poet, chronicler, and editor, whose life was spent in the service of the Portuguese court.