Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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satire ... sauna

satire: artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to bring about improvement.
Satna: city, northeastern Madhya Pradesh state, central India. It is situated on the Tons River, a tributary of the Ganges. The city formerly served as the headquarters of the British political agent in Baghelkhand. A road and rail junction, the city ...
Satnami sect: any of several groups in India that have adopted a combination of Hindu and Muslim practices.
Sato Eisaku: prime minister of Japan between 1964 and 1972, who presided over Japan's post-World War II reemergence as a major world power. For his policies on nuclear weapons, which led to Japan's signing of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear ...
Sato Haruo: Japanese poet, novelist, and critic whose fiction is noted for its poetic vision and romantic imagination.
Sato Nobuhiro: scientist and an early advocate of Westernization in Japan. He favoured the development of an authoritarian type of government based on Western science and political institutions.
Satori: in Zen Buddhism of Japan, the inner, intuitive experience of Enlightenment; Satori is said to be unexplainable, indescribable, and unintelligible by reason and logic. It is comparable to the experience undergone by Gautama Buddha when he sat under the Bo ...
Satpura Range: range of hills, part of the Deccan Plateau, western India, that stretches for 560 miles (900 km) across the widest part of peninsular India, through Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh states. The range, the name of which means "seven folds," forms ...
satrap: provincial governor in the Achaemenian Empire. The division of the empire into provinces (satrapies) was completed by Darius I (reigned 522-486 BC), who established 20 satrapies with their annual tribute.
Sattahip: port, south-central Thailand. It lies on the northern Gulf of Thailand coast, at the head of a small bay protected by Phra Island. It was developed as a naval base in 1920-23 and continued to serve predominantly military purposes in ...
Satu Mare: judet (county), northwestern Romania. The county is bounded on the north by Ukraine and on the west by Hungary. It consists mostly of rolling hills and is drained northwestward by the Somes River and its tributaries. Satu Mare (q.v.) city ...
Satu Mare: city, northwestern Romania. It lies on the northeastern fringe of the Great Hungarian Plain, on the right bank of the Somes River, 8 miles (13 km) from the Hungarian border and 17 miles (27 km) from the Ukrainian border. It ...
Satun: town, southern Thailand, on the Malay Peninsula. Satun remains a small community at the end of a branch road; its shallow coastal waters are unsuitable for port development. The area in which Satun is situated was historically part of Kedah ...
saturation: any of several physical or chemical conditions defined by the existence of an equilibrium between pairs of opposing forces or of an exact balance of the rates of opposing processes. Common examples include the state of a solution left in ...
Saturday: seventh day of the week (q.v.).
Saturn: in Roman religion, the god of sowing or seed. The Romans equated him with the Greek agricultural deity Cronus. The remains of Saturn's temple at Rome, eight columns of the pronaos (porch), still dominate the west end of the Forum ...
Saturn: second largest planet of the solar system in mass and size and the sixth in distance from the Sun. In the night sky Saturn is easily visible to the unaided eye as a nontwinkling point of light, and, when viewed ...
Saturn: in space exploration, any of a series of large two- and three-stage vehicles for launching spacecraft, developed by the United States beginning in 1958 in connection with the manned Apollo Moon-landing program. Saturn I, the first U.S. rocket specifically developed ...
Saturnian verse: the ancient Latin verse used mainly by Livius Andronicus and Gnaeus Naevius before the adoption of Greek verse forms by later Latin writers. Little is known about its origins or whether its rhythm was accentual or quantitative.
saturniid moth: any of the approximately 800 species of the cosmopolitan (principally tropical) insect family Saturniidae (order Lepidoptera). The thick, silken cocoon of saturniid moths is sometimes used for commercial silk. Adults have stout, hairy bodies and broad wings, often vividly coloured ...
Saturninus, Lucius Appuleius: Roman politician who, with Gaius Servilius Glaucia, opposed the Roman Senate from 104 to 100, at first with the cooperation of Gaius Marius. He was quaestor shortly before 104. As tribune in 103 he sought the support of the proletariat ...
satyagraha: (Hindi: "truth force"), philosophy introduced in the 20th century by Mahatma Gandhi of India; in practice, it is manifested as a determined but nonviolent resistance to some specific evil. Satyagraha was the guiding philosophy for the Indian people in their ...
Satyasiddhi-sastra: (Sanskrit: True Attainment Treatise), treatise in 202 chapters on the doctrine of the void (sunya). The work stands as a philosophical bridge between Hinayana, or Theravada, Buddhism, the form predominant in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and Southeast Asia, and Mahayana Buddhism, ...
Satyr and Silenus: in Greek mythology, creatures of the wild, part man and part beast, who in classical times were closely associated with the god Dionysus. Their Italian counterparts were the Fauns (see Faunus). Satyrs and Sileni were at first represented as uncouth ...
satyr butterfly: any of certain species of butterflies belonging to the family Satyridae (order Lepidoptera), abundant during summer months in the woods and grasslands of the United States and Europe. The adults are dull brown or grey, while the larvae possess small, ...
Satyr play: burlesque comedy performed as comic relief after a classical Greek tragic trilogy. Satyr plays are believed to have developed from the dithyramb, a hymn to Dionysus, concurrently with tragedy. They were evidently introduced at the Great Dionysia celebration at Athens ...
Satyricon: (1st century AD), comic, picaresque novel attributed to Petronius Arbiter (q.v.).
Saubel, Katherine Siva: Native American scholar and educator committed to preserving her Cahuilla culture and language and to promoting their fuller understanding by the larger public.
sauce: liquid or semiliquid mixture that is added to a food as it cooks or that is served with it. Sauces provide flavour, moisture, and a contrast in texture and colour. They may also serve as a medium in which food ...
sauceboat: metal or pottery bowl with a lip and handle, used for holding and serving sauces. The earliest type of silver sauceboat, introduced during the second decade of the 18th century, had a protuberant lip at either end, two central scroll ...
Saucesian Stage: lowermost and oldest major division of Early Miocene rocks and time (23.7 to 16.6 million years ago) on the Pacific coast of North America. The Saucesian Stage, which preceded the Relizian Stage, was named for exposures studied at Los Sauces ...
Sauckel, Fritz: Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's chief recruiter of slave labour during World War II.
saudade: (Portuguese: "yearning"), overtone of melancholy and brooding loneliness and an almost mystical reverence for nature that permeates Portuguese and Brazilian lyric poetry. Saudade was a characteristic of the earliest Portuguese folk poetry and has been cultivated by sophisticated writers of ...
Saudi Arabia: country with an area of approximately 868,000 square miles (2,248,000 square kilometres), occupying about four-fifths of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait on the north; by the Persian (Arabian) Gulf, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, ...
Sauer, Carl O: American geographer who was an authority on desert studies, tropical areas, the human geography of American Indians, and agriculture and native crops of the New World.
Sauer, Emil von: German pianist in the style of Liszt, teacher, and composer noted especially for his long and successful concert career.
sauerbraten: in German cuisine, dish of spiced braised beef. A solid cut from the round or rump is marinated for three or four days in red wine and vinegar flavoured with onions, bay leaves, juniper berries, cloves, and peppercorns. After being ...
sauerkraut: fermented white cabbage, a vegetable preparation important in the cooking of central Europe. Sauerkraut is prepared by finely shredding white cabbage and layering the vegetable with salt in a large crock or wooden tub. The cabbage is covered with a ...
Sauerland: region, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), northwestern Germany. It is bounded on the north by the Ruhr River and its tributary, the Mohne, and on the south by the Sieg River and the Wester Forest, a mountainous area east of the ...
Sauganash: Potawatomi Indian chief whose friendship with the white settlers in Chicago was important in the development of that city.
sauger: North American game and food fish related to the pikeperch (q.v.).
Sauguet, Henri: French composer of orchestral, choral, and chamber music notable for its simple charm and melodic grace.
Saugus: town (township), Essex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on the Saugus and Pines rivers, just north of Boston. It was settled in 1629, and its name is derived from an Algonquian Indian word meaning either "extended" or "small outlet." ...
Sauk: an Algonkian-speaking North American Indian tribe closely related to the Fox and the Kickapoo who lived in the region of what is now Green Bay, Wis., when first encountered by the French in 1667. In summer the Sauk lived in ...
Sauk Centre: city, Stearns county, central Minnesota, U.S. It lies on the Sauk River at the southern tip of Sauk Lake, about 45 miles (70 km) northwest of St. Cloud. Settled in 1856 and laid out in 1863, the city was named ...
Saul: first king of Israel (c. 1021-1000 BC). According to the biblical account found mainly in I Samuel, Saul was chosen king both by the judge Samuel and by public acclamation. Saul was similar to the charismatic judges who preceded him ...
Saule: in Baltic religion and mythology, the sun goddess, who determines the well-being and regeneration of all life on earth.
Sault Sainte Marie: city, seat of Algoma district, south-central Ontario, Canada, on the north bank of St. Marys River, between Lakes Superior and Huron, opposite Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., U.S. The site was known to French explorers after the explorations of Etienne Brule ...
Sault Sainte Marie: city, seat (1827) of Chippewa county, northern Michigan, U.S., at the northeastern end of the Upper Peninsula, on the rapids of the St. Marys River (there harnessed for hydropower and connecting Lake Superior with the lower elevation of Lake Huron). ...
Saumur: town, Maine-et-Loire departement, Pays de la Loire region, western France, on the Loire River. It is known for its cavalry school and for its wines.
sauna: bath in steam from water thrown on heated stones, popular in gymnasiums and health clubs, with some units available for home use. The sauna may derive from baths described by Herodotus, who tells that the inhabitants of Scythia in central ...