man of letters whose poems, short stories, novels, and plays are inspired by patriotism and love of the Bulgarian countryside and reflect the main events in his country's history.
meat of calves slaughtered between 3 and 14 weeks, delicate in flavour, pale grayish white in colour, firm and fine-grained, with velvety texture. It has no marbling, and the small amount of fat covering is firm and white. In modern ...
American mathematician who made important contributions to differential geometry and the early development of topology. Many of his contributions found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity.
American economist and social scientist who sought to apply an evolutionary, dynamic approach to the study of economic institutions. With The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) he won fame in literary circles, and, in describing the ...
most important historic government building in Florence, having been the seat of the Signoria of the Florentine Republic in the 14th century and then the government centre of the Medici grand dukes of Tuscany. From 1865 to 1871 it housed ...
popular assembly that was a characteristic institution in Russia from the 10th to the 15th century. The veche probably originated as a deliberative body among early Slavic tribes. As the tribes settled in permanent trading centres, which later became cities, ...
in mathematics, a quantity that has both magnitude and direction but not position. Examples of such quantities are velocity and acceleration. In their modern form, vectors appeared late in the 19th century when Josiah Willard Gibbs and Oliver Heaviside (of ...
a branch of mathematics that deals with quantities that have both magnitude and direction. Some physical and geometric quantities, called scalars, can be fully defined by specifying their magnitude in suitable units of measure. Thus, mass can be expressed in ...
a set of multidimensional quantities, known as vectors, together with a set of one-dimensional quantities, known as scalars, such that vectors can be added together and vectors can be multiplied by scalars while preserving the ordinary arithmetic properties (associativity, commutativity, ...
among the Mordvins, the water mother, a spirit believed to rule the waters and their bounty; she is known as Vete-ema among the Estonians and Veen emo among the Finns. The water spirit belongs to a class of nature spirits ...
sacred hymn or verse composed in archaic Sanskrit and current among the Indo-European-speaking peoples who entered India from the Iranian regions. No definite date can be ascribed to the composition of the Vedas, some of which possess high literary merit, ...
one of the six orthodox systems (darshans) of Indian philosophy and the one that forms the basis of most modern schools of Hinduism. The term Vedanta means in Sanskrit the "conclusion" (anta) of the Vedas, the earliest sacred literature of ...
also called Venkatanatha leading theologian of the Visistadvaita (Qualified Nondualism) school of philosophy and founder of the Vadakalai, a subsect of the Srivaisnavas, a religious movement of South India.
people of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) who were that island's aboriginal inhabitants prior to the 6th century BC. They adopted Sinhala and now no longer speak their own language. Physically they are allied to the Dravidian jungle peoples of southern India ...
religious chant of India, the expression of hymns from the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. The practice dates back at least 3,000 years and is probably the world's oldest continuous vocal tradition. The earliest collection, or Samhita, of Vedic ...
the religion of the ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples who entered India about 1500 BC from the region of present-day Iran; it takes its name from the collections of sacred texts known as the Vedas. Vedism is the oldest stratum of religious ...
(Italian: "view"), detailed, largely factual painting, drawing, or etching depicting a city, town, or other place. The first vedute probably were painted by northern European artists who worked in Italy, such as Paul Brill (1554-1626), a landscape painter from Flanders ...
brightest star in the northern constellation Lyra and fourth brightest in the night sky, with a visual magnitude of 0.04. It is also one of the Sun's closer neighbours, at a distance of about 26 light-years. Vega's spectral type is ...
in full Lope Felix De Vega Carpio, byname The Phoenix Of Spain, Spanish El Fenix De Espana outstanding dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age, author of as many as 1,800 plays and several hundred shorter dramatic pieces, of which 431 ...
in the broadest sense, any kind of plant life or plant product, namely "vegetable matter"; in common, narrow usage, the term vegetable usually refers to the fresh edible portion of a herbaceous plant-roots, stems, leaves, flowers, or fruit. These plant ...
the theory or practice of living solely upon vegetables, fruits, grains, and nuts, generally for ethical, ascetic, or nutritional reasons. All forms of flesh (meat, fowl, and fish) are excluded from all vegetarian diets, but some vegetarians use milk and ...
Roman military expert who wrote what was perhaps the single most influential military treatise in the Western world. His work exercised great influence on European tactics after the Middle Ages.
seat belts, harnesses, inflatable cushions, and other devices designed to protect occupants of vehicles from injury in case of accident. A seat belt is a strap that fastens a rider to a moving vehicle and prevents him from being thrown ...
ancient Etruscan town, located about 10 miles northwest of Rome. Veii was the greatest centre for the fabrication of terra-cotta sculptures in Etruria in the 6th century BC. The town had hegemony over Rome in the 7th and 6th centuries; ...
in geology, ore body that is disseminated within definite boundaries in unwanted rock or minerals (gangue). The term, as used by geologists, is nearly synonymous with the term lode, as used by miners. There are two distinct types: fissure veins ...
in human physiology, any of the vessels that, with four exceptions, carry oxygen-depleted blood to the right upper chamber (atrium) of the heart. The four exceptions-the pulmonary veins-transport oxygenated blood from the lungs to the left upper chamber of the ...
city and port, seat of Vejle amtskommune (county), eastern Jutland, Denmark, located on Vejle Fjord, northwest of Fredericia. Chartered in 1327, it is now an agricultural distribution centre with good harbour facilities. Since 1980 the heavy transit ...
in Roman religion, a god of uncertain attributes, worshiped at Rome between the two summits of the Capitoline Hill (the Arx and the Capitol) and on Tiber Island (both temples date from just after 200 BC) and at Bovillae, 12 ...
any of a series of 12 unmanned U.S. reconnaissance satellites developed to detect radiation from nuclear explosions in the Earth's atmosphere. Launched from 1963 to 1970, the Vela satellites were supposed to make certain that no countries violated the 1963 ...
in phonetics, secondary articulation in the pronunciation of consonants, in which the tongue is drawn far up and back in the mouth (toward the velum, or soft palate), as if to pronounce a back vowel such as o or u. ...
name given to various types of open country in southern Africa that is used for pasturage and farmland. To most South African farmers today the "veld" refers to the land they work, much of which has long since ceased to ...
Belgian architect and teacher who ranks with his compatriot Victor Horta as an originator of the Art Nouveau style, characterized by long sinuous lines derived from naturalistic forms.
town, northern Slovenia. It lies 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Celje on the Paka River. Velenje was built as a model mine-workers' town with distinct administrative, business, residential, and recreational areas. It is adjacent to a major lignite mine ...
Spanish poet, playwright, and novelist who ranks high among the followers of Lope de Vega and displays a gift for creating character. His fantastic satirical novel, El diablo cojuelo (1641; "The Crippled Devil"), became well-known from its adaptation by the ...
larva typical of certain mollusks such as marine snails and bivalves. The veliger develops from trochophore (q.v.) larva and has large, ciliated lobes (velum) that form from the ciliary ring (prototroch) characteristic of the trochophore stage. The velum, used in ...
town, eastern Bulgaria. It lies at the foot of the Preslav Mountains, 11 miles (18 km) southwest of Shumen. Founded by the Proto-Bulgarians in the 8th century and called Yeski Stambolchuk (Eski Stambul), it served as capital of Bulgaria under ...
city, Pskov oblast (province), western Russia, situated on the Lovat River. Founded by 1166, the city was sacked by Lithuanians in 1198, by King Stephen Bathory of Poland in 1581, and by the Swedes in 1611. Today an important railway ...
