Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Zuid-Holland ... zymogen

Zuid-Holland: provincie, western Netherlands, bordering the North Sea and adjoining the provincies of Noord-Holland (north), Utrecht and Gelderland (east), and Noord-Brabant and Zeeland (south). Drained by the ramifications of the Lek, Waal, and Maas (Meuse) rivers, Zuid-Holland includes the islands of ...
Zuiderzee: former inlet of the North Sea. From the 13th to the 20th century, the Zuiderzee penetrated The Netherlands and occupied some 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km); it was separated from the North Sea by an arc of former sandflats ...
Zukerman, Pinchas: Israeli-American violinist, violist, and conductor.
Zukofsky, Louis: American poet, the founder of Objectivist poetry and author of the massive poem "A."
Zukor, Adolph: American entrepreneur who built the powerful Famous Players-Paramount motion-picture studio.
Zulia: estado ("state"), northwestern Venezuela. Zulia is bounded north by the Gulf of Venezuela and west by Colombia. Except for two narrow corridors on the southeastern shore, the largest one lying between the states of Merida and Trujillo, it surrounds Lake ...
Zuloaga y Zabaleta, Ignacio: Spanish genre and portrait painter noted for his theatrical paintings of figures from Spanish culture and folklore.
Zulu: a nation of Nguni-speaking people in KwaZulu/Natal province, South Africa. They are a branch of the southern Bantu and have close ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ties with the Swazi and Xhosa. The Zulu are the single largest black ethnic group ...
Zulu language: a Bantu language spoken by more than nine million people mainly in South Africa, especially in the Zululand area of KwaZulu/Natal province. The Zulu language is a member of the Southeastern, or Nguni, subgroup of the Bantu group of the ...
Zulu War: (1879), decisive six-month war in eastern South Africa, resulting in British victory over the Zulus. Before the war the Tugela River formed the boundary between Zululand and the British colony of Natal. Cetshwayo (q.v.) became king of the Zulus in ...
Zululand: historical region in the northeast section of present KwaZulu/Natal (formerly Natal) province, South Africa, and the home of the Zulu (q.v.) people.
Zumalacarregui y de Imaz, Tomas de: Spanish military tactician and the most brilliant soldier to fight for Don Carlos, a Bourbon traditionalist contender for the Spanish throne, in the First Carlist War (1833-39).
Zumpe, Johann Christoph: German pianoforte maker and builder of the earliest known British piano (1766).
Zumthor, Peter: Swiss architect known for his pure, austere structures.
zun: any of a wide range of ancient Chinese wine vessels. These forms are characterized by an ample interior volume for containing wine and a wide opening for drinking.
Zuni: North American Indian pueblo in west-central New Mexico, on the Arizona border (see Pueblo Indians). The Zuni speak a language related to Penutian. Their origin and early history are unknown; their mythology pictures their ancestors as emerging from underground and ...
Zunz, Leopold: German historian of Jewish literature who is often considered the greatest Jewish scholar of the 19th century. He began (1819) the movement called Wissenschaft des Judentums ("Science of Judaism"), which stressed the analysis of Jewish literature and culture with the ...
Zunzunegui, Juan Antonio de: Spanish novelist and short-story writer whose straightforward narrative technique was rooted in the 19th century. His subject was chiefly social criticism of modern life in Bilbao and Madrid. A member of the Spanish Academy from 1957, Zunzunegui received the National ...
Zuozhuan: ancient commentary on the Chunqiu ("Spring and Autumn [Annals]") and the first sustained narrative work in Chinese literature.
Zurbaran, Francisco de: major painter of the Spanish Baroque, especially noted for religious subjects. His work is characterized by Caravaggesque naturalism and tenebrism, the latter a style in which most forms are depicted in shadow but a few are dramatically lighted.
Zurich: canton, northeastern Switzerland, with an area of 668 sq mi (1,729 sq km), of which about 80 percent is reckoned as productive, including about 195 sq mi of forests. Of the rest, 28 sq mi are occupied by lakes, chiefly ...
Zurich: largest city of Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is a financial and industrial centre located in an Alpine setting at the northwestern end of Lake Zurich.
Zurich ware: faience (tin-glazed earthenware), faience fine (lead-glazed earthenware), and porcelain made at a factory near Zurich founded in 1763 by Salomon Gessner and others. The faience was at first painted in a style similar to that of the porcelain, but after ...
Zurich Zoological Garden: privately owned zoological park partially funded by the city and canton of Zurich. Opened in 1929, the 10-hectare (25-acre) zoo exhibits nearly 2,100 specimens of more than 330 species. It has a good ungulate collection and a breeding group of ...
Zurich, Lake: Swiss lake extending southeast from the city of Zurich. It lies at an altitude of 1,332 feet (406 m) and has an area of about 34 square miles (88 square km); its extreme length is 18 miles (29 km), maximum ...
Zurita y Castro, Jeronimo de: Spanish government official who is regarded as the first modern Spanish historian.
Zurvanism: modified form of Zoroastrianism that appeared in Persia during the Sasanian period (3rd-7th century AD). It was opposed to orthodox Zoroastrianism, which by that time had become dualistic in doctrine. According to Zurvanism, time alone-limitless, eternal, and uncreated-is the source ...
Zutphen: gemeente (municipality), Gelderland provincie (province), east central Netherlands, at the confluence of the IJssel and Berkel rivers. Founded in the 11th century as Zuidveen (meaning "southern peat bog"), it became the seat of a line of independent counts until it ...
Zuwarah: Mediterranean port, northwestern Libya. First mentioned in a Catalan sailing manual (1375) as Punta dar Zoyara, it later served as the western outpost of Italian-controlled Libya (1912-43), being the terminus of the now-defunct railway from Tripoli 65 mi (105 km) ...
Zvenigorod: city, Moscow oblast (province), western Russia, located on the Moskva River, 33 miles (53 km) west of Moscow. Archaeological excavations (1943-45 and 1954-57) have revealed the existence of settlement there from the 12th and 13th centuries. The ...
Zveno Group: small political organization that briefly formed a dictatorial regime in Bulgaria (1934-35); the name Zveno refers to a link in a chain. Founded in 1930, the Zveno Group was led by Col. Kimon Georgiev and was composed primarily of radical ...
Zvishavane: town, south-central Zimbabwe. Its name is derived from shavani, a Sindebele word meaning "finger millet," or "trading together." Surrounded by low hills, it is on direct rail links to Harare (formerly Salisbury) and Bulawayo in Zimbabwe and to Maputo in ...
Zwaardecroon, Hendrick: governor-general (1718-25) of the Dutch East Indies who introduced the cultivation of export crops there.
Zwangendaba: African king (reigned c. 1815-48) who led his Jere people on a monumental migration of more than 1,000 miles, lasting more than 20 years. A leader of incomparable stature, he brought his initially small tribe (later called the Ngoni) from ...
Zweibrucken: city, Rhineland-Palatinate Land (state), southwestern Germany, on the Schwarz River. The name, meaning "two bridges," appeared in Latin documents as Bipontium and in French as Deux-Ponts. The town is known to scholars for the Editiones Bipontinae, early printed volumes of ...
Zweig, Arnold: German-Jewish writer best known for his novel Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa (1927; The Case of Sergeant Grischa). This novel depicts the social organism of the German army during World War I through the story of the Russian prisoner ...
Zweig, Stefan: Austrian writer who achieved distinction in several genres-poetry, essays, short stories, and dramas-most notably in his interpretations of imaginary and historical characters.
Zwelitsha: town, Eastern Cape province, South Africa. It was the provisional capital (1981-94) of the republic of Ciskei. The town is located directly south of King William's Town. It was established in 1946 as a residential area for employees of the ...
Zwickau: city, Saxony Land (state), Germany. It lies on the Zwickauer Mulde River, at the entrance to the western Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge), south of Leipzig. Slavic in origin, it was mentioned in 1118 as a trading centre. It ...
Zwicky, Fritz: Swiss astronomer and physicist, who made valuable contributions to the theory and understanding of supernovas (stars that for a short time are far brighter than normal).
Zwingli, Huldrych: the most important reformer in the Swiss Protestant Reformation and the only major reformer of the 16th century whose movement did not evolve into a church. Like Martin Luther, he accepted the supreme authority of the Scriptures, but he applied ...
Zwischengoldglaser: (German: "gold between glasses"), drinking glasses decorated with engraving in gold leaf laminated between two pieces of glass. The term is usually applied to beakers, goblets, and tumblers produced in Bohemia during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but ...
Zwolle: gemeente (municipality) and capital, Overijssel provincie (province), north central Netherlands, on the Zwarte Water (river). Chartered in 1230, it was a member of the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages and a stronghold until its ramparts were destroyed in 1674 ...
Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma: Russian-born U.S. electronic engineer, inventor, and the father of modern television.
Zybina, Galina: Soviet shot-putter and javelin thrower who set eight consecutive world records in the shot put between 1952 and 1956 and won three Olympic medals.
Zygmund, Antoni: Polish-born mathematician who exerted a major influence on 20th-century mathematics, particularly in harmonic analysis, a field utilized in science and technology for the formulation of descriptions of periodic phenomena such as waves, vibrations, and regularly repeating structures.
zygomatic arch: bridge of bone extending from the temporal bone at the side of the head around to the maxilla (upper jawbone) in front and including the zygomatic (cheek) bone as a major portion. The masseter muscle, important in chewing, arises from ...
zygomatic bone: diamond-shaped bone below and lateral to the orbit, or eye socket, at the widest part of the cheek. It adjoins the frontal bone at the outer edge of the orbit and the sphenoid and maxilla within the orbit. It forms ...
Zygomycetes: class of fungi (division Mycota) characterized by sexually produced, resting spores (zygospores). Asexual reproduction occurs by the formation of nonmotile spores (aplanospores) in fruiting bodies (sporangia). Members of this class are saprobes (obtain their food from dead organic material) or ...
Zygopetalum: genus of about 20 species of tropical American orchids, family Orchidaceae, that are cultivated as ornamentals. All species grow on other plants and have egg-shaped pseudobulbs (swollen stems) that bear two or more long, thin leaves. The flowering spike is ...
zymogen: any of a group of proteins that display no catalytic activity but are transformed within an organism into enzymes, especially those that catalyze reactions involving the breakdown of proteins. Trypsinogen and chymotrypsinogen, zymogens secreted by the pancreas, are activated in ...