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Agate, James ... Agramonte y Simoni, Aristides

Agate, James: drama critic for the London Sunday Times (1923-47), book reviewer for the Daily Express, novelist, essayist, diarist, and raconteur. He is remembered for his wit and perverse yet lovable personality, ...
agateware: in pottery, 18th-century ware of varicoloured clay, with an overall marbled effect. It was sometimes called solid agate to distinguish it from ware with surface marbling. Agateware was probably introduced ...
Agatha, Saint: legendary Christian saint and martyr, cited in the martyrology of St. Jerome, the Calendar of Carthage (c. 530), and other works. Palermo and Catania both claim to be her birthplace.
Agathias: Byzantine poet and author of a history, covering part of Justinian I's reign.
Agathis: the genus of the dammar pines, pinelike plants of the family Araucariaceae. Agathis species range from the Philippines to Australia and New Zealand. Elsewhere some are grown as ornamental plants ...
Agatho, Saint: pope from 678 to 681. A cleric at Rome, he was elected pope in June 678. He judged that St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, had been unjustly deprived and ordered ...
Agathocles: tyrant of Syracuse, in Sicily, from 317 to c. 304 and self-styled king of Sicily after c. 304. A champion of Hellenism, he waged war unsuccessfully against Carthage.
Agathon: an Athenian tragic poet whose first victory at the festival of the Great Dionysia, in which plays were presented and judged, was gained in 416 BC. The event is made, ...
Agau: an ancient people that settled in the northern and central Ethiopian Plateau; they are associated with the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in the area. The term Agau also ...
Agavaceae: the agave family of the flowering plant order Liliales, consisting of about 22 genera and at least 720 species of short-stemmed, often woody plants distributed throughout tropical, subtropical, and temperate ...
Agazzari, Agostino: Italian composer famous for his treatise, Del sonare sopra 'l basso con tutti li stromenti e dell'uso loro nel conserto (1607; "On Playing Upon the Thoroughbass with All the Instruments ...
Agboville: town, southeastern Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It lies along the Abidjan-Ouagadougou railway and the Agneby River. The chief trading centre for an agricultural region inhabited mainly by the Abe (Abbe) ...
age distribution: in population studies, the proportionate numbers of persons in successive age categories in a given population. Age distributions differ among countries mainly because of differences in the levels and trends ...
age set: a formally organized group consisting of every male (or female) of comparable age. In those societies chiefly identified with the practice, a person belonged, either from birth or from a ...
Age, The: Australian daily newspaper published in Melbourne and widely considered to provide some of the finest news coverage in the country. It has been highly regarded for its dedication to accuracy.
age-area hypothesis: in anthropology, theory holding that the age of culture traits (elements of a culture) may be determined by examining their distribution over a large geographic area. The hypothesis states that ...
Agee, James: American poet, novelist, and writer for and about motion pictures. One of the most influential American film critics in the 1930s and '40s, he applied rigorous intellectual and aesthetic standards ...
Ageladas: sculptor said to have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias, and Polyclitus. This tradition testifies to his wide fame but is historically doubtful.
Agen: town, capital of Lot-et-Garonne departement, Aquitaine region, southwestern France. It lies along the Garonne River at the foot of Ermitage Hill (530 feet [162 ...
Agenais: former province of France, of which Agen was the centre and to which the modern departement of Lot-et-Garonne nearly corresponds.
Agence France-Presse: French cooperative news agency, one of the world's great wire news services. It is based in Paris, where it was founded under its current name in 1944, but its roots ...
agency: in law, the relationship that exists when one person or party (the principal) engages another (the agent) to act for him-e.g., to do his work, to sell ...
agenesis: in human physiology, failure of all or part of an organ to develop during embryonic growth. Many forms of agenesis are consistently lethal, as when the entire brain is absent ...
agent: a computer program that performs various actions continuously and autonomously on behalf of an individual or an organization. For example, an agent may archive various computer files or retrieve electronic ...
Agent Orange: mixture of herbicides that U.S. military forces sprayed in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 during the Vietnam War for the dual purpose of defoliating forest areas that might conceal Viet ...
Ageo: city, Saitama ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. Ageo lies on the terrace between the Ara River (west) and the Ayase River (east). A former post town between Tokyo and Maebashi, it ...
ageratum: any of about 45 species of annual herbs making up the genus Ageratum (family Asteraceae), and native to tropical South America. They have toothed, oval leaves that are opposite each ...
Agesander: Greek sculptor who is credited by the 1st-century-AD Roman writer Pliny as the creator, with Polydorus and Athenodorus, of the group "Laocoon." Nothing further is known of him except that ...
Agesilaus II: king of Sparta from 399 to 360 who commanded the Spartan army throughout most of the period of Spartan supremacy (404-371) in Greece. An excellent military tactician, he is usually ...
Agfa-Gevaert NV: Belgian corporate group established in 1964 in the merger of Agfa AG of Leverkusen, West Germany, and Gevaert Photo-Producten NV of Mortsel, Belgium. The merger established twin operating companies, one ...
agglomerate: large, coarse, rock fragments associated with lava flow that are ejected during explosive volcanic eruptions. Although they closely resemble sedimentary conglomerates, agglomerates are pyroclastic igneous rocks that consist almost wholly ...
agglutinate: pyroclastic igneous rock formed from partly fused volcanic bombs. See bomb (volcanology).
agglutination: a grammatical process in which words are composed of a sequence of morphemes (word elements), each of which represents not more than a single grammatical category. This term is traditionally ...
agglutinin: substance that causes particles to congeal in a group or mass, particularly a typical antibody that occurs in the blood serums of immunized and normal human beings and animals. When ...
aggregate: in building and construction, material used for mixing with cement, bitumen, lime, gypsum, or other adhesive to form concrete or mortar. The aggregate gives volume, stability, resistance to wear or ...
aggression: in international relations, an act or policy of expansion carried out by one state at the expense of another by means of an unprovoked military attack. For purposes of reparation ...
aggressive behaviour: any action of an animal that serves to injure an opponent or prey animal or to cause an opponent to retreat. The term is used in many different ways, however, ...
aggressive mimicry: a form of similarity in which a predator or parasite gains an advantage by its resemblance to a third party. This model may be the prey (or host) species itself, ...
Agha Mohammad Khan: founder and first ruler of the Qajar dynasty of Iran. Following the disintegration of the Safavid empire in 1722, Qajar tribal chieftains became prominent in Iranian affairs.
Aghlabid Dynasty: Arab Muslim dynasty that ruled Ifriqiyah (Tunisia and eastern Algeria) from AD 800 to 909. The Aghlabids were nominally subject to the 'Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad but were in fact ...
Agincourt, Battle of: (Oct. 25, 1415), decisive victory of the English over the French in the Hundred Years' War.
aging: progressive physiological changes in an organism that lead to senescence, or a decline of biological functions and of the organism's ability to adapt to metabolic stress.
Aginskoye: administrative centre of Aga-Buryat autonomous okrug (district), Chita oblast (province), Russia, in the Aga River valley. The village was founded in 1811. It has small food-processing industries. Pop. (1994 est.) ...
Agis I: early Spartan king, traditionally held to be the son of Eurysthenes (in legend, one of the twins who founded Sparta). Because the Agiad line of kings was named after him, ...
Agis II: king of Sparta after about 427 BC who commanded all operations of the regular army during most of the Peloponnesian War (431-404) against Athens.
Agis III: Spartan king (338-331) who rebelled unsuccessfully against Alexander the Great.
Agis IV: Spartan king (244-241) who failed in his attempt to reform Sparta's economic and political structure.
agitprop: political strategy in which the techniques of agitation and propaganda are used to influence and mobilize public opinion. Although the strategy is common, both the label and an obsession with ...
Aglauros: in Greek mythology, eldest daughter of the Athenian king Cecrops. Aglauros died with her sisters by leaping in fear from the Acropolis after seeing the infant Erechthonius, a human with ...
Agnano: volcanic crater, Napoli provincia, Campania regione, southern Italy. It is situated in the Campi Flegrei volcanic region just west of Naples. The crater, about 4 miles (6 km) in circumference, ...
agnathan: any of the class Agnatha of primitive, jawless fishes that includes the lampreys and hagfishes (order Cyclostomata), as well as extinct groups.
Agnelli, Giovanni: chairman of the automobile manufacturing company Fiat SpA, Italy's largest private business enterprise, from 1966 to 2003.
Agnelli, Giovanni: founder of the Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) automobile company and the leading Italian industrialist of the first half of the 20th century.
Agnelli, Umberto: Italian automotive executive and grandson of Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of Fiat SpA. He served as the company's chairman from 2003 to 2004.
Agnes Of Poitou: second wife of the Holy Roman emperor Henry III. She was regent (1056-62) during the minority of her son, the future Henry IV.
Agnes Scott College: private institution of higher education for women in Decatur, Georgia, U.S. A liberal arts college allied with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Agnes Scott College offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in ...
Agnes, Saint: virgin and patron saint of girls, who is one of the most celebrated Roman martyrs.
Agnesi, Maria Gaetana: Italian mathematician and philosopher, considered to be the first woman in the Western world to have achieved a reputation in mathematics.
Agnew, Spiro T.: 39th vice president of the United States (1969-73) in the Republican administration of President Richard M. Nixon. He was the second person to resign the nation's second highest office (John ...
Agni: (Sanskrit: "Fire"), fire-god of the Hindus, second only to Indra in the Vedic mythology of ancient India. He is equally the fire of the sun, of lightning, and of the ...
Agnihotri, Shiv Narayan: Hindu founder of an atheistic society called Deva Samaj ("Society of God").
Agnon, S.Y.: Israeli writer who was one of the leading modern Hebrew novelists and short-story writers. In 1966 he was the corecipient, with Nelly Sachs, of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
agnosticism: (from Greek agnostos, "unknowable"), strictly speaking, the doctrine that humans cannot know of the existence of anything beyond the phenomena of their experience. The term has come ...
Agnostus: genus of trilobites (an extinct group of aquatic arthropods) found as fossils in rocks of Early Cambrian to Late Ordovician age (those deposited from 540 to 438 million years ago). ...
Agnus Dei: designation of Jesus Christ in Christian liturgical usage. It is based on the saying of John the Baptist: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the ...
Agobard, Saint: archbishop of Lyon from 816, who was active in political and ecclesiastical affairs during the reign of the emperor Louis I the Pious. He also wrote theological and liturgical treatises.
agon: debate or contest between two characters in Attic comedy, constituting one of several formal conventions in these highly structured plays. The Old Comedy of Greece, introduced into Dionysian festivals in ...
agonism: survivalist animal behaviour that includes aggression, defense, and avoidance. The term is favoured by biologists who recognize that the behavioral bases and stimuli for approach and fleeing are often the ...
agora: in ancient Greek cities, an open space that served as a meeting ground for various activities of the citizens. The name, first found in the works of Homer, connotes both ...
Agoracritus: Greek sculptor said to have been the favourite pupil of Phidias. His most renowned work is the statue of Nemesis at Rhamnous, Greece, part of the head of which is ...
Agostino Di Duccio: early Renaissance sculptor whose work is characterized by its linear decorativeness. His early work shows the influence of Donatello and Michelozzo, whom he assisted in adorning SS. Annunziata in Florence.
Agostino Di Giovanni: late Gothic sculptor, best known for his work, with Agnolo di Ventura, on the tomb of Guido Tarlati.
Agoult, Marie de Flavigny, comtesse d': writer famous for her position in Parisian society in the 1840s and for her liaison with the composer Franz Liszt.
agouti: any of about a dozen species of tropical American rodents resembling the small forest-dwelling hoofed animals of tropical Africa and Asia (see chevrotain; duiker; royal antelope). Agoutis weigh up to ...
Agra: city, west-central Uttar Pradesh state, north-central India, on the Yamuna (Jumna) River. Founded by Sikandar Lodi in the early 16th century, it was the Mughal capital during some periods of ...
Agramonte y Simoni, Aristides: physician, pathologist, and bacteriologist, a member of the Reed Yellow Fever Board of the U.S. Army that discovered (1901) the role of the mosquito in the transmission of yellow fever.