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Abengourou ... Abrahams, Israel

Abengourou: town, eastern Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), on the road from Abidjan (the national capital) to Ghana. The major trading centre for a productive forest region, it is also the residence ...
Abenra: city, seat of Sonderjylland amtskommune (county commune), southeastern Jutland, Denmark, at the head of Abenra Fjord. First mentioned in the 12th century when attacked by the Wends, ...
Abenteuerroman: in German literature, a form of the picaresque novel. The Abenteuerroman is an entertaining story recounting the adventures of the hero, but it often incorporates a serious aspect. An example ...
Abeokuta: town, capital of Ogun state, southwestern Nigeria. It is situated on the east bank of the Ogun River, around a group of rocky outcroppings that rise above the surrounding wooded ...
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.: former retail sporting goods concern originally based in New York City, famed for its wide range of expensive and often exotic sporting equipment and attire from tennis shoes to elephant ...
Abercrombie, James: British general in the French and Indian Wars, commander of the British forces in the failed attack on the French at Ticonderoga.
Abercrombie, Lascelles: poet and critic who was associated with Georgian poetry.
Abercrombie, Sir Patrick: British architect and town planner who redesigned London after it was devastated by enemy bombardment in World War II.
Abercromby, Sir Ralph: soldier whose command restored discipline and prestige to the British army after the disastrous campaigns in the Low Countries between 1793 and 1799. He prepared the way for the successful ...
Aberdare: town ("community"), Rhondda Cynon Taff county borough, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Wales, on the River Cynon. The community dates from the Middle Ages. Its Saint John's Church was built ...
Aberdare Range: mountain range, forming a section of the eastern rim of the Great Rift Valley in west-central Kenya, northeast of Naivasha and Gilgil and just south of the Equator. The range ...
Aberdeen: city, Harford county, northeastern Maryland, U.S., near Chesapeake Bay, 26 miles (42 km) northeast of Baltimore. Settled about 1800, it was named for the city in Scotland. Aberdeen is the ...
Aberdeen: city, Grays Harbor county, western Washington, U.S., on the Pacific estuaries of the Chehalis, Wishkah, and Hoquiam rivers (which together form Grays Harbor). With Hoquiam and Cosmopolis, Aberdeen forms a ...
Aberdeen: city and historic royal burgh (town) astride the Rivers Dee and Don on Scotland's North Sea coast. Aberdeen is a busy seaport, a centre of Scotland's fishing industry, and the ...
Aberdeen: city, seat (1880) of Brown county, northeastern South Dakota, U.S. It lies in the James River valley about 160 miles (260 km) northeast of Pierre. Established in 1881 as a ...
Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of, Viscount Gordon Of Aberdeen, Viscount Of Formartine, Lord Haddo, Methlick, Tarves, And Kellie: British foreign secretary and prime minister (1852-55) whose government involved Great Britain in the Crimean War against Russia (1853-56).
Aberdeenshire: council area and historic county of eastern Scotland. It projects shoulderlike eastward into the North Sea and encompasses coastal lowlands in the north and east and part of the Grampian ...
Abergavenny: town ("community"), historic and present county of Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy), Wales, at the confluence of the Rivers Gavenny and Usk. The strategic nature of this site, guarding a main valley ...
Aberhart, William: the first Social Credit Party premier of Alberta, during and after the Great Depression.
Abernathy, Ralph David: black American pastor and civil-rights leader who was Martin Luther King's chief aide and closest associate during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s.
aberration: in optical systems, such as lenses and curved mirrors, the deviation of light rays through lenses, causing images of objects to be blurred. In an ideal system, every point on ...
aberration, constant of: in astronomy, the maximum amount of the apparent yearly aberrational displacement of a star or other celestial body, resulting from the Earth's orbital motion around the Sun. The value of ...
Abertillery: town, Blaenau Gwent county borough, historic county of Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy), Wales, in the valley of the River Ebbw. Coal mining was its main economic interest from about 1850 until ...
Aberystwyth: coastal town, Ceredigion county (historic county of Cardiganshire), Wales, where the River Rheidol flows into Cardigan Bay. Traces of extensive Iron Age earthworks have been found on the hill Pen ...
abettor: in law, a person who becomes equally guilty in the crime of another by knowingly and voluntarily aiding the criminal during the act itself. An abettor is one kind of ...
Abgar legend: in early Christian times, a popular myth that Jesus had an exchange of letters with King Abgar V Ukkama of Osroene, whose capital was Edessa, a Mesopotamian city on the ...
Abha: city, southwestern Saudi Arabia. It is situated on a plain at the western edge of Mount al-Hijaz and is surrounded by hills. The valley of the Wadi Abha near the ...
Abhayagiri: important ancient Theravada Buddhist monastic centre (vihara) built by King Vattagamani Abhaya (29-17 BC) on the northern side of Anuradhapura, the capital of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) at that time. Its ...
abhibhvayatana: in Buddhist philosophy, one of the preparatory stages of meditation, in which the senses are completely restrained. In Buddhist canons, abhibhvayatana is divided into eight substages during which man comes ...
Abhidhamma Pitaka: the third-and historically the latest-of the three "baskets," or collections of texts, that together compose the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism, the form predominant in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka ...
Abhidhammattha-sangaha: a highly popular primer, or digest, of the Abhidhamma corpus (the scholastic section of the canon) of the Theravada tradition. The Abhidhammattha-sangaha was composed in India or in Myanmar (Burma), ...
Abhidhammavatara: the earliest effort at systematizing, in the form of a manual, the doctrines dealt with in the Abhidhamma (scholastic) section of the Theravada Buddhist canon. The Abhidhammavatara was written in ...
Abhidharmakosha: encyclopaedic compendium of Abhidharma (scholasticism).
abhijna: in Buddhist philosophy, miraculous power obtained especially through meditation and wisdom. Usually five kinds of abhijna are enumerated: the ability (1) to travel any distance or take ...
Abhinavagupta: philosopher, ascetic and aesthetician, and outstanding representative of the "recognition" (pratyabhijna) school of Kashmiri Saivite monism. This school conceived of the god Siva (the manifestation of ultimate reality), the individual ...
Abhisamayalambkaraloka: important contribution to exegetical literature on the Prajnaparamita- ("Perfection of Wisdom") sutras of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and one of the texts most often studied in Tibetan monasteries.
abhiseka: ("sprinkling"), in esoteric Buddhism, a purificatory or initiatory rite in which a candidate is sprinkled with water or other liquid, signifying a change in status.
Abia: state, east-central Nigeria. Abia was administratively created in 1991 from the eastern half of former Imo state. It is bordered by the states of Enugu to the north, Cross River ...
Abiathar: in the Old Testament, son of Ahimelech, priest of Nob. He was the sole survivor of a massacre carried out by Doeg. Fleeing to David, he remained with him throughout ...
Abid al-Bukhari: army of Saharan blacks organized in Morocco by the 'Alawi ruler Isma'il (reigned 1672-1727). Earlier rulers had recruited black slaves (Arabic: 'abid) into their armies, and these men or their ...
Abidjan: chief port, capital (de facto; legislative), and largest city of Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It lies along the Ebrie Lagoon, which is separated from the Gulf of Guinea and the ...
abietic acid: the most abundant of several closely related organic acids that constitute most of rosin, the solid portion of the oleoresin of coniferous trees. Commercial abietic acid is usually a glassy ...
Abigail: in the Old Testament, the wife of Nabal of southern Judah, on whose death she became one of the first wives of David (1 Samuel 25) and the mother of ...
Abijah: ("Yahweh Is My Father"), any of nine different persons mentioned in the Bible, of whom the most noteworthy are the following: (1) The son and successor of Rehoboam, king of ...
Abildgaard, Nicolai Abraham: the most renowned Danish painter of the late 18th century and one of the early Neoclassicists.
Abilene: city, seat (1883) of Taylor county (and partly in Jones county), west-central Texas, U.S. It lies on low, rolling plains 153 miles (246 km) west of Fort Worth. Founded in ...
Abilene: city, seat (1861) of Dickinson county, east-central Kansas, U.S. The city lies along the Smoky Hill River.
Abingdon: town, seat (1778) of Washington county, southwestern Virginia, U.S. It lies in the Blue Ridge highlands of the Appalachian Mountains, near the border with Tennessee, 15 miles (24 km) northeast ...
Abingdon: town ("parish"), Vale of White Horse district, administrative county of Oxfordshire, historic county of Berkshire, England. It lies south of Oxford at the confluence of the Rivers Thames and Ock.
Abington: town (township), Plymouth county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies 19 miles (31 km) southeast of Boston and 4 miles (6 km) east of Brockton. Ames Nowell State Park is nearby ...
Abington: urban township, Montgomery county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S. Abington is a northern suburb of Philadelphia, encompassing the communities of Ardsley, Glenside, McKinley, Noble, North Glenside, and Roslyn.
Abington, Fanny: English actress admired both for her craft and for her leadership in fashion.
Abipon: South American Indian people who formerly lived on the lower Bermejo River in the Argentine Gran Chaco. They spoke a language (also called Callaga) belonging to the Guaycuruan group of ...
Abish, Walter: American writer of experimental novels and short stories whose fiction takes as its subject language itself.
Abitibi River: river, northeastern Ontario, Canada. From its source in the shallow 359-square-mile (931-square-kilometre) Abitibi Lake, lying across the Ontario-Quebec border, the river descends 868 feet (265 m) as it flows generally ...
Abkhaz: any member of a Caucasian people living chiefly in the Abkhazia republic in northwesternmost Georgia. The Bzyb Abkhaz, who have a distinct dialect, are found around the Bzyb River; the ...
Abkhazia: republic in northwestern Georgia, between the Black Sea (south) and the crest line of the Greater Caucasus range (north).
Abkhazo-Adyghian languages: group of languages spoken primarily in the northwestern part of the Caucasus Mountains. The languages of this group-Abkhaz, Abaza, Adyghian, Kabardian (Circassian), and the nearly extinct Ubykh-are noted for the ...
Ableman v. Booth: (1859), case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld both the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act and the supremacy of the federal government over state governments.
ablution: in religion, a prescribed washing of part or all of the body or of possessions, such as clothing or ceremonial objects, with the intent of purification or dedication. Water, or ...
Abney, Sir William de Wiveleslie: a specialist in the chemistry of photography, especially noted for his development of a photographic emulsion that he used to map the solar spectrum far into the infrared.
ABO blood group system: method of classifying human blood on the basis of the inherited properties of red blood cells (erythrocytes) as determined by their possession or lack of the so-called antigens A (including ...
Abo, Treaty of: (1743), peace settlement that concluded the Russo-Swedish War of 1741-43 by obliging Sweden to cede a strip of southern Finland to Russia and to become temporarily dependent on Russia. As ...
abolitionism: (c. 1783-1888), in western Europe and the Americas, the movement chiefly responsible for creating the emotional climate necessary for ending the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. With the decline ...
Abomey: town, southern Benin, located about 60 miles (100 km) north of Cotonou. Probably founded in the early 17th century, it soon became the capital of the kingdom of Abomey (later ...
Abominable Snowman: mythical monster supposed to inhabit the Himalayas at about the level of the snow line. Though reports of actual sightings of such a creature are rare, certain mysterious markings in ...
abortion: the expulsion of a fetus from the uterus before it has reached the stage of viability (in human beings, usually about the 20th week of gestation). An abortion may occur ...
Abqaiq: town, eastern Saudi Arabia, about 25 miles (40 km) west of the Persian Gulf. It is situated in the southern end of the Abqaiq oil field, one of the largest ...
Abraha: Ethiopian Christian viceroy of Yemen in southern Arabia.
Abraham: first of the Hebrew patriarchs and a figure revered by the three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. According to the biblical book of Genesis, Abraham left Ur, in ...
Abraham bar Hiyya: Spanish Jewish philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician whose writings were among the first scientific and philosophical works to be written in Hebrew. He is sometimes known as Savasorda, a corruption ...
Abraham Lincoln Battalion: a force of volunteers from the United States who served on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War from January 1937 until November 1938. All seven International Brigades (q.v.)-each ...
Abraham, Karl: German psychoanalyst who studied the role of infant sexuality in character development and mental illness.
Abraham, Plains of: plains in Quebec region, southern Quebec province, Canada. The plains lie at the western edge of the old walled city, overlooking the St. Lawrence River. The plateau was the scene ...
Abrahams, Harold: British athlete who won a gold medal in the 100-metre dash at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.
Abrahams, Israel: one of the most distinguished Jewish scholars of his time, who wrote a number of enduring works on Judaism, particularly Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (1896).