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Ames: city, Story county, central Iowa, U.S., on the South Skunk River, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Des Moines. It was laid out in 1865 and was originally called ...
Ames, Aldrich: American official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who was entrusted with discovering Soviet spies, and who himself became one of the most successful double agents for the Soviet Union ...
Ames, Fisher: American essayist and Federalist politician of the 1790s who was an archopponent of Jeffersonian democracy.
Ames, Jessie Daniel: American suffragist and civil rights activist who worked successfully to combat lynching in the southern United States.
Ames, Leslie: one of the outstanding all-round English cricketers.
Ames, Oakes: leading figure in the Credit Mobilier scandal following the U.S. Civil War.
Ames, William: English Puritan theologian remembered for his writings on ethics and for debating and writing in favour of strict Calvinism in opposition to Arminianism.
Ames, Winthrop: theatrical producer, manager, director, and occasional playwright known for some of the finest productions of plays in the United States during the first three decades of the 20th century.
Amesbury: town ("parish"), Salisbury district, administrative and historic county of Wiltshire, England, in the valley of the River Avon. It is rich in prehistoric remains, including Stonehenge, 1.5 miles (2.5 km) ...
Amesbury: town (township), Essex county, northeastern corner of Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on the Merrimack River at the New Hampshire border. Settled in 1642 as part of Salisbury, it was named ...
amesha spenta: in Zoroastrianism, any of the six divine beings or archangels created by Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, to help govern creation. Three are male, three female. Ministers of his power ...
amethyst: a transparent, coarse-grained variety of the silica mineral quartz (q.v.) that is valued as a semiprecious gem for its violet colour. It contains more iron oxide (Fe₂O₃) than any other ...
Ameura: genus of trilobites (extinct arthropods) found as fossils in North America rocks dating from the Late Carboniferous to the Late Permian Period (from 320 to 245 million years ago). Ameura ...
Amhara: people of the Ethiopian central highlands. The Amhara are one of the two largest ethnolinguistic groups in Ethiopia (the other group being the Oromo). They constitute almost one-third of the ...
Amharic language: one of the two main languages of Ethiopia (along with the Oromo language). It is spoken principally in the central highlands of the country. Amharic is an Afro-Asiatic language of ...
Amherst: town (township), Hampshire county, west-central Massachusetts, U.S. It lies in the Connecticut River valley just northeast of Northampton. It includes the communities of North Amherst, Amherst, and South Amherst. The ...
Amherst: town, seat of Cumberland county, northern Nova Scotia, Canada. It is situated near the Cumberland Basin, an arm of Chignecto Bay, and lies just south of the New Brunswick border ...
Amherst College: private, independent liberal-arts college for men and women in Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S., established in 1821 and chartered in 1825. The lexicographer Noah Webster was one of the founders of the ...
Amherst, Jeffrey Amherst, lst Baron: army commander who captured Canada for Great Britain (1758-60) during the French and Indian War. Amherst, Mass., and several other American towns are named for him.
Amherst, William Pitt Amherst, lst Earl, Viscount Holmesdale, Baron Amherst Of Montreal: diplomat who, as British governor-general of India (1823-28), played a central role in the acquisition of Asian territory for the British Empire after the First Burmese War (1824-26).
Amhurst, Nicholas: satirical poet, political pamphleteer on behalf of the Whigs, and editor of The Craftsman, a political journal of unprecedented popularity that was hostile to the Whig government of Sir Robert ...
Ami: most numerous indigenous ethnic group on the island of Taiwan, numbering more than 124,000 in the late 20th century and located in the fertile but relatively inaccessible southeastern hilly region ...
amice: (derived from Latin amictus, "wrapped around"), liturgical vestment worn under the alb. It is a rectangular piece of white linen held around the neck and shoulders by two bands tied ...
Amichai, Yehuda: Israeli writer who is best known for his poetry.
Amici, Giovanni Battista: astronomer and optician who made important improvements in the mirrors of reflecting telescopes and also developed prisms for use in refracting spectroscopes (instruments used to separate light into its spectral ...
amicus curiae: (Latin: "friend of the court"), one who assists the court by furnishing information or advice regarding questions of law or fact. He is not a party to a lawsuit and ...
amidah: in Judaism, the main section of morning, afternoon, and evening prayers, recited while standing up. On weekdays the amidah consists of 19 benedictions. These include 3 paragraphs of praise, 13 ...
amide: any member of either of two classes of nitrogen-containing compounds related to ammonia and amines. The covalent amides are neutral or very weakly acidic substances formed by replacement of the ...
Amidism: sect of Mahayana Buddhism centring on worship of Amida (in Japanese; Sanskrit Amitabha; Chinese O-mi-t'o-fo), Buddha (Buddha of Infinite Light), whose merits can be transferred to a believer. Amidism holds ...
Amiel, Henri Frederic: Swiss writer known for his Journal intime, a masterpiece of self-analysis. Despite apparent success (as professor of aesthetics, then of philosophy, at Geneva), he felt himself a failure. Driven in ...
Amiens: city, capital of Somme departement, Picardie region, principal city and ancient capital of Picardy, northern France, in the Somme River valley, north of Paris. Famed since the European Middle Ages ...
Amiens Cathedral: Gothic cathedral located in the historic city of Amiens, France, in the Somme River valley north of Paris. It is the largest of the three great Gothic cathedrals built in ...
Amiens, Treaty of: (March 27, 1802), an agreement signed at Amiens, Fr., by Britain, France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic (the Netherlands), achieving a peace in Europe for 14 months during the Napoleonic ...
Amili, Baha' ad-din Muhammad ibn Husayn, al-: theologian, mathematician, jurist, and astronomer who was a major figure in the cultural revival of Safavid Iran.
Amin, al-: sixth caliph of the 'Abbasid dynasty.
Amin, Hafizullah: leftist politician who briefly served as the president of Afghanistan in 1979.
Amin, Idi: military officer and president (1971-79) of Uganda whose regime was noted for its brutality.
amine: any member of a family of nitrogen-containing organic compounds that is derived, either in principle or in practice, from ammonia (NH₃).
amino acid: any of a group of organic molecules that consist of a basic amino group (&singlehorzbond;NH₂), an acidic carboxyl group (&singlehorzbond;COOH), and an organic R group (or side chain), which is ...
Amiot, Jean-Joseph-Marie: Jesuit missionary whose writings made accessible to Europeans the thought and life of East Asia.
Amir Ali, Sayyid: jurist, writer, and Muslim leader who favoured British rule in India rather than possible Hindu domination of an independent India.
Amir Khosrow: poet and historian, considered one of India's greatest Persian-language poets.
Amir, 'Abd al-Hakim: military official who helped establish Egypt as a republic in 1952 and, as leader of the army, was one of the most powerful figures in Egypt until his death. As ...
Amirante Isles: group of coral islands in the western Indian Ocean, lying about 200 miles (320 km) southwest of the Seychelles group and forming, with the Seychelles and other islands, the Republic ...
Amiriyah, al-: industrial district of al-Iskandariyah (Alexandria) muhafazah (governorate), northern Egypt. The centre of the 913-sq-mi (2,365-sq-km) district, which adjoins Lake Maryut (Mareotis) on the southwest, is al-'Amiriyah town. This town was ...
Amis and Amiles: chief characters in an Old French metrical romance, based on an older and widespread legend of friendship and sacrifice. In its simplest form the story tells of the knights Amis ...
Amis, Martin: English satirist known for his virtuoso storytelling technique and his dark views of 20th-century English society.
Amis, Sir Kingsley: novelist, poet, critic, and teacher who created in his first novel, Lucky Jim, a comic figure that became a household word in Great Britain in the 1950s.
Amish: member of a Christian group in North America, primarily the Old Order Amish Mennonite Church. The church originated in the late 17th century among followers of Jakob Ammann.
Amistad mutiny: (July 2, 1839), slave rebellion that took place on the slave ship Amistad near the coast of Cuba and had important political and legal repercussions in the ...
Amitabha: in Buddhism, the great saviour deity worshiped principally by members of the Pure Land sect in Japan. As related in the Sukhavati-vyuha-sutra (the fundamental scripture of the Pure Land sects), ...
Amitayur-dhyana-sutra: (Sanskrit: "Discourse Concerning Meditation on Amitayus"), one of three texts basic to Pure Land Buddhism. Together with the larger and smaller Sukhavati-vyuha-sutras (Sanskrit: "Description of the Western Paradise Sutras"), this ...
Amiternum: in ancient Italy, a Sabine town 5 miles (8 km) north of present L'Aquila in the Aterno (ancient Aternus) River valley. It was stormed by the Romans in 293 BC, ...
Amman: capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. By far the largest city of Jordan, it is the only one with a modern urban infrastructure. Amman is built on rolling hills ...
Amman, Jost: painter and printmaker, one of the most prolific and skilled book illustrators of the 16th century.
Ammann, Othmar Herman: engineer and designer of numerous long suspension bridges, including the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge over New York harbour (see ), at its completion (1965) the longest single span in the world.
Ammannati, Bartolommeo: Italian sculptor and architect whose buildings mark the transition from the classicizing Renaissance to the more exuberant Baroque style.
Ammassalik: town, southeastern Greenland, on the south coast of Ammassalik Island. The island is 25 miles (40 km) long and 12-20 miles (19-32 km) wide, with a high point of 4,336 ...
Ammers-Kuller, Jo van: Dutch writer best known for her historical novels.
ammeter: instrument for measuring either direct or alternating electric current, in amperes. An ammeter can measure a wide range of current values because at high values only a small portion of ...
Ammianus Marcellinus: last major Roman historian, whose work continued the history of the later Roman Empire to 378.
ammonia: (NH₃), colourless, pungent gas composed of nitrogen and hydrogen. It is the simplest stable compound of these elements and serves as a starting material for the production of many commercially ...
ammonia-soda process: modern method of manufacturing the industrial alkali sodium carbonate, also known as soda ash. The process was devised and first put to commercial use by Ernest Solvay, who built a ...
Ammonite: any member of an ancient Semitic people whose principal city was Rabbath Ammon, in Palestine. The "sons of Ammon" were in perennial, though sporadic, conflict with the Israelites. After a ...
ammonium chloride: the salt of ammonia and hydrogen chloride. Its principal use is as an electrolyte in dry cells, and it is also extensively employed as a constituent of galvanizing, tinning, and ...
ammonium hydroxide: solution of ammonia gas in water, a common commercial form of ammonia. It is a colourless liquid with a strong characteristic odour. In concentrated form, ammonium hydroxide can cause burns ...
ammonium nitrate: (NH₄NO₃), a salt of ammonia and nitric acid, used widely in fertilizers and explosives. The commercial grade contains about 33.5 percent nitrogen, all of which is in forms utilizable by ...
Ammonius Hermiae: Greek philosopher whose thinking was primarily oriented toward logic and the sciences. He spent a good part of his intellectual life in writing critical works on Aristotle. As a student, ...
ammonoid: any of a group of extinct cephalopods (of the phylum Mollusca), forms related to the modern pearly nautilus, that are frequently found as fossils in marine rocks of the Devonian ...
Ammons, A.R.: American poet who was one of the leading late 20th-century exponents of the Transcendentalist tradition.
Ammons, Gene: African-American jazz tenor saxophonist, noted for his big sound and blues-inflected, "soulful" improvising.
ammunition: the projectiles and propelling charges used in small arms, artillery, and other guns. Ammunition size is usually expressed in terms of calibre, which is the diameter of the projectile as ...
amnesia: loss of memory occurring most often as a result of damage to the brain from trauma, stroke, Alzheimer disease, alcohol and drug toxicity, or infection. Amnesia may be anterograde, in ...
amnesty: in criminal law, sovereign act of oblivion or forgetfulness (from Greek amnesia) for past acts, granted by a government to persons who have been guilty of crimes. It is often ...
Amnesty International: international organization headquartered in London that seeks to inform public opinion about violations of human rights, especially the abridgments of freedom of speech and of religion and the imprisonment and ...
amniocentesis: the surgical insertion of a hollow needle through the abdominal wall and into the uterus of a pregnant female and the aspiration of fluid from the amniotic sac for analysis. ...