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Baotou carpet ... barber
Baotou carpet
floor covering handwoven in Baotou, in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China, noted for its high-quality of workmanship and materials. The designs usually consist of landscapes or religious symbols, ...
Baptism
a sacrament of admission to the Christian Church. The forms and rituals of the various churches vary, but Baptism almost invariably involves the use of water and the Trinitarian invocation, ...
Baptist
member of a group of Protestant Christians who share the basic beliefs of most Protestants but who insist that only believers should be baptized and that it should be done ...
Baptist Federation of Canada
cooperative agency for several Canadian Baptist groups, organized in 1944 in Saint John, N.B., by the United Baptist Convention of the Maritime Provinces, the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, ...
Baptist General Conference
conservative Baptist denomination that was organized in 1879 as the Swedish Baptist General Conference of America; the present name was adopted in 1945. It developed from the work of Gustaf ...
Baptist Missionary Association of America
association of independent, conservative Baptist churches, organized as the North American Baptist Association in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S., in 1950, in protest against the American Baptist Association's policy of seating ...
Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland
largest Baptist group in the British Isles, organized in 1891 as a union of the Particular Baptist and New Connection General Baptist associations. These groups were historically related to the ...
Baptist World Alliance
international advisory organization for Baptists, founded in 1905 in London. Its purpose is to promote fellowship and cooperation among all Baptists. It sponsors regional and international meetings for various groups ...
Baptiste
one of the leading actors of sentimental comedy (comedie larmoyante) in France.
baptistery
hall or chapel situated close to, or connected with, a church, in which the sacrament of baptism is administered. The form of the baptistery originally evolved from small, circular Roman ...
Baqdash, Khalid
Syrian politician who acquired control of the Syrian Communist Party in 1932 and remained its most prominent spokesman until 1958, when he went into exile.
Baqqarah
(Arabic: "Cattlemen"), nomad Arabs who have been forced by circumstance to live in a part of Africa that will support the cow but not the camel-south of latitude 13° and ...
Bar
port in Montenegro, Serbia and Montenegro, on the Adriatic Sea. It is the country's principal port and the only maritime outlet for the landlocked republic of Serbia. The current city ...
bar association
group of attorneys, whether local, national, or international, that is organized primarily to deal with issues affecting the legal profession. In general, bar associations are concerned with furthering the best ...
bar code
a printed series of parallel bars or lines of varying width that is used for entering data into a computer system. The bars are typically black on a white background, ...
Bar form
in music, the structural pattern aab as used by the medieval German minnesingers and meistersingers, who were poet-composers of secular monophonic songs (i.e., those having a single line of melody). ...
Bar Harbor
coastal town, Hancock county, southern Maine, U.S. It is on Mount Desert Island at the foot of Cadillac Mountain (1,530 feet [466 metres]) facing Frenchman Bay, 46 miles (74 km) ...
Bar Hebraeus
medieval Syrian scholar noted for his encyclopaedic learning in science and philosophy and for his enrichment of Syriac literature by the introduction of Arabic culture.
Bar Kokhba
Jewish leader who led a bitter but unsuccessful revolt (AD 132-135) against Roman dominion in Palestine.
Bar Mitzvah
Jewish religious ritual and family celebration commemorating the religious adulthood of a boy on his 13th birthday. The boy, now deemed personally responsible for fulfilling all the commandments, may henceforth ...
bar Sauma, Rabban
Nestorian Christian ecclesiastic, whose important but little-known travels in western Europe as an envoy of the Mongols provide a counterpart to those of his contemporary, the Venetian Marco Polo, in ...
Bar, Confederation of
league of Polish nobles and gentry that was formed to defend the privileges of the Roman Catholic church and the independence of Poland from Russian encroachment. Its activities precipitated a ...
Bar, Francois de
French historiographer and scholar of ecclesiastical law, whose church histories are considered the most detailed and complete of his time.
Bar-le-Duc
capital of Meuse departement, Lorraine region, northeastern France. It extends out along the narrow valley of the Ornain River, west of Nancy. To the ...
Bar-Salibi, Jacob
the great spokesman of the Jacobite (monophysite) church in the 12th century.
Bara
Malagasy people who live in south-central Madagascar and speak a dialect of Malagasy, a West Austronesian language.
Bara Banki
town, east-central Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It lies northeast of Lucknow and includes the larger town of Nawabganj. Nawabganj is an agricultural market and cotton-weaving centre. The two towns ...
Bara, Theda
American silent-film star who was the first screen vamp who lured men to destruction. Her films set the vogue for sophisticated sexual themes in motion pictures and made her an ...
Barabbas
in the New Testament, a prisoner or criminal mentioned in all four gospels who was chosen by the crowd, over Jesus Christ, to be released by Pontius Pilate in a ...
Baraboo
city, seat (1847) of Sauk county, south-central Wisconsin, U.S. It lies in a hilly region on the Baraboo River, about 35 miles (55 km) northwest of Madison. Ho-Chunk Nation (Winnebago), ...
Baracaldo
industrial municipality, northern Biscay (Vizcaya) provincia, in the autonomous Basque Country, northeastern Spain. It lies on the south bank of the Nervion River. Baracaldo consists of the Bilbao suburbs of ...
Baracoa
port city, Guantanamo provincia, eastern Cuba. It is situated on the extreme eastern part of the island, along a small semicircular bay on the north coast. Surrounded by rugged mountains, ...
Barada
river of western Syria. It rises in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and flows southward for 52 miles (84 km) through Damascus to intermittent Lake Al-'Utaybah and its marshes. The Barada sets ...
Baragwanathia
a genus of fossil plants from the Early Devonian Epoch (about 408 to 387 million years ago) of Australia, of interest as being perhaps the earliest club moss class (or ...
Barahona
city, southwestern Dominican Republic. It lies along Neiba Bay, off the Caribbean Sea, at the northeastern foot of the Sierra de Bahoruco. The gateway to the Dominican Republic's lake district, ...
Barahona de Soto, Luis
Spanish poet who is remembered for his Primera parte de la Angelica (1586; "The First Part of the Angelica"), more commonly known as Las lagrimas de Angelica ("The Tears of ...
Baraita
any of the ancient oral traditions of Jewish religious law that were not included in the Mishna (the first authoritative codification of such laws). The Baraitot that are found dispersed ...
Barak, Ehud
soldier and politician who was the prime minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001.
Baraka, Amiri
writer who presented the experiences and anger of black Americans with an affirmation of black life.
Barakzay Dynasty
ruling family in Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Barakzay brothers seized control of Afghanistan and in 1826 divided the region between them. Dost Mohammad Khan gained preeminence ...
Baram River
river in northwestern Borneo. Rising in the Iran Mountains, it flows 250 miles (400 km) west and northwest, mostly through primary rain forest to the South China Sea at Baram ...
Baramula
town in the northwestern part of the Indian-held sector of Jammu and Kashmir state, in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is situated on the Jhelum River about ...
Baranagar
town, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India, just east of the Hooghly River, part of the Calcutta urban agglomeration. Originally a Portuguese settlement, it became the seat of a Dutch ...
Baranauskas, Antanas
Roman Catholic bishop and poet who wrote one of the greatest works in Lithuanian literature, Anykysciu silelis (1858-59; The Forest of Anyksciai). The 342-line poem, written in East High Lithuanian ...
barangay
type of early Filipino settlement; the word is derived from balangay, the name for the sailboats that originally brought settlers of Malay stock to the Philippines from Borneo. Each boat ...
Barani, Ziya'-ud-Din
the first known Muslim to write a history of India; he resided for 17 years at Delhi as nadim (boon companion) of Sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluq.
Baranovichi
town, Brest oblast (province), Belarus, on the southern edge of the Novogrudok Hills. It developed from a small village in the late 19th century into a major ...
Barante, Amable-Guillaume-Prosper Brugiere, baron de
French statesman, historian, and political writer, a liberal representative under the Bourbon restoration and a leading member of the narrative school of Romanticist historians who portrayed historical episodes with high ...
Barany, Robert
Austrian otologist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1914 for his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular (balancing) apparatus of the inner ear.
Baranya
megye (county), southern Hungary, bounded to the south by the Drava River, and by the Mecsek Mountains in its northwestern area. Its area of 1,732 square miles ...
Barari Ghat, Battle of
(Jan. 9, 1760), in Indian history, one of a series of Afghan victories over the Marathas in their war to gain control of the decaying Mughal Empire, which gave the ...
Barasat
town, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India. Connected by road and rail with Calcutta and Howrah, it is an important trade centre for rice, legumes, sugarcane, potatoes, and coconuts; cotton ...
barasingha
(species Cervus duvauceli), graceful deer, belonging to the family Cervidae (order Artiodactyla), found in open forests and grasslands of India and Nepal. The barasingha stands about 1.1 m (45 inches) ...
Barat, Saint Madeleine-Sophie
nun and founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Barataria Bay
inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, about 15 miles (24 km) long and 12 miles (19 km) wide, in southeastern Louisiana, U.S. Its entrance, largely blocked by Grand Isle and ...
Baratieri, Oreste
general and colonial governor who was responsible for both the development of the Italian colony of Eritrea and the loss of Italian influence over Ethiopia.
Baratynsky, Yevgeny Abramovich
foremost Russian philosophical poet contemporary with Aleksandr Pushkin. In his poetry he combined an elegant, precise style with spiritual melancholy in dealing with abstract idealistic concepts.
Barb
native horse breed of the Barbary states of North Africa. It is related to, and probably an offshoot of, the Arabian horse but is larger, with a lower placed tail, ...
barb
(genus Barbus), any of numerous freshwater fishes belonging to a genus in the carp family, Cyprinidae. The barbs are native to Europe, Africa, and Asia. The members of this genus ...
Barbacena
city, southeastern Minas Gerais estado (state), Brazil. It is situated in the Serra da Mantiquera, at 3,727 feet (1,136 metres) above sea level. The settlement was made ...
Barbados
island nation in the Caribbean, situated about 100 miles (160 kilometres) east of the Windward Islands. Roughly triangular in shape, it measures 21 miles from northwest to southeast and about ...
Barbados cherry
common name for various tropical and subtropical trees and shrubs of the genera Bunchiosa and Malpighia (family Malpighiaceae), especially M. glabra, M. punicifolia, and M. urens.
Barbados Ridge
submarine ridge of the Caribbean Sea rising from the southern end of the axis of the Puerto Rico Trench. The Barbados Ridge is paralleled on either side by a shallow ...
Barbara, Saint
virgin martyr of the early church and patroness of artillerymen. According to legend, which dates only to the 7th century, she was the daughter of a pagan, Dioscorus, who kept ...
Barbari, Jacopo de'
Venetian painter and engraver who probably painted the first signed and dated (1504) pure still life (a dead partridge, gauntlets, and arrow pinned against a wall). Until c. 1500 he ...
Barbarossa
Barbary pirate and later admiral of the Ottoman fleet, by whose initiative Algeria and Tunisia became part of the Ottoman Empire. For three centuries after his death, Mediterranean coastal towns ...
Barbary
former designation for the coastal region of North Africa bounded by Egypt (east), by the Atlantic (west), by the Sahara (south), and by the Mediterranean Sea (north), and now comprising ...
Barbary macaque
tailless ground-dwelling monkey that lives in groups in the upland forests of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Gibraltar. The Barbary macaque is about 60 cm (24 inches) long and has light ...
Barbary pirate
any of the Muslim pirates operating from the coast of North Africa, at their most powerful during the 17th century but still active until the 19th century. Captains, who formed ...
barbastelle
either of two bats of the vesper bat family, Vespertilionidae, found in Europe and North Africa (B. barbastellus) and in the Middle East and Asia (B. leucomelas). Barbastelles have short, ...
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia
British writer, poet, and editor whose best writings are on political and social themes. Her poetry belongs essentially in the tradition of 18th-century meditative verse.
Barbe-Marbois, Francois, marquis de
French statesman who in 1803 negotiated the Louisiana Purchase by the United States.
barbecue
an outdoor meal, usually a form of social entertainment, at which meats, fish, or fowl, along with vegetables, are roasted over a wood or charcoal fire. The term also denotes ...
barbed wire
fence wire usually consisting of two longitudinal wires twisted together to form cable and having wire barbs wound around either or both of the cable wires at regular intervals. The ...
Barbeitos, Arlindo
Angolan poet, many of whose works, written in Portuguese, portray in a subtle manner the struggle of his people for independence as well as the essential harmony between man and ...
barber
a person whose primary activities in the 20th century are trimming and styling the hair of men, shaving them, and shaping their beards, sideburns, and moustaches. Barbers, or hairdressers, often ...