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Central American Common Market ... Cerchi, Vieri dei

Central American Common Market: association of five Central American nations that was formed to facilitate regional economic development through free trade and economic integration. Established by the General Treaty on Central American Economic Integration ...
Central American States, Organization of: international organization formed in 1951 to reestablish regional unity in Central America. Member states are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The organization includes executive, legislative, and economic ...
Central Asia: central region of Asia, extending from the Caspian Sea in the west to the border of western China in the east. It is bounded on the north by Russia and ...
Central Asia, history of: history of the area from prehistoric and ancient times to the present.
central bank: institution, such as the Bank of England, the U.S. Federal Reserve System, the Bank of France, or the Bank of Japan, that is charged with regulating the size of a ...
Central Brahui Range: southern offshoot of the Himalayas, lying in the centre of the Balochistan plateau, Pakistan. It extends southward for about 225 miles (360 km) from the Pishin Lora and Zhob rivers ...
Central City: city, seat (1861) of Gilpin county, north-central Colorado, U.S. It lies along North Fork of Clear Creek in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, 26 miles (42 km) west ...
Central Committee: in the history of the Soviet Union, the highest organ of the Communist Party between party congresses, though in practice this status was held by the Politburo from the 1920s ...
Central Connecticut State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in New Britain, Conn., U.S. It is one of four universities in the Connecticut State University system. The university includes schools of business, technology, ...
Central Falls: city, Providence county, northeastern Rhode Island, U.S. It forms part of the lower Blackstone River valley community, which includes the city of Pawtucket and the towns (townships) of Cumberland and ...
Central Florida, University of: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Orlando, Florida, U.S. It is part of the State University System of Florida. It consists of a main campus in Orlando and branch ...
Central Intelligence Agency: principal foreign intelligence and counterintelligence agency of the U.S. government. Formally created in 1947, the CIA grew out of the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Previous U.S. ...
Central League: one of the two associations of professional baseball teams in Japan. Both the Central League and the Pacific League were founded in 1950. The Central League comprises six teams, each ...
central limit theorem: in probability theory, a theorem that establishes the normal distribution as the distribution to which the mean (average) of almost any set of independent and randomly generated variables rapidly converges. ...
Central Michigan University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Mount Pleasant, Mich., U.S. The university is composed of the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Technology, Education, Health and Human Services, and ...
Central Oklahoma, University of: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. It consists of the colleges of Arts, Media, and Design; Business Administration; Education; Liberal Arts; and Mathematics and Science. The ...
Central Pacific Basin: major submarine basin of the central part of the north Pacific Ocean, between the Line Islands to the east and the Marshall Islands to the west. It occupies a large ...
Central Pacific Railroad: American railroad company founded in 1861 by a group of California merchants known later as the "Big Four" (Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker); they are ...
Central Park: largest and most important public park in Manhattan, New York City. It occupies an area of 840 acres (340 hectares) and extends between 59th and 110th streets (about 2.5 miles ...
Central Powers: World War I coalition that consisted primarily of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, the "central" European states that were at war from August 1914 against France and Britain on the ...
central processing unit: principal part of any digital computer system, generally composed of the main memory, control unit, and arithmetic-logic unit. It constitutes the physical heart of the entire computer system; to it ...
Central Region Plateau: largest continuous tableland in Malawi. Its area of 9,000 square miles (23,310 square km) is bordered by the Chimaliro Hills and Viphya Mountains on the north, the Great Rift Valley ...
Central Russian Upland: large upland area of the Russian Plain, in the central part of European Russia. It stretches in a north-south direction from the Oka River to the Donets River and the ...
Central Siberian Plateau: vast upland area, north-central Siberia, Russia. The plateau occupies an area of 600,000 square miles (1,500,000 square km). It is situated in Krasnoyarsk kray (region), Sakha, and ...
Central Sudanic languages: a group of more than 30 languages that form a subbranch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, The Sudan, ...
Central Treaty Organization: mutual security organization dating from 1955 to 1979 and composed of Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. Until March 1959 the organization was known as the Middle East Treaty ...
Central University Botanical Garden: state-supported tropical garden occupying a 65-hectare (160-acre) site in Caracas, Venez. The garden has excellent collections of palms, cacti, aroids, bromeliads, pandanuses, and other groups of tropical plants of considerable ...
Central Valley: structural depression in central Chile between the Western Cordillera of the Andes and the coastal range, extending for about 400 miles (650 km) from the Chacabuco Range in the north ...
Central Valley: valley, California, U.S. Extending from Shasta county in the north to Kern county in the south, it covers about 18,000 square miles (47,000 square km) and parallels the Pacific coast ...
Central Washington University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Ellensburg, Washington, U.S. It is one of six such institutions sponsored by the state of Washington. The university consists of colleges of arts ...
Central, Cordillera: mountain range in western Dominican Republic. The core of its highlands rises just west of Santo Domingo, the national capital, and extends northwestward to the Haitian border; from it flow ...
Central, Cordillera: limestone mountain range that forms the interior of Puerto Rico island. It consists of three parts. The Cordillera Central proper occupies the west-central part of the island, extending about 50 ...
central-place theory: in geography, an element of location theory (q.v.) concerning the size and distribution of central places (settlements) within a system. Central-place theory attempts to illustrate how settlements locate in relation ...
Centralia: city, Lewis county, southwest Washington, U.S., near the confluence of the Chehalis and Skookumchuck rivers. It lies midway between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. The town site, then in Oregon ...
Centralia: city, Marion and Clinton counties, south-central Illinois, U.S. It lies about 60 miles (100 km) east of St. Louis, Missouri. Centralia was founded in 1853 by the Illinois Central Railroad ...
Centre: industrial district in Hainaut province, southwestern Belgium. It lies in the upper valley of the Haine River and is centred on the town of La Louviere between Mons and Charleroi. ...
Centre: region of France encompassing the central departements of Cher, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Loir-et-Cher, Loiret, and Eure-et-Loir. Centre is bounded by the regions ...
Centre: county, central Pennsylvania, U.S., located in both the Allegheny Plateau and the Appalachian Ridge and Valley regions and roughly bisected by the Allegheny Mountains. Centre county, named for its location ...
Centre Party: in Germany, political party active in the Second Reich from the time of Otto von Bismarck in the 1870s to 1933. It was the first party of imperial Germany to ...
centrifugal force: a fictitious force, peculiar to a particle moving on a circular path, that has the same magnitude and dimensions as the force that keeps the particle on its circular path ...
centrifugal pump: device for moving liquids and gases. The two major parts of the device are the impeller (a wheel with vanes) and the circular pump casing around it. In the most ...
centrifuge: any device that applies a sustained centrifugal force; that is, a force due to rotation. Effectively, the centrifuge substitutes a similar, stronger, force for that of gravity. Every centrifuge contains ...
centripetal acceleration: property of the motion of a body traversing a circular path. The acceleration is directed radially toward the centre of the circle and has a magnitude equal to the square ...
centumviri: in ancient Rome, court of civil jurisdiction that gained distinction for its hearing of inheritance claims, through which it influenced succession. The court, instituted in c. 150 BC, was composed ...
centurion: the principal professional officer in the armies of ancient Rome and its empire. The centurion was the commander of a centuria, which was the smallest unit of a Roman legion. ...
Centuripe: town, Enna provincia, east-central Sicily, Italy. The town lies at an elevation of 2,402 feet (732 m) on a ridge between the Simeto and Dittaino rivers, northwest of Catania. The ...
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: dictionary of American English that is generally regarded as one of the greatest ever produced. The first edition (1889-91) contained six volumes; a supplementary Cyclopedia of Names, including personal and ...
century plant: member of the agave family of flowering plants. See Agavaceae.
Centwine: king of the West Saxons, or Wessex (from 676), son of King Cynegils and brother of King Cenwalh. His reign was marked by renewed victories over the Welsh. Centwine was ...
Cenu: Indians of the northern lowlands of Colombia who became extinct under Spanish rule. The Cenu were a tropical-forest people who spoke a Cariban language. They were agriculturists, and their chief ...
Cenwalh: king of the West Saxons, or Wessex (from 643), son of Cynegils. Though his father became a Christian, Cenwalh himself long remained a pagan. Soon after his succession he discarded ...
Cenwulf: Anglo-Saxon king of the Mercians from 796 who preserved the Mercian supremacy established by King Offa (reigned 757-796). During a Kentish rebellion against Mercian suzerainty, he tried to move the ...
Ceol: king of the West Saxons, or Wessex. Ceol was the son of Cutha, who was brother of King Ceawlin. After his victory over his uncle Ceawlin at Wodnesbeorg (Wiltshire) in ...
Ceolnoth: 17th archbishop of Canterbury, who played a conciliatory role during the invasions of England by the Danish Vikings.
ceorl: the free peasant who formed the basis of society in Anglo-Saxon England. His free status was marked by his right to bear arms, his attendance at local courts, and his ...
Cepeda, battles of: (1820, 1859), two engagements fought at Cepeda, in the Buenos Aires province of Argentina, during the decades of disunity following the declaration in 1816 of Argentine independence.
Cephalaspis: extinct genus of very primitive jawless, fishlike vertebrates found in Early Devonian rocks (the Devonian Period lasted from 408 to 360 million years ago) in Europe and North America. Cephalaspis, ...
cephalization: the differentiation of the anterior (front) end of an organism into a definite head. Considered an evolutionary advance, cephalization is accompanied by a concentration of nervous tissue (cephalic ganglion or ...
Cephallenia: island, largest of the Ionian Islands, west of the Gulf of Patraikos. With the island of Ithaca (Ithaki) and smaller nearby islands, it forms the nomos (department) ...
cephalochordate: any member of the subphylum Cephalochordata of the phylum Chordata. Small, fishlike marine invertebrates, they probably are the closest living relatives of the vertebrates. There are about 20 species in ...
cephalopod: any member of the class Cephalopoda, of the phylum Mollusca, a small group of highly advanced and organized, exclusively marine animals. The octopus, squid (see ), cuttlefish, and chambered nautilus ...
cephalosporin: any of a group of beta-lactam antibiotics that inhibit the synthesis of a structural component of the bacterial cell wall. The cephalosporins were first isolated from cultures of the fungus ...
Cephalus: legendary ancestor of an Attic family, traditionally a great hunter. He was beloved by the goddess Dawn (Eos, or Aurora). With his hound, Laelaps (Hurricane), he overcame the vixen of ...
Cepheid variable: one of a class of variable stars whose periods (i.e., the time for one cycle) of variation tend to be proportional to their luminosity and that are therefore useful in ...
Cephisodotus The Elder: Greek sculptor, assumed to be the father of Praxiteles. He made certain statues for the city of Megalopolis, founded in 370 BC.
Ceram: island, part of the Moluccas (Maluku) archipelago, eastern Indonesia. It is located between the Ceram Sea (north) and the Banda Sea (south) and is west of New Guinea and east ...
ceramic composition and properties: atomic and molecular nature of ceramic materials and their resulting characteristics and performance in industrial applications.
cerargyrite: gray, very heavy halide mineral composed of silver chloride (AgCl); it is an ore of silver. It forms a complete solid-solution series with bromyrite, silver bromide (AgBr), in which bromine ...
Cerastes: genus of venomous, desert-dwelling snakes of the viper family, Viperidae. There are two species, the horned viper (C. cerastes), which usually has a spinelike scale above each eye, and the ...
Ceratium: genus of single-celled aquatic organisms common in fresh water and salt water from the Arctic to the tropics. Its members are armoured dinoflagellates. (A dinoflagellate has two unlike flagella and ...
ceratopsian: any of a group of plant-eating dinosaurs from the Cretaceous Period (144 million to 65 million years ago) characterized by a bony frill on the back of the skull and ...
Ceratosaurus: large carnivorous dinosaurs whose fossils date from the Late Jurassic Period (159 million to 144 million years ago) in North America and Africa.
Ceratozamia: a genus of four or more species of short, columnar plants native to Mexico and Central America. These ornamental cycads (members of the family Cycadaceae) have cones that bear horned ...
Ceraurus: genus of trilobites (extinct arthropods) found as fossils in rocks of Ordovician period (505 to 438 million years ago) in Europe and North America. Ceraurus is easily recognized by its ...
Cerceau, du, family: renowned French family of architects and decorators who constituted a virtual dynasty in architecture and decoration from the 16th century until the end of the 17th century.
Cerchi, Vieri dei: Florentine noble and banker who became the leader of the faction known as the Whites in the civil strife of the late 13th century.