| | - Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline
- French poet and woman of letters of the Romantic period. [1 Related Articles]
- Desborough, John
- English soldier, Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law, who played a prominent part in Commonwealth politics.
- descamisado
- (Spanish: "shirtless one"), in Argentine history, during the regime of Juan Peron (ruled 1946-55, 1973-74), any of the impoverished and underprivileged Argentine workers who were Peron's chief supporters. [2 Related Articles]
- descant
- (from Latin discantus, "song apart"), countermelody either composed or improvised above a familiar melody. Descant can also refer to an instrument of higher-than-normal pitch, such as a ... [1 Related Articles]
- descant viol
- (from the article "viol") ...16th to the 18th century. The viol shares with the Renaissance lute the tuning of its six strings (two fourths, a major third, two fourths) and the gut frets on ...
- Descartes, Rene
- French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. Because he was one of the first to abandon scholastic Aristotelianism, because he formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism, from which stems the ... [72 Related Articles]
- Descemet's membrane
- (from the article "eye, human") ...and the sclera. The cornea is the transparent window of the eye. It contains five distinguishable layers; the epithelium, or outer covering; Bowman's membrane; the stroma, or supporting structure; Descemet's ...
- descending aorta
- (from the article "aorta") ...backflow of blood from the aorta into the heart. The aorta emerges from the heart as the ascending aorta, turns to the left and arches over the heart (the aortic ...
- descending colon
- (from the article "digestive system, human") The descending colon passes down and in front of the left kidney and the left side of the posterior abdominal wall to the iliac crest (the upper border of the ...
- descending duodenum
- (from the article "duodenum") ...the superior duodenum from the pylorus of the stomach, triggering the release of pancreas-stimulating hormones from glands in the duodenal wall. Ducts from the pancreas and gallbladder enter at the ...
- descending inhibition
- (from the article "nervous system, human") Many regions of the brain can influence the input arriving at lower levels of the nervous system. This descending inhibition can be selective, with different regions of the brain inhibiting ...
- descending node
- (from the article "orbit") ...are measured. The angle VSN, in degrees of arc, is the longitude of the ascending node, i.e., of the point where the moving planet passes north of the plane of ...
- descending reticular formation
- (from the article "sensory reception, human") ...of the muscle spindle also can be influenced through other neural pathways that control the general level of excitability of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Activity of ...
- descent
- the system of acknowledged social parentage, which varies from society to society, whereby a person may claim kinship ties with another. If no limitation were placed on the recognition of ... [7 Related Articles]
- descent line
- (from the article "Polynesian culture") The other major system that Polynesians used to organize descent groups is known as the descent line. Descent line organization appears to be the result of a breakdown in genealogical ...
- Deschamps, Emile
- poet prominent in the development of Romanticism.
- Deschamps, Eustache
- poet and author of L'Art de dictier (1392), the first treatise on French versification. [1 Related Articles]
- Deschanel, Paul
- French political figure who was an important parliamentary leader during the Third Republic and served as its 10th president (Feb. 17 to Sept. 20, 1920).
- Deschler, Joachim
- (from the article "medal") ...in his portraits. Friedrich Hagenauer, active in Munich and in Augsburg (1527-32), produced more than 230 medals. In Nurnberg, Matthes Gebel (active 1525-54) and his follower Joachim Deschler (active 1540-69) ...
- descloizite
- vanadate mineral containing lead, copper, and zinc that usually forms brownish red to blackish brown crusts of intergrown crystals or rounded fibrous masses; its physical appearance is varied, however, and ...
- Desclot, Bernat
- (from the article "Spanish literature") ...Muntaner's account of the Grand Catalan Company's expedition to the Morea in southern Greece and of James II's conquest of Sardinia were distinguished by skill of narration and quality of ...
- descort
- a synonym for lai, a medieval Provencal lyric in which the stanzas are nonuniform. The term also refers to a poem in medieval Provencal literature with stanzas in different languages. ...
- description
- (from the article "formal logic") ...subject of considerable philosophical controversy. One widely accepted account, however-substantially that presented in Principia Mathematica and known as Russell's theory of descriptions, after Bertrand Russell-holds that "The ...
- description operator
- (from the article "formal logic") ...then stands for the single value of a that makes alpha true. An expression of the form "the so-and-so" is called a definite description; and (iotax), known as a description ...
- descriptions, theory of
- (from the article "language, philosophy of") The power of Frege's logic to dispel philosophical problems was immediately recognized. Consider, for instance, the hoary problem of "non-being." In the novel Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, the ...
- descriptive bibliography
- (from the article "bibliography") The primary purpose of descriptive bibliography is to organize detailed information culled from a mass of materials in a systematic way so that others can have access to useful information. ...
- descriptive cataloging
- (from the article "information processing") ...ordering, librarianship has developed an extensive set of attributes in terms of which it describes each item in the collection. The rules for assigning these attributes are called cataloging rules. ...
- descriptive geometry
- (from the article "mathematics") ...Ecole was that of Gaspard Monge, who believed strongly that mathematics should serve the scientific and technical needs of the state. To that end he devised a syllabus that promoted ...
- descriptive mode
- (from the article "nonfictional prose") In nonfictional prose, essayists, moralists, naturalists, and others regularly evoked nature scenes. The most sumptuous masters of prose composed landscapes as elaborately as landscape painters. The French writer and statesman ...
- descriptive statistics
- (from the article "statistics") Descriptive statistics are tabular, graphical, and numerical summaries of data. The purpose of descriptive statistics is to facilitate the presentation and interpretation of data. Most of the statistical presentations appearing ...
- Desdemona
- wife of the Moor Othello in Shakespeare's Othello. [1 Related Articles]
- Dese
- town, central Ethiopia, situated on the western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley at an elevation of 7,500 feet (2,300 m). Dese (Amharic: "My Joy") is a commercial and communications ... [1 Related Articles]
- Deseado River
- river in southern Argentina, rising in Buenos Aires Lake in the Andes of southern Chile and Argentina. It flows generally eastward and southeastward through Santa Cruz province. Near Koluel Kayke ... [1 Related Articles]
- Desembarco del Granma National Park
- (from the article "Cuba") Cuba has numerous protected areas, including national parks at Turquino Peak, Cristal Peak, Romano Caye, part of Juventud Island, and the Vinales valley. Desembarco del Granma National Park features a ...
- desensitization
- treatment that attempts to eliminate allergic reactions, as of hay fever or bronchial asthma, by a series of injections in graded strengths of the substance to which the person is ... [3 Related Articles]
- desensitization
- (from the article "mental disorder") ...to eliminate the phobia by teaching the patient how to face those situations that clearly trigger discomfort. The exposure of the patient to the feared situation can be gradual (sometimes ...
- Deseret
- (from the article "Utah") The Mormon settlers applied for statehood in 1849 under the name Deseret, a word from the sacred Book of Mormon meaning "honeybee" and signifying industry. This bid ...
- Deseret News, The
- daily newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). It was founded as a biweekly in 1850. The word Deseret means ...
- desert
- any large, extremely dry area of land with sparse vegetation. It is one of the Earth's major types of ecosystems, supporting a community of distinctive plants and animals specially adapted ... [16 Related Articles]
- Desert Archaic culture
- (from the article "Native American") Ancient peoples in the present-day Plateau and Great Basin culture areas created distinctive cultural adaptations to the dry, relatively impoverished environments of these regions. The Cochise or Desert Archaic culture ...
- desert cardinal
- (from the article "cardinal") The desert cardinal (C. sinuatus) is common to the thorn scrub of the American Southwest. Less showy than the northern cardinal, this gray bird with a red mask is also ...
- desert Christmas cactus
- (from the article "cholla") ...of more striking colours. At least three species-O. pulchella, O. imbricata, and O. whipplei-are hardy to -18° C (0° F) or below. O. leptocaulis, the desert Christmas cactus, holds its ...
- desert Christmas tree
- (from the article "Lennoaceae") ...head is covered at maturity with small, starlike flowers, violet with yellow throats. Two species of Pholisma occur in southwestern North America: sand food (P. sonorae) and ...
- desert climate
- (from the article "climate") Arid and semiarid climates cover about a quarter of Earth's land surface, mostly between 50° N and 50° S, but they are mainly found in the 15-30° latitude belt in ...
- Desert cultures
- in North America, ancient cultures centred on the Great Basin in the area of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona; they lasted from about 7000 or 8000 BC to about 2000 BC. ... [1 Related Articles]
- desert dormouse
- a rarely seen or captured small rodent of Central Asia. Weighing less than 28 grams (1 ounce), the desert dormouse has a stout rounded body 8 to 10 cm (3.1 ...
- Desert Fathers
- early Christian hermits whose practice of asceticism in the Egyptian desert, beginning in the 3rd century, formed the basis of Christian monasticism. One of these hermits, Pachomius of the Thebaid ... [1 Related Articles]
- Desert Fox, Operation
- (from the article "Iraq War") ...its repeated interference with the inspections frustrated the international community and led U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton in 1998 to order the bombing of several Iraqi military installations (code-named Operation Desert ...
- desert hedgehog
- (from the article "hedgehog") ...furred tail measuring 1 to 6 cm. In addition to the three species of Eurasian hedgehogs (genus Erinaceus), there are four African hedgehogs (genus Atelerix), six desert hedgehogs (genus Hemiechinus), ...
- Desert Inn
- (from the article "Las Vegas") Also of importance to the development of the city were private individuals, among them Wilbur Clark, the owner of the Desert Inn, who proposed that the federal government retire its ...
- desert locust
- (from the article "locust") ...is wider than that of any other acridid. It is found in grasslands throughout Africa, most of Eurasia south of the Taiga Forest, the East Indies, tropical Australia, and New ...
- desert night lizard
- (from the article "night lizard") The desert night lizard (X. vigilis) lives underneath decaying Joshua trees in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Among the smallest night lizards, X. vigilis ...
- desert palace
- any country dwelling built in Syria, Jordan, and Palestine by Umayyad (661-750 CE) rulers and aristocrats. [1 Related Articles]
- desert pavement
- surface of angular, interlocking fragments of pebbles, gravel, or boulders in arid areas. Desert pavement forms on level or gently sloping desert flats, fans, or bajadas and lake and river ... [2 Related Articles]
- Desert Rats
- a group of British soldiers who helped defeat the Germans in North Africa during World War II. The Desert Rats, led by General Allen Francis Harding, were especially noted for ... [2 Related Articles]
- Desert Sabre, Operation
- (from the article "Persian Gulf War") Operation Desert Sabre, a massive allied ground offensive, was launched northward from northeastern Saudi Arabia into Kuwait and southern Iraq on February 24, and within three days Arab and U.S. ...
- Desert Shield, Operation
- (from the article "Persian Gulf War") ...NATO allies to rush troops to Saudi Arabia to deter a possible attack. Egypt and several other Arab nations joined the anti-Iraq coalition and contributed forces to the military buildup, ...
- Desert Storm, Operation
- (from the article "Persian Gulf War") ...on January 16-17, 1991, with a massive U.S.-led air offensive against Iraq that continued throughout the war. Over the next few weeks, this sustained aerial bombardment, which had been named ...
- desert varnish
- thin, dark red to black mineral coating (generally iron and manganese oxides and silica) deposited on pebbles and rocks on the surface of desert regions. As dew and soil moisture ... [2 Related Articles]
- desert wheatgrass
- (from the article "wheatgrass") The most important forage species are bluebunch wheatgrass (A. spicatum) and western wheatgrass (A. smithii). Crested wheatgrass (A. cristatum), desert wheatgrass (A. desertorum), and slender wheatgrass (A. trachycaulum) are good ...
- desert woodrat
- (from the article "woodrat") ...are nearly bald, and their feet are white. The long, thick, soft fur varies among species from gray to reddish brown above and from white to rust-coloured on the underparts. ...
- Desertas Islands
- (from the article "Portugal") ...rat (brown and black), and mouse as well as various types of bats. Game birds include woodcock, red partridge, quail, and snipe. The highly endangered Mediterranean monk seal is native ...
- desertification
- spread or encroachment of a desert environment into arid or semiarid regions, caused by climatic changes, human influence, or both. Climatic factors include periods of temporary but severe drought and ... [5 Related Articles]
- desertion
- (from the article "Vietnam War") ...of the U.S. military effort in Vietnam. From 1965 to 1973, more than 30,000 U.S. military personnel either in Vietnam or in service related to Vietnam received dishonourable discharges for ...
- Desgarcins, Magdeleine-Marie
- original name Louise Desgarcins one of the greatest of French tragediennes.
- Desgrange, Henri
- (from the article "Tour de France") Established in 1903 by Henri Desgrange (1865-1940), a French cyclist and journalist, the race has been run every year except during the World Wars. Desgrange's newspaper, L'Auto ...
- Deshayes, Gerard-Paul
- (from the article "geochronology") ...Arduino's term Tertiary (proposed as part of his fourfold division of rock succession in the Tuscan Hills of Italy) began to be applied to all of these diverse locations. Further ...
- Deshima
- (from the article "rangaku") ...language so as to be able to learn Western technology; the term later became synonymous with Western scientific learning in general. With the exception of the Dutch trading post on ...
- Deshoulieres, Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde
- French poet who, from 1672 until her death, presided over a salon that was a meeting place for the prominent literary figures of her day. She was also a leader ...
- desi
- (from the article "South Asian arts") ...the different peoples living in the various parts of the country, suggesting that their origin might lie in folk music. Matanga appears to contrast the two terms marga and desi. ...
- Desiderio Da Settignano
- Florentine sculptor whose works, particularly his marble low reliefs, were unrivaled in the 15th century for subtlety and technical accomplishment. [3 Related Articles]
- Desiderius
- (from the article "Pippin III") ...In 756 the Frankish king once more entered Italy. Aistulf was once more constrained to make promises, but the same year he died-of a fall from his horse-and in April ...
- design
- (from the article "Design for the Third Millennium") At the turn of the millennium, new product design-both functional and visually striking-was being showcased in homes around the world, defined the look of cars, and offered innovative styles for ...
- design
- (from the article "combinatorics") ...On the other hand, the study of triple systems begun by Thomas P. Kirkman in 1847 and pursued by Jakob Steiner, a Swiss-born German mathematician, in the 1850s was the ...
- Design, Academy of
- (from the article "art, academy of") ...c. 1490), which seems to have been simply a social gathering of amateurs meeting to discuss the theory and practice of art. The first true academy for instruction, the Accademia ...
- Design, College of
- (from the article "Bill, Max") Bill cofounded and was rector of the College of Design in Ulm, W.Ger. (1951-56). He designed the school's buildings, planned its curriculum, and was director of the department of architecture ...
- Design, Institute of
- (from the article "industrial design") ...and architectural schools. The Hungarian-born Bauhaus artist and educator Laszlo Moholy-Nagy established the trendsetting New Bauhaus in Chicago (1937) and subsequently developed the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of ...
- designated hitter
- (from the article "baseball") ...sought to speed up games by increasing the size of the strike zone called by the umpires. Lowering the pitching mound and reducing the size of the strike zone in ...
- designer dog
- (from the article "poodle") In the late 20th century, breeders began to cross poodles with other purebred dogs in what was called the "designer dog" fad; the goal was the incorporation into the offspring ...
- designer drugs
- in popular usage, illegal synthetic, laboratory-made chemicals. Although the term is not precisely defined, it is understood to refer to commonly abused drugs such as fentanyl, ketamine, LSD, PCP, quaaludes, ...
- Desilu Productions
- (from the article "RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.") In 1948 the businessman and producer Howard Hughes bought RKO, but his inattention and growing reclusiveness doomed the company; it ceased production in 1953, and was sold to Desilu Productions ...
- Desio
- town, Lombardia (Lombardy) regione, northern Italy. The town's name derives from the Latin ad decimum, Desio being 10 (decimus) Roman miles north of Milan on the road to Como (one ...
- Desio, Ardito
- Italian geologist and explorer (b. April. 18, 1897, Palmanova, Italy-d. Dec. 12, 2001, Rome, Italy), led the first successful expedition to scale K2, the world's second tallest mountain; he did ...
- Desiosi, Compagnia dei
- one of the Italian acting troupes performing commedia dell'arte (improvised popular comedy) in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. This period is considered the golden age of the genre, ...
- Desir, Philippe Wilson
- Haitian freedom fighter and exiled consul general, 1991-95, who maintained an office in New York City to deal with the social and financial problems of thousands of Haitian refugees (b. ...
- Desirade, La
- island in the Lesser Antilles, eastern Caribbean Sea, and a dependency of Guadeloupe, an overseas departement of France. It lies 6 miles (10 km) east of the ... [1 Related Articles]
- desire
- (from the article "ethics") ...of man's voluntary acts are aimed at pleasure or self-preservation. This position is known as psychological hedonism, because it asserts that the fundamental motivation of all human action is the ...
- Desjardins, Alphonse
- (from the article "credit union") ...founded in the middle 1800s by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in Germany and Luigi Luzzatti in Italy. The first credit union in North America was organized in 1900 at Levis, Quebec, ...
- Desjardins, Paul
- (from the article "Proust, Marcel") ...licences in law (1893) and in literature (1895). During these student days his thought was influenced by the philosophers Henri Bergson (his cousin by marriage) and Paul Desjardins and by ...
- Desjardins, Pete
- American diver who won a silver medal in the springboard at the 1924 Olympics in Paris and gold medals in the springboard and platform events at the 1928 Games in ...
- desk
- a table, frame, or case with a sloping or horizontal top particularly designed to aid writing or reading, and often containing drawers, compartments, or pigeonholes. [3 Related Articles]
- desk-fax
- (from the article "telephone and telephone system") Further advancements in fax technology occurred during the 1930s and '40s. In 1948 Western Union introduced its desk-fax service, which was based on a small office machine. Some 50,000 desk-fax ...
- Deskey, Donald
- American industrial designer who helped establish industrial design as a profession. [2 Related Articles]
- desktop publishing
- the use of a personal computer to perform publishing tasks that would otherwise require much more complicated equipment and human effort. Desktop publishing allows an individual to combine text, numerical ... [5 Related Articles]
- Deslandres, Henri-Alexandre
- French physicist and astrophysicist who in 1894 invented a spectroheliograph, an instrument that photographs the Sun in monochromatic light. (About a year earlier George E. Hale had independently invented a ...
- desman
- either of two species of amphibious Eurasian moles that den on land but seek prey underwater instead of burrowing through soil. The protruding flexible snout is flat and grooved with ... [1 Related Articles]
- Desmarees, Georg
- (from the article "painting, Western") ...fresco painter in the Munich area; his lyrical handling of pale colours is typical of the Rococo period. Christian Wink continued to paint in the same style until the close ...
- Desmarest's Cuban hutia
- (from the article "hutia") ...and ears, prominent claws, and long whiskers. Size ranges from the rat-sized dwarf hutia (Mesocapromys nanus), with a body length of 20 to 30 cm (8 to 12 inches), to ...
- Desmarest, Nicolas
- French geologist whose discovery of the volcanic origin of basalt disproved the Neptunist theory that all rocks were formed by sedimentation from primeval oceans.
- Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Jean
- French prose writer, poet, dramatist, Christian polemicist, and political figure. One of the original members and the first chancellor of the French Academy, Desmarets opened the long literary battle, since ...
- Desmarets, Nicolas, Marquis De Maillebois
- minister of finance during the last seven years of the reign (1643-1715) of Louis XIV of France. [1 Related Articles]
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