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drizzle: very small, numerous water drops that may appear to float while being carried by air currents; drizzle drops generally have diameters between about 0.2 and 0.5 millimetre (0.008 and 0.02 ...
Drobeta-Turnu Severin: city, capital of Mehedinti judet (county), southwestern Romania. It is an important inland port on the Danube near the point where the river leaves the Iron Gate ...
Droeshout, Martin: English engraver, primarily remembered for his engraved portrait of William Shakespeare, which appeared in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays (1623).
Drogheda: urban district and seaport on the southern border of County Louth, Ireland. Drogheda lies along the River Boyne about 4 miles (6.5 km) from its mouth. Drogheda was a stronghold ...
Drogo De Hauteville: Norman count of Apulia (1046-51), half brother of the conqueror Robert Guiscard. He led the Norman conquest of southern Italy after the death of his older brother William Iron Arm, ...
Drohobych: city, Lviv oblast (province), western Ukraine, and until 1959 the administrative centre of its own oblast. It was known in the 11th and 12th ...
Droitwich: town ("parish"), Wychavon district, administrative and historic county of Worcestershire, England. The older portion of the town lies along the River Salwarpe, a tributary of the River Severn; the modern ...
droll: short comic scene or farce adapted from an existing play or created by actors, performed in England during the period of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth (1642-60) while the ...
dromaeosaur: any of a group of small to medium-sized carnivorous dinosaurs that flourished in Asia and North America during the Cretaceous Period (144 million to 66.4 million years ago). Agile, lightly ...
Dromore: town, Banbridge district (established 1973), formerly in County Down, Northern Ireland, on the River Lagan, just southwest of Belfast. A bishopric developed from an abbey reputedly founded there by St. ...
drone: in music, a sustained tone, usually rather low in pitch, providing a sonorous foundation for a melody or melodies performed at a higher pitch level; also an instrumental string or ...
drongo: any of 20 species of Old World woodland birds constituting the family Dicruridae (order Passeriformes). Drongos frequently attack much larger birds (e.g., hawks and crows) that might hurt their eggs ...
drop cut: method of faceting gemstones into a pear shape suitable for pendants, earrings, and other jewelry. A pendeloque is a pear-shaped modification of the round brilliant cut used for diamonds. A ...
drop-leaf table: table with one or two hinged leaves supported by hinged legs, arms, or brackets. An early 17th-century form is the gateleg table, which was followed by two later English forms-the ...
Droseraceae: family of perennial and sometimes annual flowering plants commonly known as sundews (see sundew family), within the order Nepenthales. The leaves are usually in a basal rosette, and both leaf ...
Drosophila: genus of flies commonly known as vinegar flies but also misleadingly called fruit flies. See vinegar fly.
Drost, Aernout: Dutch writer whose historical novels were the first important works of the 19th-century Romantic movement in The Netherlands. His passion for history influenced many of his contemporaries and successors.
Droste-Hulshoff, Annette, Baroness von: one of the great women poets of Germany, author of prose tales that are considered the forerunner of the 19th-century realistic short story.
drott-kvaett: a medieval Scandinavian verse form used in skaldic poetry. Drott-kvaett consists of stanzas of eight regular lines, each of which has three stresses and ends with a trochee. The form ...
Drottningholm Theatre: 18th-century court theatre of the Royal Palace of Drottningholm, near Stockholm, Swed. It is preserved with its original sets and stage machinery as a theatrical museum. Built in the 1760s ...
Drouais, Jean-Germain: historical painter who was one of the leading early Neoclassicists in France.
Drouet, Jean-Baptiste: French revolutionary, chiefly remembered for his part in the arrest of Louis XVI at Varennes.
Drouet, Jean-Baptiste, count d'Erlon: French soldier whose long career raised him from the ranks of both Louis XVI's and Napoleon's armies to be the first governor-general of Algeria and a marshal of France under ...
drought: lack or insufficiency of rain for an extended period that causes a considerable hydrologic (water) imbalance and, consequently, water shortages, crop damage, streamflow reduction, and depletion of groundwater and soil ...
Drouyn de Lhuys, Edmond: French statesman and foreign minister under Napoleon III.
drowning: suffocation by immersion in a liquid, usually water. Water closing over the victim's mouth and nose cuts off the body's supply of oxygen. Deprived of oxygen the victim stops struggling, ...
Droysen, Johann Gustav: historian and politician whose belief in Prussia's destiny to lead Germany influenced German unification, which he lived to see. Ironically, his ardent Prussian patriotism did not save him from falling ...
Droz, Numa: prominent Swiss politician and twice federal president, who is best-remembered for his stand against the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the Wohlgemut affair (1889).
Drucker, Peter F.: Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of ...
drug: any chemical substance that affects the functioning of living things and the organisms (such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses) that infect them. Pharmacology, the science of drugs, deals with all ...
drug abuse: the excessive, maladaptive, or addictive use of drugs for nonmedical purposes despite social, psychological, and physical problems that may arise from such use. Abused substances include such agents as anabolic ...
drug allergy: hypersensitivity reaction to therapeutic agents that occasionally occurs on subsequent exposure to a drug against which an individual has already produced antibodies. Some drugs rarely cause allergic reactions (e.g., tetracyclines, ...
drug cult: group using drugs to achieve religious or spiritual revelation and for ritualistic purposes.
drug use: use of drugs for psychotropic rather than medical purposes. Among the most common psychotropic drugs are opiates (opium, morphine, heroin), hallucinogens (LSD, mescaline, psilocybin), barbiturates, cocaine, amphetamines, tranquilizers, and cannabis. ...
Druid: (Celtic: "Knowing [or Finding] the Oak Tree"), member of the learned class among the ancient Celts. They seem to have frequented oak forests and acted as priests, teachers, and judges. ...
drum: in architecture, any of the cylindrical stone blocks composing a column that is not a monolith. The term also denotes a circular or polygonal wall supporting a dome, cupola, or ...
drum: musical instrument, the sound of which is produced by the vibration of a stretched membrane (it is thus classified as a membranophone within the larger category of percussion instruments). Basically, ...
drum: in biology, any of about 160 species of fishes of the family Sciaenidae (order Perciformes); drums are carnivorous, generally bottom-dwelling fishes. Most are marine, found along warm and tropical seashores. ...
drum: in packaging, cylindrical container commonly made of metal or fibreboard. Steel drums with capacities ranging up to 100 U.S. gallons (379 litres) have been produced since about 1903; the sizes ...
drum table: heavy circular table with a central support, which was introduced in the late 18th century. The deep top, commonly covered with tooled leather, was fitted with bookshelves or drawers, some ...
Drumheller: city, southern Alberta, Canada, on the Red Deer River, 86 miles (138 km) northeast of Calgary. A grain-shipping point, it is surrounded by extensive coal, gas, and oil fields and ...
drumlin: oval or elongated hill believed to have been formed by the streamlined movement of glacial ice sheets across rock debris, or till. The name is derived from the Gaelic word ...
Drummond de Andrade, Carlos: poet, journalist, author of cronicas (a short fiction-essay genre widely cultivated in Brazil), and literary critic, considered one of the most accomplished poets of modern Brazil and a major influence ...
Drummond, Henry: British banker, writer, and member of Parliament who helped found the Catholic Apostolic Church.
Drummond, William: first notable poet in Scotland to write deliberately in English. He also was the first to use the canzone, a medieval Italian or Provencal metrical form, in English verse.
Drummondville: city, Mauricie-Bois-Francs region, southern Quebec province, Canada, on the Saint-Francois River. Founded in 1815 by Major General Frederick George Heriot and named after Sir Gordon Drummond, then commander in chief ...
drumstick tree: (Moringa pterygosperma), small, deciduous tree, of the family Moringaceae, native to tropical Asia but also naturalized in Africa and tropical America. Drumstick trees can reach a height of about 9 ...
Druon Antigonus: legendary giant of Antwerp, who cut off the right hands of mariners refusing him tribute. His own right hand was cut off by another legendary giant, called Salvius Brabo, a ...
drupe: fruit in which the outer layer of the ovary wall is a thin skin, the middle layer is thick and usually fleshy (though sometimes tough, as in the almond, or ...
Drury Lane Theatre: oldest English theatre still in use. It stands in the eastern part of the City of Westminster, London.
Drusus Germanicus, Nero Claudius: younger brother of Tiberius (who later became emperor) and commander of the Roman forces that occupied the German territory between the Rhine and Elbe rivers from 12 to 9 BC.
Drusus Julius Caesar: only son of the Roman emperor Tiberius. After the death of Tiberius' nephew and adoptive son Germanicus (AD 19), Drusus became heir to the imperial succession.
Drusus, Marcus Livius: son of the tribune of 122 by the same name; as tribune in 91, Drusus made the last nonviolent civilian attempt to reform the government of republican Rome. Drusus began ...
Drusus, Marcus Livius: Roman politician, tribune with Gaius Gracchus in 122 BC who undermined Gracchus' program of economic and political reform by proposing reforms that were even more appealing to the populace but ...
Druze: relatively small Middle Eastern religious sect characterized by an eclectic system of doctrines and by a cohesion and loyalty among its members (at times politically significant) that have enabled them ...
Druze revolt: uprising of Druze tribes throughout Syria and in part of Lebanon directed against French mandatory officials who attempted to upset the traditions and the tribal hierarchy of Jabal ad-Duruz.
druzhina: in early Rus, a prince's retinue, which helped him to administer his principality and constituted the area's military force. The first druzhinniki (members of a druzhina) in Rus were the ...
Druzhkivka: city, Donetsk oblast (province), eastern Ukraine, at the confluence of the Kryvyy Torets and Kazenyy Torets rivers. Druzhkivka, which before the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a small metallurgical centre, ...
dry dock: type of dock (q.v.) consisting of a rectangular basin dug into the shore of a body of water and provided with a removable enclosure wall or gate on the side ...
dry farming: the cultivation of crops without irrigation in regions of limited moisture, typically less than 20 inches (50 centimetres) of precipitation annually. Dry farming depends upon efficient storage of the limited ...
dry gas: natural gas that is always in the gaseous state in the reservoir and produces little condensable hydrocarbons (compounds composed mainly of hydrogen and carbon) when brought to the surface. Thus, ...
Dry Ice: trademark for carbon dioxide (q.v.) in its solid form, a dense, snowlike substance that sublimes (passes directly into the vapour without melting) at -78.5° C (-109.3° F), used as a ...
dry offset: offset printing process combining the characteristics of letterpress and offset. A special plate prints directly onto the blanket of an offset press, and the blanket then offsets the image onto ...
dry plate: in photography, glass plate coated with a gelatin emulsion of silver bromide. It can be stored until exposure, and after exposure it can be brought back to a darkroom for ...
dry rot: symptom of fungal disease in plants, characterized by firm spongy to leathery or hard decay of stem (branch), trunk, root, rhizome, corm, bulb, or fruit. See bulb rot; crown gall; ...
Dry Tortugas: the last seven in a long string of coral islands (keys) and sandbars that extend westward from Key West (Monroe county), at the tip of southern Florida, U.S., into the ...
Dryden, Hugh L: U.S. physicist and deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for seven years.
Dryden, John: English poet, dramatist, and literary critic who so dominated the literary scene of his day that it came to be known as the Age of Dryden.
Dryden, John Fairfield: American senator and businessman, the founder of the Prudential Insurance Company of America, the first company to issue industrial life insurance in the United States.
Drygalski, Erich Dagobert von: German geographer and glaciologist who led an expedition to the Antarctic (1901-03) as part of an international program of exploration.
drying oil: unsaturated fatty oil, either natural (such as linseed oil) or synthetic, that when spread into a thin film becomes hard, tough, and elastic upon exposure to the air. Drying oils ...
Dryopithecus: genus of extinct apelike animals that is representative of a group of small, generalized apes that contains the ancestors of both the modern apes and humans. Although Dryopithecus has been ...
drypoint: an engraving method in which the design to be printed is scratched directly into a copperplate with a sharply pointed instrument. Lines in a drypoint print are characterized by a ...
drywall construction: a type of construction in which the interior wall is applied in a dry condition without the use of mortar. It contrasts with the use of plaster, which dries after ...
Dschang: town, northwestern Cameroon, west central Africa, on a forested plateau northwest of Yaounde. Its high elevation of 4,525 feet (1,379 m) makes the town a health and tourist resort, despite ...
DSM: (Dutch: DSM Limited Company), state-owned Dutch chemical company. Until 1975 the company was known as DSM NV Nederlandse Staatsmijnen (the Dutch State Mine Company). The major shareholder is The Netherlands ...