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eques: in ancient Rome, a knight, originally a member of the cavalry and later of a political and administrative class as well as of the equestrian order. In early Rome the ...
Equiano, Olaudah: self-proclaimed West African sold into slavery and later freed. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by ...
equilibrium: in physics, condition in which the resultant or vector sum of all forces acting upon a particle is zero. A rigid body (by definition distinguished from a particle in having ...
equine: one of the mammal family of Equidae (order Perissodactyla) that includes the modern horses, zebras, and asses, as well as more than 60 species known only from fossils.
equine encephalitis: severe viral disease of horses and mules. It sometimes affects birds, reptiles, and humans.
equine infectious anemia: viral disease of horses. Symptoms, which appear about two weeks after exposure, include fever and rapid breathing; the animal shifts its weight from one leg to another because of weakness ...
equine respiratory disease: a complex of infections of viral origin, including equine viral rhinopneumonitis (viral abortion), equine viral arteritis, equine influenza and parainfluenza, and equine rhinovirus infection. The diseases are clinically indistinguishable. All ...
equinoctial storm: severe storm that, in the United Kingdom and North America, is popularly believed to accompany the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The equinoxes do not actually cause any storms, but sometimes ...
equinox: either of the two moments in the year when the Sun is exactly above the equator and day and night are of equal length; also, either of the two points ...
equinoxes, precession of the: motion of the equinoxes along the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth's orbit) caused by the cyclic precession of the Earth's axis of rotation.
equity: in Anglo-American law, the custom of courts outside the common law or coded law. Equity provided remedies in situations in which precedent or statutory law might not apply or be ...
equivalence: in classical prosody, the principle that one long syllable is equal to two short ones. The principle is used as the basis for substitution in quantitative verse.
equivalence: in logic and mathematics, the formation of a proposition from two others which are linked by the phrase "if, and only if." The equivalence formed from two propositions p and ...
equivalence principle: fundamental law of physics that states that gravitational and inertial forces are of a similar nature and often indistinguishable. In the Newtonian form it asserts, in effect, that, within a ...
equivalent weight: in chemistry, the quantity of a substance that exactly reacts with, or is equal to the combining value of, an arbitrarily fixed quantity of another substance in a particular reaction. ...
era: a very long span of geological time; in formal usage, a portion of geological time of the greatest magnitude. Three eras are recognized: Paleozoic Era, Mesozoic Era, and Cenozoic Era. ...
Erard, Sebastien: French piano and harp maker whose improvements in both instruments were largely responsible for their modern forms.
eraser: piece of rubber or other material used to rub out marks made by ink, pencil, or chalk. The modern eraser is usually a mixture of vegetable oil, fine pumice, and ...
Erasistratus Of Ceos: Greek anatomist and physician in Alexandria, regarded by some as the founder of physiology.
Erasmus, Desiderius: humanist who was the greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance, the first editor of the New Testament, and also an important figure in patristics and classical literature.
Erasmus, Saint: early Christian bishop, martyr, and one of the patron saints of sailors, who is romantically associated with Saint Elmo's fire (the glow accompanying the brushlike discharges of atmospheric electricity that ...
Erastianism: doctrine that the state is superior to the church in ecclesiastical matters. It is named after the 16th-century Swiss physician and Zwinglian theologian Thomas Erastus, who never held such a ...
Erastus, Thomas: Swiss physician and religious controversialist whose name is preserved in Erastianism, a doctrine of church-state relationship that he himself never taught.
Erato: in Greek religion, one of the nine Muses, the patron of lyric and erotic poetry or hymns. She is often depicted playing a lyre. See also Muse.
Eratosthenes Of Cyrene: Greek scientific writer, astronomer, and poet, the first man known to have calculated the Earth's circumference.
Eratosthenes, sieve of: systematic procedure for finding prime numbers that begins by arranging all of the natural numbers (1, 2, 3, &elipsis;) in numerical order. After striking out the number 1, simply strike ...
erbium: (Er), chemical element, rare-earth metal of transition Group IIIb of the periodic table. Erbium is a grayish silver element that also occurs as a series of pink compounds. It had ...
Ercilla y Zuniga, Alonso de: Spanish soldier and poet, author of La Araucana (1569-89), the most celebrated Spanish Renaissance epic poem and the first epic poem about America.
Ercker, Lazarus: important German writer on early metallurgy.
Erckmann-Chatrian: two of the first French regionalist novelists in the 19th century.
Ercles vein: a rousing, somewhat bombastic manner of public speaking or writing. In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act I, scene 2), "Ercles' vein" is Bottom's expression for the style of ...
Ercolano: town, Napoli provincia, Campania regione, southern Italy. It lies at the western foot of Mount Vesuvius, on the Gulf of Naples, just southeast of the city of Naples. ...
Erdenet: city, northern Mongolia. It lies in a valley between the Selenge and Orhon rivers about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Ulaanbaatar. Erdenet is a major industrial centre that was ...
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip: Turkish politician, who became prime minister of Turkey in 2003.
Erdos, Paul: Hungarian "freelance" mathematician (known for his work in number theory and combinatorics) and legendary eccentric who was arguably the most prolific mathematician of the 20th century, in terms of both ...
Erdrich, Louise: author of Native American ethnicity whose principal subject is the Chippewa Indians in the northern Midwest.
Erebuni: ancient Urartian palace-fortress probably built by King Argishti I in the first quarter of the 8th century BC; it was located on the hill of Arin Berd, near modern Yerevan ...
Erech: ancient Mesopotamian city located northwest of Ur (Tall Al-Muqayyar) in southeastern Iraq. The site has been excavated from 1928 onward by the German Oriental Society and the German Archeological Institute. ...
Erechim: city, northern Rio Grande do Sul estado ("state"), Brazil. The city lies in the Uruguay River basin. It was founded in 1909 as Boa Vista do Erechim and was called ...
Erechtheum: Ionic temple of Athena, built during 421-405 BC on the Acropolis at Athens, famous largely for its complexity and for the exquisite perfection of its details. The temple's Ionic capitals ...
Erechtheus: legendary king and probably also a divinity of Athens. According to the Iliad, he was born from the corn land and raised by the goddess Athena, who established him in ...
erection: enlargement, hardening, and elevation of the male reproductive organ, the penis. Internally, the penis has three long masses of cylindrical tissue, known as erectile tissue, that are bound together by ...
erector spinae: a deep muscle of the back; it arises from a tendon attached to the crest along the centre of the sacrum (the part of the backbone at the level of ...
Eregli: town, northern Turkey, on the Black Sea coast. The town was founded about 560 BC as Heraclea Pontica by a colony of Megarians who soon subjected the native Mariandynians and ...
Eregli: town, south-central Turkey. It stands near the foot of the central Taurus Mountains on the northern approach to the Cilician Gates, a major pass. A frontier fortification of the Byzantine ...
Ereshkigal: in Mesopotamian religion, goddess in the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon who was Lady of the Great Place (i.e., the abode of the dead) and in texts of the 3rd millennium BC wife ...
Eretna Dynasty: dynasty that succeeded the Mongol Il-Khanid rulers in central Anatolia and ruled there from c. 1343 to 1380.
Eretria: ancient Greek coastal town of the island of Euboea. Jointly with its neighbour Chalcis, it founded Cumae in Italy (c. 750 BC), the first of the Greek colonies in the ...
Erewash: borough (district), administrative and historic county of Derbyshire, England. Its eastern boundary is the River Erewash, from which the borough takes its name. It is bounded on the south by ...
Erfurt: city, capital of Thuringia Land (state), central Germany. It is located in the Thuringian Basin, on the Gera River, 200 miles (320 km) southwest of Berlin. It ...
Erfurt Union Parliament: (March 20-April 29, 1850), conference called by Prussia to form a union of German states headed jointly by Prussia and Austria. Opposed by Austria, the plan failed to win the ...
Erfurth, Hugo: German photographer noted mainly for his portraits of artists, intellectuals, and celebrities of the 1920s.
erg: in a desert region, area of large accumulation of sand, generally in the bottom of a huge basin in which a former river piled up alluvium. Ergs are areas of ...
erg: unit of energy or work in the centimetre-gram-second system of physical units used in physics; to lift a pound weight one foot requires 1.356 × 10⁷ ergs. It equals the ...
ergosterol: ₂, a white crystalline organic solid of the molecular formula C₂₈H₄₄O belonging to the steroid family. It is found only in plants (e.g., yeasts and fungi) and is chemically related ...
ergot: fungal disease of cereal grasses, especially rye, caused by the ascomycete fungus Claviceps purpurea. In an ear of rye infected with ergot, a sweet, yellowish mucus is exuded for a ...
Erh Lake: lake in western Yunnan province, China. It lies in a deep basin at the eastern foot of the snow-covered Tien-ts'ang range between the upper waters of the Yangtze River, there ...
erh-hu: Chinese vertical fiddle, consisting of two strings, commonly tuned a fifth apart, which are stretched over a wooden drum resonator. A vertical post with no fingerboard goes through the resonator, ...
Erh-lien-hao-t'e: city, Inner Mongolia autonomous ch'u (region), China, in the Gobi (desert) near the border with Mongolia. Erh-lien-hao-t'e is located on the Trans-Mongolian railway. The town was elevated to city status ...
Erhard, Ludwig: economist and statesman who, as economics minister (1949-63), was the chief architect of West Germany's post-World War II economic recovery. He served as German chancellor from 1963-66.
Ericales: order of dicotyledonous flowering plants, a division of the subclass Dilleniidae. Mostly shrubs and small trees that are found throughout the world, the order includes such ornamentals as the azaleas ...
Erice: town, Trapani provincia, northwestern Sicily, Italy; it lies at 2,464 feet (751 m) above sea level on the top of Monte San Giuliano (also called Monte Erice), just northeast of ...
Ericsson, John: Swedish-born American naval engineer and inventor who built the first armoured turret warship and developed the screw propeller.
Eridu: ancient Sumerian city south of modern Ur (Tall al-Muqayyar), Iraq. Eridu was revered as the oldest city in Sumer according to the king lists, and its patron god was Enki ...
Eridu Genesis: in Mesopotamian religious literature, ancient Sumerian epic primarily concerned with the creation of the world, the building of cities, and the flood. According to the epic, after the universe was ...
Erie: county, extreme northwestern Pennsylvania, U.S., bordered by Lake Erie to the northwest, New York state to the northeast, and Ohio to the southwest. It consists of low hills that rise ...
Erie: Iroquoian-speaking North American Indians who inhabited most of what is now northern Ohio, parts of northwestern Pennsylvania, and western New York; they were often referred to as the Cat Nation. ...
Erie: city, seat (1803) of Erie county, northwestern Pennsylvania, U.S. It lies on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, where a 6-mile (10-km) peninsula encloses a fine natural harbour; the city ...
Erie: county, extreme western New York state, U.S., bounded to the south by Cattaraugus Creek, to the west by Lake Erie, to the northwest by the Niagara River, and to the ...
Erie Canal: 363 mile (584 km) historic waterway of the United States, connecting the Great Lakeswith New York City via the Hudson Riverat Albany. Taking advantage of the Mohawk River gap in ...
Erie Railroad Company: U.S. railroad running between New York City, Buffalo, and Chicago, through the southern counties of New York state and skirting Lake Erie. It was incorporated in 1832 as the New ...
Erie, Lake: fourth largest of the five Great Lakes of North America. It forms the boundary between Canada (Ontario) to the north and the United States (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York) ...
Erigena, John Scotus: theologian, translator, and commentator on several earlier authors in works centring on the integration of Greek and Neoplatonist philosophy with Christian belief.
Erigone: in Greek mythology, daughter of Icarius, the hero of the Attic deme (township) of Icaria. Her father, who had been taught by the god Dionysus to make wine, gave some ...
Erik I: king of Norway (c. 930-935) and later king of Northumberland (948, 952-954). On the death of his father, Harald I Fairhair, first king of united Norway, Erik attempted to make ...
Erik The Red: founder of the first European settlement on Greenland (c. 986) and the father of Leif Eriksson, one of the first Europeans to reach North America.