sound or light signal emitted in fog or mist by lighthouses and buoys to indicate a shoreline, channel, or dangerous stretch of water and by vessels to indicate their position. ...
American economist who, with Douglass C. North, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1993. The two were cited for having developed cliometrics, the application of statistical analysis to ...
museum founded at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., in 1895 as a study collection of Eastern and Western art from prehistory to the present, as well as an important art ...
island of Cape Verde, in the Atlantic Ocean, about 400 miles (640 km) off the West African coast between the islands of Sao Tiago (Santiago) and Brava. The island's active ...
(French: "fat liver"), a delicacy of French cuisine, the liver of a goose or duck that has been fattened by a process of force feeding. What is generally regarded as ...
in literature, a character who is presented as a contrast to a second character so as to point to or show to advantage some aspect of the second character. An ...
solid metal that has been reduced to a leaflike thinness by mechanical beating or rolling. Jewellers have long used a thin foil of copper-zinc alloy as backing for paste jewels ...
in architecture, leaf-shaped, indented spaces which, combined with cusps (small, projecting arcs outlining the leaf design), are found especially in the tracery (decorative openwork) of Gothic windows. The term is ...
a sword with a light, flexible blade of rectangular cross section tapering to a blunt point. Designed as a practice weapon for the smallsword fashionable in the 17th century, it ...
town, capital of Ariege departement, Midi-Pyrenees region, southwestern France, located in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Situated 1,250 ft (380 m) above sea level, at the fork where the Arget ...
feudal county of southwestern France, corresponding approximately to the modern departement of Ariege. Between the 11th and the 15th century, the counts of Foix built up a quasi-independent power bounded ...
dancer and choreographer who profoundly influenced the 20th-century classical ballet repertoire. In 1905 he composed the solo The Dying Swan for the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. As chief choreographer for ...
Dutch airman and pioneer aircraft manufacturer who, during World War I, produced more than 40 types of airplanes (designed by Reinhold Platz) for the German High Command. Initially, he offered ...
(knight of) French soldier and military theorist who championed the use of infantry columns instead of battle lines in warfare. Although he had a small but influential following during his ...
in geology, undulation or waves in the stratified rocks of the Earth's crust. Stratified rocks were originally formed from sediments that were deposited in flat, horizontal sheets, but in a ...
fjord, Nordland fylke (county), northern Norway. The fjord's mouth opens into Vest Fjord of the Norwegian Sea and is 25 miles (40 km) northeast of the town of Bodo and ...
Italian popularizer of verse written in macaronics (q.v.), a synthetic combination of Italian and Latin, first written by Tisi degli Odassi in the late 15th century.
research centre in Washington, D.C., for the study of William Shakespeare, his contemporaries, Elizabethan society and culture, and 15th- through 18th-century British drama, literature, and history. The library, with approximately ...
planar arrangement of structural or textural features in any rock type, but particularly that resulting from the alignment of constituent mineral grains of a metamorphic rock of the regional variety ...
water-soluble vitamin of the B complex that is essential in animals and plants for the synthesis of nucleic acids. Folic acid was isolated from liver cells in 1943.
type of anemia that is a result of a deficient intake of folic acid. This B vitamin is needed for the formation of heme, the pigmented, iron-containing portion of the ...
Parisian music hall and variety-entertainment theatre that is one of the major tourist attractions of France. Following its opening in a new theatre on May 1, 1869, the Folies became ...
town, Perugia provincia, Umbria regione, central Italy. It lies along the Topino River, southeast of Perugia. Originally an Umbrian settlement, the present site is that of the Roman town of ...
predominantly functional or utilitarian visual art created by hand (or with limited mechanical facilities) for use by the maker or a small circumscribed group and containing an element of retention-the ...
generally, a traditional, secular, recreational dance characteristic of a regional, ethnic, or national group. As thus defined, the term is applicable to a variety of dance traditions in the European ...
type of residential school for adults that is standard in Scandinavian countries and has also been adopted elsewhere in Europe. The concept of the folk high school was originated in ...
the lore (traditional knowledge and beliefs) of cultures having no written language. It is transmitted by word of mouth and consists, as does written literature, of both prose and verse ...
type of traditional and generally rural music that originally was passed down through families and other small social groups. Typically, folk music, like folk literature, lives in oral tradition; it ...
an ideal type or concept of society that is completely cohesive-morally, religiously, politically, and socially-because of the small numbers and isolated state of the people, because of the relatively unmediated ...
town, Shepway district, administrative and historic county of Kent, England. Once a "limb" of the Cinque Port of Dover (7 mi [11 km] east), Folkestone shared that town's privileges and ...
in modern usage, an academic discipline the subject matter of which (also called folklore) comprises the sum total of traditionally derived and orally or imitatively transmitted literature, material culture, and ...
the learned behaviour, shared by a social group, that provides a traditional mode of conduct. According to the American sociologist William Graham Sumner, who coined the term, folkways are social ...
educator who was Harvard University's first professor of German language and literature. He also was instrumental in establishing the first U.S. college gymnasium.
one of two gonadotropic hormones (i.e., hormones concerned with the regulation of the activity of the gonads, or sex glands) produced by the pituitary gland. FSH, a glycoprotein operating in ...
(from French folie, "foolishness"), also called Eyecatcher, in architecture, a costly, generally nonfunctional building that was erected to enhance a natural landscape. Follies first gained popularity in England, and ...
an early archaeological complex of North America characterized by a distinct leaf-shaped projectile point called a Folsom point. The Folsom complex of artifacts, which also includes a variety of scrapers, ...
lawyer and reformer who, after helping open the California bar to women, became a pioneering force for women in the profession and a major influence in reforming the state's criminal ...
the 18th star (excluding the Sun) in order of apparent brightness. It is used in navigation because of its conspicuous place in a sky region otherwise lacking in bright stars. ...
people living in the south of Benin (called Dahomey until 1975) and adjacent parts of Togo. Speaking a dialect of Ewe, a language of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo ...
city, seat (1844) of Fond du Lac county, east-central Wisconsin, U.S. It lies on the Fond du Lac River, at the southern end of Lake Winnebago, about 55 miles (90 ...
confection of sugar, syrup, and water, and sometimes milk, cream, or butter, that is cooked and beaten so as to render the sugar crystals imperceptible to the tongue. The candy ...
town, Latina provincia, Lazio (Latium) regione, south-central Italy. It lies along the Appian Way at the foot of the Aurunci Mountains, northeast of Fondi Lake and 56 miles (90 km) ...
Swiss national dish of melted Emmentaler and Gruyere cheeses. In its preparation, white wine is heated in a heavy casserole, called a caquelon, that has been rubbed with garlic. The ...
sheltered inlet of the Pacific Ocean, bounded northwest by El Salvador, northeast by Honduras, and southeast by Nicaragua. Discovered in 1522, it reaches inland for approximately 40 miles (65 km) ...
French engineer who discovered that a dynamo can be operated in reverse as an electric motor; he was also the first to transmit electric energy (1873).
town, northern France, in the Seine-et-Marne departement, Ile-de-France region, 40 mi (65 km) south-southeast of Paris by road, situated in the forest of Fontainebleau, 2 mi from the left bank ...
the vast number of artists, both foreign and French, whose works are associated with the court of Francis I at Fontainebleau during the last two-thirds of the 16th century. There ...
city, San Bernardino county, southwestern California, U.S. Lying just west of the city of San Bernardino, the site was once part of the Rancho San Bernardino land grant (1813). The ...
Italian architect, engineer, and publisher whose prolific studio produced widely imitated designs for fountains, palaces, tombs, and altars, as well as the curved facade on the S. Marcello al Corso ...
soft spot in the skull of an infant, covered with tough, fibrous membrane. There are six such spots at the junctions of the cranial bones; they allow for molding of ...
French man of letters who represented Catholic and conservative opinion during the First Empire and was appointed grand master of the University of Paris by Napoleon.
a cave site in southwestern France known for the 1947 discovery of ancient human remains and tools probably dating to between 200,000 and 120,000 years ago. The fossils consist of ...
(sire of) French scientist and man of letters, described by Voltaire as the most universal mind produced by the era of Louis XIV. Many of the characteristic ideas of the ...
(May 11, 1745), confrontation that led to the French conquest of Flanders during the War of the Austrian Succession. It was the most famous victory of the French marshal Maurice, ...
village near Saumur, Maine-et-Loire departement, Pays de la Loire region, France. It lies near the confluence of the Vienne and Loire rivers and is surrounded by fields and woods.
semihard cow's-milk cheese that originated in the Valle d'Aosta region of northern Italy. Made in wheels 13 to 15 inches (33 to 38 cm) in diameter and 3 to 4 ...
playwright who satirized the cultural pretensions and privileged coarseness of the nobility; he is considered his nation's foremost 18th-century dramatist.
material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy.
