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Hotei ... Howard, Robin

Hotei: in Japanese mythology, one of the Shichi-fuku-jin ("Seven Gods of Luck"). This popular figure is depicted frequently in contemporary crafts as a cheerful, contented Buddhist monk with a large exposed ...
hotel: building that provides lodging, meals, and other services to the traveling public on a commercial basis. A motel (q.v.) performs the same functions as a hotel but in a format ...
Hotel de Bourgogne, Theatre de l': the first permanent theatre in Paris, built in 1548 on the ruins of the palace of the dukes of Burgundy. The theatre was built by the Confrerie de la Passion ...
hotel dieu: in France, any medieval hospital; the name now refers only to those whose history goes back to the Middle Ages. Many examples from the Gothic period still remain, notably that ...
Hotman, Francois: French jurist and one of the most learned of humanist scholars, who took a leading part in the legal, political, and religious controversies of his time.
Hotoku: semireligious movement among Japanese peasants initiated in the 19th century by Ninomiya Sontoku, who was known as the "peasant sage." He combined an eclectic, nonsectarian ethic of cooperation and mutual ...
Hotta Masatoshi: statesman who began his career as an adviser to the fourth Tokugawa shogun of Japan, Ietsuna (shogun 1651-80), when he was still heir apparent.
Hotta Masayoshi: Japanese statesman who negotiated the commercial treaty that established trade between the United States and Japan, thus opening that country to commerce with the outside world for the first time ...
Hotteterre, Jacques: French musician, teacher, and musical-instrument maker.
Hou Chi: in Chinese mythology, Lord of Millet Grains, who was worshiped for the abundant harvests that he graciously provided for his people. The Chinese honoured him not only for past favours ...
Hou I: the Lord Archer of Chinese mythology, whose prowess with a bow earned him undying fame. With his bow and arrow he saved the moon during an eclipse and rescued the ...
Hou T'u: by Wu Ti, a Han-dynasty emperor. Hou T'u as sovereign earth became identified with the dual patron deity of the soil and harvest, She Chi, and so received sacrifices under ...
Houbraken, Arnold: Dutch painter and art writer noted for his three-volume biographical study of Netherlandish painters, De groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen (1718-21). Houbraken was a competent if rather uninspired ...
Houbraken, Jacobus: the leading portrait engraver in 18th-century Holland. The son of the painter and art writer Arnold Houbraken, he settled in Amsterdam in 1707, and during his lifetime he engraved 400 ...
Houdini, Harry: American magician noted for his sensational escape acts.
Houdon, Jean-Antoine: French sculptor whose religious and mythological works are definitive expressions of the decorative 18th-century Rococo style of sculpture. The vividness with which he expressed both physiognomy and character places him ...
Houghton: city, seat of Houghton county, northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S. It lies along Portage Lake and the Keweenaw Waterway, opposite Hancock. It was settled in 1851 and named for ...
Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron: eclectic English Victorian poet and man of letters who considerably influenced public taste in literature in his day.
Houlton: town, seat (1839) of Aroostook county, northeastern Maine, U.S. It lies along the Meduxnekeag River 120 miles (193 km) northeast of Bangor. Settled in 1805 and named for one of ...
Houma: city, seat (1834) of Terrebonne parish, southeastern Louisiana, U.S., situated about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of New Orleans. It lies along Bayou Terrebonne and the Intracoastal Waterway and is ...
hound's-tongue: any of about 60 species of the plant genus Cynoglossum, including the bright-blue-flowered Chinese forget-me-not (C. amabile), native in mostly temperate areas of the New World and Old World. They ...
Hounsfield, Sir Godfrey Newbold: English electrical engineer who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of computerized axial tomography (CAT), or ...
Hounslow: outer borough of London, part of the historic county of Middlesex. It lies in the valley of the River Thames, on the western periphery of the metropolis. It was made ...
Houphouet-Boigny, Felix: politician and physician who was president of Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) from independence in 1960 until his death in 1993. Under his rule it became one of the most prosperous ...
hour: in timekeeping, 3,600 seconds, now defined in terms of radiation emitted from atoms of the element cesium under specified conditions. The hour was formerly defined as the 24th part of ...
hour angle: in astronomy, the angle between an observer's meridian (a great circle passing over his head and through the celestial poles) and the hour circle (any other great circle passing through ...
hour circle: in astronomy, any great circle (similar to longitude) on the celestial sphere that passes through the celestial poles-i.e., is perpendicular to the celestial equator. The declination of a celestial object ...
houri: in Islam, a beautiful maiden who awaits the devout Muslim in paradise. The Arabic word hawra' signifies the contrast of the clear white of the eye to the blackness of ...
Housatonic River: river in southwestern New England, rising in the Berkshire Hills, near Pittsfield, Mass., U.S. It flows southward for 148 miles (238 km) through Massachusetts past Pittsfield, Lee, and Great Barrington; ...
house: in astrology, 1 of the 12 sectors, or divisions, of the celestial sphere. See horoscope.
house: style of high-tempo, electronic dance music that and spread internationally. Born in Chicago clubs that catered to gay, predominantly black and Latino patrons, house fused the symphonic sweep and ...
house mouse: rodent native to Eurasia but introduced worldwide through association with humans. Highly adaptive, the house mouse has both behavioral and physiological traits-such as the ability to survive in buildings and ...
house snake: any of several species that occur around dwellings. In the United States this name is often given to the milk snake (see king snake).
house sparrow: (Passer domesticus), one of the world's best-known and most abundant small birds, sometimes classified in the family Ploceidae (q.v.; order Passeriformes) or separated as Passeridae. It lives in towns and ...
House, Edward M.: American diplomat and confidential adviser to President Woodrow Wilson (1913-21) who played a key role in framing the conditions of peace to end World War I.
Housebook, Master of the: anonymous late Gothic painter and engraver who was one of the outstanding early printmakers. He was formerly referred to as the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet because the Rijksprentenkabinet, the ...
housecarl: member of the personal or household troops or bodyguard of Scandinavian kings and chieftains in the Viking and medieval periods. The housecarls achieved a celebrated place in European history as ...
housefly: (Musca domestica), a common insect of the family Muscidae (order Diptera). About 90 percent of all flies occurring in human habitations are houseflies. Once a major nuisance and hazard to ...
Household, Geoffrey: British novelist best known for Rogue Male (1939; also published as Man Hunt), a psychological thriller about an aristocratic big-game hunter who tracks down an Adolf Hitler-like dictator.
houseleek: any of numerous low-growing succulent plants constituting the genus Sempervivum, about 40 species, in the stonecrop family (Crassulaceae), native to Europe, Morocco, and western Asia. The name houseleek refers to ...
Houseman, John: original name Jacques Haussmann American stage, film, radio, and television producer who is perhaps best known for his later career as a character actor.
houseplant: any plant adapted for growing indoors. The most common are exotic plants native to warm, frost-free parts of the world that can be grown indoors in colder climates in portable ...
Housman, A E: English scholar and celebrated poet whose lyrics express a Romantic pessimism in a spare, simple style.
Housman, Laurence: English artist and writer who reached his widest public with a series of plays about the Victorian era, of which the most successful was Victoria Regina (1934). A younger brother ...
Houssay, Bernardo Alberto: Argentine physiologist and corecipient, with Carl and Gerty Cori, of the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He was noted for discovering how pituitary hormones regulate the amount of ...
Houston: inland port city, Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties, seat (1836) of Harris county, southeastern Texas, U.S. It is linked by the Houston Ship Channel to the Gulf of Mexico ...
Houston Ship Channel: waterway that connects Houston, Texas, with the Gulf of Mexico, passing through the former Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay. The channel, which was opened in 1914 and later improved, is ...
Houston, Charles Hamilton: American lawyer and educator instrumental in laying the legal groundwork that led to U.S. Supreme Court rulings outlawing racial segregation in public schools.
Houston, Edwin James: U.S. electrical engineer who influenced the development of commercial lighting in the United States.
Houston, Sam: U.S. lawyer and politician, a leader of the struggle by U.S. emigrants in Mexican territory to win control of Texas (1834-36) and make it part of the United States.
Houston, University of: state university system consisting of the main campus in Houston, Texas, U.S., the downtown campus in Houston, and branches at Clear Lake and Victoria. Additional locations at Cinco Ranch and ...
Houston, Whitney: American singer and actress whose first four albums, released between 1985 and 1992, amassed global sales in excess of 86 million copies.
Hout, Jan van: Humanist, translator, historian, and poet, who was the first Dutch Renaissance figure to distinguish himself from his contemporaries in the field of literary theory. He foresaw the line of development ...
Houtman, Cornelis and Frederik de: brothers who navigated and led the first Dutch trading expedition to the East Indies, an area whose trade previously had been a Portuguese monopoly.
Hovd: town, administrative headquarters of Hovd aymag (province), western Mongolian People's Republic, in the northern foothills of the Mongol Altayn Nuruu (Mongolian Altai Mountains) at an elevation of 4,260 ft (1,300 ...
Hove: town, unitary authority of Brighton and Hove, historic county of Sussex, England, on the English Channel, adjoining Brighton to the east and Portslade to the west. Hove, which grew with ...
Hovenweep National Monument: several scattered archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah, U.S., 25 miles (40 km) west of Cortez, Colorado. The monument, established in 1923, has a total area of 1.2 ...
hover fly: any member of the insect family Syrphidae (order Diptera), which numbers about 4,000 species. Their various common names refer to the behaviour of hovering around flowers. Hover flies, with their ...
Hovey, Richard: U.S. poet, translator, and dramatist.
Hoveyda, Amir 'Abbas: prime minister of Iran under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from January 1965 to August 1977.
Hovhaness, Alan: American composer of Armenian and Scottish descent, notable for his eclectic choice of material from non-European traditions.
Hovland, Carl I.: American psychologist who pioneered the study of social communication and the modification of attitudes and beliefs.
Hovsgol Lake: lake in northern Mongolia. With an area of 1,012 square miles (2,620 square km), it is Mongolia's largest freshwater lake, with depths exceeding 800 feet (244 m). It lies near ...
Howard: county, central Maryland, U.S., bordered by the South Branch Patapsco River to the north, the Patapsco River to the northeast, and the Patuxent River to the west and southwest. The ...
Howard Family: a famous English family whose head, the duke of Norfolk, is the premier duke and hereditary earl marshal of England. The earls of Suffolk, Carlisle, and Effingham and the Lord ...
Howard University: historically black university founded in 1867 in Washington, D.C., and named for General Oliver Otis Howard, head of the post-Civil War Freedmen's Bureau, who influenced Congress to appropriate funds for ...
Howard, Bronson: American journalist, author of successful comedies and dramas about life in the United States and founder-president of the first society for playwrights in the United States.
Howard, Edward: pioneer American watch manufacturer.
Howard, Elizabeth Jane: British writer of novels and shorter fiction who is praised for her deft characterizations of alienated people and her sensitivity to the nuances of family relationships.
Howard, John: English philanthropist and reformer in the fields of penology and public health.
Howard, John Winston: prime minister of Australia from March 1996 and leader of the Liberal Party.
Howard, Leland Ossian: American entomologist noted for his experiments in the biological control of harmful insects and for other pioneering efforts in applied entomology.
Howard, Leslie: English actor, producer, and film director whose acting had a quiet, persuasive English charm.
Howard, Oliver O.: U.S. Union officer in the American Civil War (1861-65) who headed the Freedmen's Bureau (1865-72) to help rehabilitate former slaves during the period of Reconstruction.
Howard, Richard: American poet, critic, and translator who was influential in introducing modern French poetry and experimental novels to readers of English and whose own volume of verse, Untitled Subjects (1969), won ...
Howard, Robin: British balletomane and dance company founder who promoted modern dance in England.