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legislative apportionment ... Lekhitic languages

legislative apportionment: process by which representation is distributed among the constituencies of a representative assembly. This use of the term apportionment is limited almost exclusively to the United States. In most other ...
Legislative Assembly: national parliament of France during part of the Revolutionary period and again during the Second Republic. The first was created in September 1791 and was in session from Oct. 1, ...
legislative investigative powers: powers of a lawmaking body to conduct investigations. In most countries this power is exercised primarily to provide a check on the executive branch of government. The U.S. Congress, however, ...
Legitimist: in 19th-century France, any of the royalists who from 1830 onward supported the claims of the representative of the senior line of the house of Bourbon to be the legitimate ...
Legnani, Pierina: Italian ballerina whose virtuoso technique inspired Russian dancers to develop their now-characteristic technical brilliance.
Legnano: city, Milano provincia, Lombardia (Lombardy) regione, northern Italy, on the Olona River. An unimportant Roman settlement called Leunianum, it became the site of a fortified castle of the bishops of ...
Legnica: city, Dolnoslaskie wojewodztwo (province), southwestern Poland. It lies along the Kaczawa River in the western lowlands of Silesia (Slask).
Legrenzi, Giovanni: Italian composer, one of the greatest of the Venetian Baroque. His trio sonatas are among the best chamber music of the period before Arcangelo Corelli.
Legros, Alphonse: French-born British painter, etcher, and sculptor, now remembered chiefly for his graphics on macabre and fantastic themes. An excellent draftsman, he taught in London, revitalizing British drawing and printmaking during ...
Leguia y Salcedo, Augusto Bernardino: businessman and politician who, during the first of his two terms as president of Peru (1908-12; 1919-30), settled the country's age-old boundary disputes with Bolivia and Brazil.
legume: fruit of plants of the order Fabales (q.v.), consisting of the single family Leguminosae, or Fabaceae (peas, beans, vetch, and so on). The dry fruit releases its seeds by splitting ...
Leguminosae: plant family comprising the order Fabales (q.v.).
Leh: town, eastern Jammu and Kashmir state, India, in the Kashmir region of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. The town is located in the remote valley of the upper ...
Lehar, Franz: Hungarian composer of operettas who achieved worldwide success with Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow).
Lehi: city, Utah county, northern Utah, U.S. First called Evansville and then Dry Creek, upon its incorporation the city was renamed Lehi, after a patriarch in the Book of Mormon. Located ...
Lehigh: county, eastern Pennsylvania, U.S., consisting of a hilly region in the Appalachian Ridge and Valley physiographic province bordered by the Lehigh River to the east and Blue Mountain to the ...
Lehigh University: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, U.S. The university includes colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business and Economics, Education, and Engineering and Applied Science. In addition to ...
Lehigh Valley Railroad Company: American railroad whose growth was based on hauling coal from the anthracite mines of northeastern Pennsylvania. Originally founded in 1846 as the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna Railroad Company, it ...
Lehman Caves: large, spectacular cavern at Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada, U.S. The cave lies 5 miles (8 km) west of Baker at the base of the eastern slope of ...
Lehmann, Johann Gottlob: German geologist who contributed to the development of stratigraphy, the scientific study of order and sequence in bedded sedimentary rocks.
Lehmann, John: English poet, editor, publisher, and man of letters whose book-periodical New Writing and its successors were an important influence on English literature from the mid-1930s through the 1940s.
Lehmann, Lilli: German operatic soprano and lieder singer, known especially for her performances as Isolde in Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde.
Lehmann, Lotte: German lyric-dramatic soprano, particularly renowned for her performances of the songs of Robert Schumann and in the roles of Leonore in Ludwig van Beethoven's opera Fidelio and of the Marschallin ...
Lehmann, Orla: political reformer who successfully advocated parliamentary government in 19th-century Denmark.
Lehmann, Rosamond Nina: English novelist noted for her sensitive portrayals of girls on the threshold of adult life. An accomplished stylist, she was adept at capturing nuances of moods. She was the sister ...
Lehmbruck, Wilhelm: German sculptor, printmaker, and painter best known for his melancholy sculptures of elongated nudes.
Lehn, Jean-Marie: French chemist who, together with Charles J. Pedersen and Donald J. Cram, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1987 for his contribution to the laboratory synthesis of molecules ...
Lehrstuck: a form of drama that is specifically didactic in purpose and that is meant to be performed outside the orthodox theatre. Such plays were associated particularly with the epic theatre ...
Lehtonen, Joel: Finnish novelist in the naturalistic tradition of Emile Zola and Maksim Gorky.
lei: a garland or necklace of flowers given in Hawaii as a token of welcome or farewell. Leis are most commonly made of carnations, kika blossoms, ginger blossoms, jasmine blossoms, or ...
Lei Kung: ("Thunder God"), Chinese Taoist deity who, when so ordered by heaven, punishes both earthly mortals guilty of secret crimes and evil spirits who have used their knowledge of Taoism to ...
Leiber, Fritz: American writer noted for his stories of innovation in sword-and-sorcery, contemporary horror, and satiric science fiction.
Leiber, Jerry; and Stoller, Mike: American songwriters and record producers. Working primarily for , Leiber and Stoller were perhaps the most successful writers and producers of the 1950s.
Leibl, Wilhelm: painter of portraits and genre scenes who was one of the most important German Realists of the late 19th century.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus.
Leibovitz, Annie: American photographer who is renowned for her revealing, eye-catching portraits of celebrities.
Leicester: city and unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Leicestershire, England, lying on the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal.
Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of, Baron Denbigh: favourite and possible lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Handsome and immensely ambitious, he failed to win the Queen's hand in marriage but remained her close friend to the ...
Leicester, Robert Sidney, 1st earl of: soldier, diplomatist, and patron of literature, younger brother of Sir Philip Sidney and second son of Sir Henry Sidney, English lord deputy in Ireland.
Leicestershire: administrative, geographic, and historic county in the East Midlands region of England, bordered by Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire. The administrative, geographic, and historic counties occupy slightly ...
Leichhardt, Ludwig: explorer and naturalist who became one of Australia's earliest national heroes and whose mysterious disappearance aroused efforts to find him for nearly a century.
Leiden: gemeente (commune), Zuid-Holland provincie, western Netherlands. It lies at the confluence of the Oude Rijn and Nieuwe Rijn (Old Rhine and New Rhine) rivers, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of ...
Leiden, State University of: university in Leiden, Neth., founded in 1575 by William of Orange. It was originally modelled on the Academy of Geneva, an important centre of Calvinistic teaching. By the early 17th ...
Leidy, Joseph: zoologist, one of the most distinguished and versatile scientists in the United States, who made important contributions to the fields of comparative anatomy, parasitology, and paleontology.
Leif Eriksson the Lucky: Norse explorer widely held to have been the first European to reach the shores of North America. The 13th- and 14th-century Icelandic accounts of his life and additional later evidence ...
Leigh Creek: town and coalfield, east central South Australia, 350 mi (563 km) by rail north of Adelaide. Lignite coal, discovered there in 1888, was mined underground from 1892 to 1908 and ...
Leigh, Vivien: British actress who achieved motion picture immortality by playing two of American literature's most celebrated Southern belles, Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois.
Leigh-Mallory, Trafford: British air marshal who commanded the Allied air forces in the Normandy Invasion (1944) during World War II.
Leighton, Frederic Leighton, Baron: academic painter of immense prestige in his own time. After an education in many European cities, he went to Rome in 1852, where his social talents won him the friendship ...
Leighton, Margaret: English actress of stage and screen noted for her versatility in classic and contemporary roles.
Leighton, Robert: Scottish Presbyterian minister and devotional writer who accepted two Anglican bishoprics in Scotland in an attempt to reconcile proponents of the presbyterian form of church government with their episcopal opponents.
Leino, Eino: prolific and versatile poet, a master of Finnish poetic forms, the scope of whose talent ranges from the visionary and mystical to topical novels, pamphlets, and critical journalism.
Leinsdorf, Erich: Austrian-born American pianist and conductor.
Leinster: the southeastern province of Ireland, comprising the counties of Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Offaly, Longford, Louth, Meath, Laoighis, Westmeath, Wexford, and Wicklow. In its present form it incorporates the ancient ...
Leinster, The Book of: compilation of Irish verse and prose from older manuscripts and oral tradition and from 12th- and 13th-century religious and secular sources. It was tentatively identified in 1907 and finally in ...
Leiopelma: the single genus of the Leiopelmatidae family of small New Zealand frogs (order Anura). There are three known species, and all are 30 to 40 mm (1.2 to 1.6 inches) ...
Leiothrix: genus of birds of the babbler family Timaliidae (order Passeriformes), with two species: the silver-eared mesia, or silver-ear (L. argentauris), and the red-billed leiothrix (L. lutea), which is known to ...
Leipoldt, C. Louis: South African doctor, journalist, and a leading poet of the Second Afrikaans Language Movement.
Leipzig: city, western Saxony Land (state), east-central Germany. It lies just above the junction of the Pleisse, Parthe, and Weisse Elster rivers, about 115 miles (185 km) southwest ...
Leipzig Zoological Garden: zoological garden in Leipzig, Ger., noted for its carnivore collection. The zoo was opened in 1878 and taken over by the city in 1920. Occupying a 22-hectare (54-acre) site, the ...
Leipzig, Battle of: (Oct. 16-19, 1813), decisive defeat for Napoleon, resulting in the destruction of what was left of French power in Germany and Poland. The battle was fought at Leipzig, in Saxony, ...
Leipzig, University of: coeducational state-controlled institution of higher education in Leipzig, Ger. It was renamed Karl Marx University of Leipzig in 1953 by the communist leadership of East Germany; the original name was ...
Leiria: town and capital of Leiria distrito ("district"), Portugal. The town is located 70 miles (115 km) north of Lisbon, a few miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. It originated as ...
Leiris, Michel: French writer who was a pioneer in modern confessional literature and was also a noted anthropologist, poet, and art critic.
Leisewitz, Johann Anton: German dramatist whose most important work, Julius von Tarent (1776), was the forerunner of Friedrich Schiller's famous Sturm und Drang masterpiece Die Rauber (1781; The Robbers).
leishmaniasis: human protozoal infection spread by the bite of a sandfly. Leishmaniasis occurs worldwide but is especially prevalent in tropical areas. Three major forms of the disease are recognized: visceral, cutaneous, ...
Leisler, Jacob: provincial militia captain who seized the reins of British colonial government in New York (Leisler's Rebellion) and exercised effective control over the area for more than 18 months in 1689-91.
Leith: port of Edinburgh, lying north of the city centre on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. It is part of the council area of the City of Edinburgh, ...
leitmotiv: (German: "leading motive"), recurring musical theme appearing usually in operas but also in symphonic poems. It is used to reinforce the dramatic action, to provide psychological insight into the characters, ...
Leitneriales: order of dicotyledonous flowering plants comprising the single rare species Leitneria floridana, the North American corkwood. It is a shrub or small tree found in swampy and riverside localities from ...
Leitrim: county in the province of Connaught (Connacht), Ireland. It is bounded by Northern Ireland (east) and Counties Donegal (north), Cavan (east), Longford (south), and Roscommon and Sligo (west). The southern ...
Leixoes, Port of: principal port serving the city of Porto and northern Portugal. It is an artificial harbour on the Atlantic Ocean, within the town of Matosinhos, 5.5 miles (9 km) northwest of ...
Lejeune, Louis-Francois, Baron: military general, painter, and lithographer who was chiefly responsible for introducing lithography to France as an artistic medium.
lek: in animal behaviour, communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. Lek behaviour, also called arena behaviour, is found in a number of insects, ...
Lekain: original name Henri-louis Cain French actor whom Voltaire regarded as the greatest tragedian of his time.
Lekhitic languages: group of West Slavic languages composed of Polish, Kashubian and its archaic variant Slovincian, and the extinct Polabian language. All these languages except Polish are sometimes classified as a Pomeranian ...