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Lorient: maritime town, Morbihan departement, Bretagne region, western France, southeast of Quimper, and west-southwest of Paris, situated on the right bank of the Scorff River at its confluence with the Blavet ...
lorikeet: any of 53 species of medium-sized vocal and exceptionally colourful parrots of Australia and New Guinea that feed on pollen and nectar. They have brush-tipped tongues that help sweep food ...
Lorillard Company: oldest tobacco manufacturer in the United States, dating to 1760, when a French immigrant, Pierre Lorillard, opened a "manufactory" in New York City. It originally made pipe tobacco, cigars, plug ...
Lorimer, George Horace: American editor of The Saturday Evening Post, during whose long tenure (May 17, 1899-January 1, 1937) the magazine attained its greatest success, partly because of his astute ...
loris: any of about eight species of tailless or short-tailed South and Southeast Asian forest primates. Lorises are arboreal and nocturnal, curling up to sleep by day. They have soft gray ...
Loris-Melikov, Mikhail Tariyelovich, Graf: (Count) military officer and statesman who, as minister of the interior at the end of the reign of the emperor Alexander II (ruled 1855-81), formulated reforms designed to liberalize the ...
Lorraine: region of France encompassing the northeastern departements of Vosges, Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle, and Moselle. Lorraine is bounded by the regions of Alsace ...
Lorraine, Charles de Lorraine, 2nd cardinal de: one of the foremost members of the powerful Roman Catholic house of Guise and perhaps the most influential Frenchman during the middle years of the 16th century. He was intelligent, ...
Lorraine, Jean de Lorraine, 1st cardinal de: French cardinal of the celebrated family of Guise, a noted patron of arts and letters. His older brother was Claude de Lorraine, 1st Duke de Guise.
Lorre, Peter: Hungarian-born American motion-picture actor who projected a sinister image as a lisping, round-faced, soft-voiced villain in thrillers.
Lorsch: village, Hessen Land (state), central Germany, north of Mannheim. It is best known for the ruins of its medieval abbey, from which excavations in 1932 uncovered fragments ...
Lortzing, Albert: composer who established the 19th-century style of light German opera that remained in favour until the mid-20th century.
lory: any of numerous parrots of the subfamily Loriinae. See parrot.
Los Alamos: county, north central New Mexico, U.S. It is a scenic area in the Jemez range of the Southern Rocky Mountains. The Santa Fe National Forest covers the county.
Los Alamos: city, seat (1949) of Los Alamos county, north-central New Mexico, U.S. It lies on the Pajarito Plateau (elevation 7,300 feet [2,225 metres]) of the Jemez Mountains, 35 miles (56 km) ...
Los Angeles: capital of Bio-Bio provincia, Bio-Bio region, south-central Chile. It is located on a tributary of the Bio-Bio River in the southern part of the Central Valley. Founded in 1739 and ...
Los Angeles: city, seat of Los Angeles county, southern California, U.S. A semitropical metropolis of palm trees and swimming pools, television studios and aerospace factories, Los Angeles has become the second most ...
Los Angeles County Museum of Art: museum complex with distinguished collections of Asian (Indian, Tibetan, Nepalese), Islamic, medieval, European, and modern art. The largest building, the four-level Ahmanson Gallery, houses the permanent collection, the adjoining Frances ...
Los Angeles Philharmonic: American symphony orchestra based in Los Angeles, Calif. It was founded in 1919 by William Andrews Clark, Jr. Its music directors have been Walter Henry Rothwell (1919-27), Georg Schneevoigt (1927-29), ...
Los Angeles Times: morning daily newspaper published in Los Angeles that in the 1960s began to develop from a regional daily into one of the world's great newspapers.
Los Angeles Zoo, The: zoological park founded in 1912 in Los Angeles as the Griffith Park Menagerie. It is a completely outdoor zoo that has holdings of the emperor tamarin, mountain tapir, and California ...
Los Banos: resort town, southwestern Luzon, Philippines. Near the southern shore of Laguna de Bay, it was named Los Banos ("The Baths") for the thermal springs that flow from the base of ...
Los Dos Caminos: city, northwestern Miranda estado ("state"), northern Venezuela, just east of Caracas. Nestled in the central highlands, the city was formerly a commercial centre in a fertile agricultural ...
Los Glaciares National Park: national park in Santa Cruz provincia, southwestern Argentina, in the Andes surrounding the western extensions of Lakes Argentino and Viedma, at the Chilean border. It has an area of 625 ...
Los Islands: small archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, off Conakry, the capital of Guinea, West Africa. They provide protection for the port of Conakry and include Tamara (Factory), Kassa, Roume (Crawford), Blanche ...
Los Lagos: region, southern Chile, bordering Argentina to the east and facing the Pacific Ocean to the west. Created in 1974, it comprises Valdivia, Osorno, Llanquihue, Palena, and Chiloe provincias, with an ...
Los Mochis: city, northwestern Sinaloa estado ("state"), northwestern Mexico. It lies on the coastal plain, inland from Topolobampo Bay on the Gulf of California. The creation of the Fuerte River irrigation district ...
Los Pijiguaos: bauxite deposit and associated mining development, on the Pijiguaos Plateau, in western Bolivar state, Venezuela. Discovered in 1974, this large, high-quality, laterite-type deposit underlies some 2,000 square miles (5,000 square ...
Los Teques: city, capital of Miranda estado ("state"), north-central Venezuela. It occupies a strategic pass in the northern coastal range, just southwest of Caracas. Named after local Indians, the city was the ...
Loschmidt, Joseph: German chemist who made advances in the study of aromatic hydrocarbons.
Losey, Joseph: American motion-picture director, whose highly personal style was often manifested in films centring on intense and sometimes violent human relationships.
Loskop Dam Nature Reserve: nature preserve in Mpumalanga province, South Africa, on the Olifants River, north of Middelburg. The reserve has an area of 57 square miles (148 square km) and lies around a ...
Lossiemouth: North Sea fishing port and holiday resort, Moray council area and historic county, Scotland. The town developed from several old fishing villages including Seatown, Branderburgh-built around a new harbour (1830) ...
Lossky, Nikolay Onufriyevich: Russian intuitionist philosopher who studied the nature of cognition, causation, and morals. His philosophy was a compound of many influences, especially Leibnizian monadology and Bergsonian intuitionism.
Lost Colony: early British settlement on Roanoke Island, N.C. (U.S.), that mysteriously disappeared between the time of its founding (1587) and the return of the expedition's leader (1590). In hopes of securing ...
Lost Generation: in general, the post-World War I generation, but specifically a group of U.S. writers who came of age during the war and established their literary reputations in the 1920s. The ...
lost-wax process: method of hollow metal casting in which a layer of wax corresponding to the desired shape is encased within two heat-proof layers; the process is also used for small solid ...
Lostwithiel: town ("parish"), Restormel borough, administrative and historic county of Cornwall, England, built on a medieval grid plan by the River Fowey, spanned there at the lowest bridge point by a ...
Lot River: river, rising in the Cevennes mountains, near Mont Lozere, in Lozere departement, southern France, flowing about 300 mi (480 km) generally west to join the Garonne River near Aiguillon, draining ...
Lot, Ferdinand: French historian of the early Middle Ages and the later Roman Empire. He is best known for his important monographs on the transition from Roman to medieval civilization.
Lota: major coal-mining centre, Concepcion province, Bio-Bio region, southern Chile, on the Golfo (gulf) de Arauco. Although it was founded in 1662, sustained development did not begin until 1852, when Matias ...
Lotf 'Ali Khan Zand: last ruler of the Zand dynasty of Iran, who was defeated in the civil war of 1779-94. With the death of Lotf 'Ali Khan's grandfather, Karim Khan Zand, a 15-year ...
Lothagam: site of paleoanthropological excavations in northern Kenya southwest of Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf), best known for a piece of jaw found there in 1967 that appears to be one of ...
Lothair: Frankish king of the area known as Lotharingia whose attempts to have his marriage dissolved so that he could marry his mistress caused much controversy and led to a bitter ...
Lothair: Carolingian king of France from 954 to 986, the eldest son of Louis IV. He was elected king without opposition after his father's death but was dominated first by Hugh ...
Lothair I: Frankish emperor whose attempt to gain sole rule over the Frankish territories was checked by his brothers.
Lothair II: German king (1125-37) and Holy Roman emperor (1133-37). He is reckoned as Lothair III by those who count not only Lothair I, but also his son Lothair in their numeration ...
Lothair II: king of Italy in the chaotic post-Carolingian period who ruled as co-king with his father, Hugh of Provence, from 931 until Hugh's exile and death in 947. Lothair remained in ...
Lothian: a primitive province of Scotland lying between the Rivers Tweed and Forth. The name, of Welsh origin but uncertain meaning, is retained in the names of the modern Scottish council ...
Loti, Pierre: novelist whose exoticism made him popular in his time and whose themes anticipated some of the central preoccupations of French literature between World Wars.
Lotichius Secundus, Petrus: one of Germany's outstanding neo-Latin Renaissance poets.
lottery: procedure for distributing something (usually money or prizes) among a group of people by lot or by chance. The type of lottery considered here is a form of gambling in ...
Lotto carpet: pile floor covering handwoven in Turkey, so called because carpets of this design appear in several of the works of the 16th-century Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto. They are characterized by ...
Lotto, Lorenzo: late Renaissance Italian painter known for his perceptive portraits and mystical paintings of religious subjects. In the earlier years of his life he lived at Treviso, and, although he was ...
lotus: any of several different plants. The lotus of the Greeks was the species Ziziphus lotus of the buckthorn family (Rhamnaceae), a bush native in southern Europe. It has large fruits ...
Lotus Sutra: ("Lotus of the Good Law [or True Doctrine] Sutra"), one of the earlier Mahayana Buddhist texts venerated as the quintessence of truth by the Japanese Tendai (Chinese T'ien-t'ai) and Nichiren ...
Lotus-Eater: in Greek mythology, one of a tribe encountered by the Greek hero Odysseus on the Libyan coast, after a north wind had driven him and his men from Cape Malea. ...
Lotuxo: people of the southern Sudan, living near Torit, who speak an Eastern Sudanic language of the Nilo-Saharan language family. They grow millet, corn (maize), peanuts (groundnuts), and tobacco and raise ...
Lotze, Rudolf Hermann: German philosopher who bridged the gap between classical German philosophy and 20th-century idealism and founded Theistic Idealism.
Louang Namtha: town, northwestern Laos. The town is situated about 10 miles (16 km) south of the Chinese border and about 50 miles (80 km) east of the border with (Myanmar) Burma, ...
Louangphrabang: town, northern Laos. A port on the Mekong River, Louangphrabang lies 130 miles (210 km) north-northwest of Vientiane, the national capital.
Loubet, Emile: statesman and seventh president of the French Third Republic, who contributed to the break between the French government and the Vatican (1905) and to improved relations with Great Britain.
Loubomo: commune (town), southern Congo (Brazzaville), and an important transport centre for western Congo (Kinshasa) and southern Gabon. It lies 70 miles (110 km) northeast of Pointe-Noire (the Atlantic coastal terminus ...
louderback: a fault block that is gently tilted (usually 15 degrees or less) and is capped by a lava flow. These slopes are especially evident wherever lavas, resistant to erosion in ...
loudness: in acoustics, attribute of sound that determines the intensity of auditory sensation produced. The loudness of sound as perceived by human ears is roughly proportional to the logarithm of sound ...
Loudon, John Claudius: Scottish landscape gardener and architect. Loudon was the most influential horticultural journalist of his time, and his writings helped shape Victorian taste in gardens, public parks, and domestic architecture. With ...
Loudonia: genus of perennial plants belonging to the water milfoil family (Haloragaceae), found in dry areas of southern Australia. Three species are known, all with stiff, smooth stems, growing to about ...
loudspeaker: in sound reproduction, device for converting electrical energy into acoustical signal energy that is radiated into a room or open air. The term signal energy indicates that the electrical energy ...
Louga: town, northwestern Senegal. Louga is a cattle market centre and has road and rail links with the port city of Saint-Louis to the northwest and Dakar to the southwest. The ...
Louganis, Greg: American diver generally considered the greatest diver in history.
Loughborough: town, Charnwood borough, administrative and historic county of Leicestershire, England. It is situated near the River Soar and on the Loughborough Canal, 11 miles (17 km) northwest of Leicester. There ...
Loughrea: market town, County Galway, Ireland. It lies along the northern shore of Lough (lake) Rea, 116 miles (185 km) west of Dublin. It has a Roman Catholic cathedral (1900-05) and ...
Louis: titular king of France from 1793. Second son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, he was the royalists' first recognized claimant to the monarchy after his father was executed ...
louis: gold coin circulated in France before the Revolution. The franc (q.v.) and livre were silver coins that had shrunk in value to such an extent that by 1740 coins of ...
Louis: count of Provence (1347-62), as well as prince of Taranto and Achaia, who by his marriage to Queen Joan I of Naples (1343-82) became king of Naples after a struggle ...
Louis: king of Portugal whose reign (1861-89), in contrast to the first half of the century, saw the smooth operation of the constitutional system, the completion of the railway network, the ...