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magpie ... mahogany

magpie: any of several long-tailed birds belonging to the family Corvidae (order Passeriformes). The best-known species, often called the black-billed magpie (Pica pica), is a 45-centimetre (18-inch) black-and-white (i.e., pied) bird, ...
magpie goose: (Anseranas semipalmata), large aberrant waterfowl of Australia and Papua New Guinea, the sole member of the subfamily Anseranatinae, family Anatidae (order Anseriformes). The sexes are alike in having a black-and-white ...
magpie-robin: any of eight species of chat-thrushes, belonging to the family Turdidae (order Passeriformes), found in southern Asia. They are 18 to 28 cm (7 to 11 inches) long, with pied ...
Magritte, Rene: Belgian artist, one of the most prominent Surrealist painters whose bizarre flights of fancy blended horror, peril, comedy, and mystery. His works were characterized by particular symbols-the female torso, the ...
Magsaysay, Ramon: president of the Philippines (1953-57), best known for successfully defeating the communist-led Hukbalahap (Huk) movement.
maguey: fibre obtained from the leaf of the plant Agave lurida, a member of the Amaryllidaccae family and native to Mexico. It is shorter and stiffer than henequen (q.v.), with physical ...
magus: member of an ancient Persian clan specializing in cultic activities. The name is the Latinized form of magoi (e.g., in Herodotus 1:101), the ancient Greek transliteration of the Iranian original. ...
Magwe: town, west-central Myanmar (Burma). The town is on the Irrawaddy River opposite Minbu. It is the site of Magwe College, affiliated to the Arts and Science University at Mandalay, and ...
mah-jongg: game of Chinese origin, played with tiles, or pais, that are similar in physical description to those used in dominoes but engraved with Chinese symbols and characters ...
Maha Bodhi Society: an organization that was established to encourage Buddhist studies in India and abroad. The society was founded in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1891 by Anagarika Dharmapala; one of its ...
Maha Maya: the mother of Gautama Buddha; she was the wife of Raja Shuddhodana.
Maha Sarakham: town, northeastern Thailand. Maha Sarakham is located at a road junction on a bend of the Chi River. Rice is widely grown in the surrounding region, particularly in shallow river ...
Maha-sivaratri: (Sanskrit: "Great Night of Siva"), the most important sectarian festival of the year for devotees of the Hindu god Siva. The 14th day of the dark half of each lunar ...
Mahabad: city, northwestern Iran. The city lies south of Lake Urmia in a fertile, narrow valley at an elevation of 4,272 feet (1,302 m). There are a number of unexcavated tells, ...
Mahabaleshwar: resort town, southwestern Maharashtra state, western India. It lies about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Bombay and northwest of the town of Satara at an elevation of 4,718 feet ...
Mahabalipuram: historic town, northeast Tamil Nadu state, southeastern India. The town lies along the Bay of Bengal 37 miles (60 km) south of Madras. The town's religious centre was founded by ...
Mahabharata: one of the two major Sanskrit epics of India, valued for its high literary merit and its religious inspiration. The Mahabharata consists of a mass of legendary and didactic material ...
Mahadeo Hills: sandstone hills located in the northern part of the Satpura Range, in southern Madhya Pradesh state, central India. The hills have small plateaus and steep scarps that were formed during ...
Mahajanga: town and major port, northwestern Madagascar. It lies on the island's northwest coast, at the mouth of the Betsiboka River, whose estuary widens there into Bombetoka Bay. The town was ...
Mahakala: in Tibetan Buddhism, one of the eight fierce protective deities. See dharmapala.
Mahakam River: river rising in the mountains of central Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) and flowing about 400 miles (650 km) east-southeast to Makassar Strait, in a wide delta. The chief town along its ...
mahakavya: a particular form of the Sanskrit literary style known as kavya. It is a short epic similar to the epyllion and is characterized by elaborate figures of speech.
Mahal, Taj: American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and one of the pioneers of what came to be called world music. He combined blues and other African-American music with Caribbean and West African music ...
Mahalapye: village, eastern Botswana. It lies midway along the Mafikeng-Bulawayo railway and is 125 miles (200 km) northeast of Gaborone, the national capital. The name Mahalapye refers to an impala. The ...
Mahallah al-Kubra, Al-: city, in the central Nile River delta of Lower Egypt, eastern Al-Gharbiyah muhafazah (governorate). It lies just west of the Damietta Branch of the Nile. Because the names of a ...
mahalwari system: one of the three main revenue systems of land tenure in British India, the other two being the zamindar (landlord) and the ryotwari (individual cultivator). The word mahalwari is derived ...
mahamudra: (Sanskrit: "the great seal"), in Tantric Buddhism, the final goal, the union of all apparent dualities. Mudra, in addition to its more usual meaning, has in Tantric Buddhism the esoteric ...
Mahan, Alfred Thayer: American naval officer and historian who was a highly influential exponent of sea power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Mahan, Larry E.: professional American rodeo wrangler, the first to win five consecutive Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA; later Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, PRCA) all-around cowboy championships, from 1966 through 1970. His record was ...
Mahanadi River: river in central India, rising in the hills of southeastern Madhya Pradesh state. Its upper course runs north as an insignificant stream, draining the eastern Chhattisgarh Plain. After receiving the ...
Mahananda River: river in northern India and Bangladesh. It rises in the Darjeeling Hills in extreme northern West Bengal state. The river flows south through a rich agricultural area in Bihar state, ...
mahapurusa: in Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist belief, an individual of extraordinary destiny, distinguished by certain physical traits or marks (laksanas). Such men are born to become either universal rulers (cakravartins) or ...
Mahar: a caste-cluster, or group of many endogamous castes, living chiefly in Maharashtra state, India, and in adjoining states. They mostly speak Marathi, the official language of Maharashtra. In the early ...
maharaja: (from mahat, "great," and rajan, "king"), an administrative rank in India; generally speaking, a Hindu prince ranking above a raja. Used historically, maharaja refers specifically to a ruler of one ...
Maharashtra: state of India that occupies a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau in the western peninsular part of the subcontinent. Its shape roughly resembles a triangle, with the 450-mile (725-kilometre) ...
Mahasanghika: (from Sanskrit mahasangha, "great order of monks"), early Buddhist school in India that, in its views of the nature of the Buddha, was a precursor of the Mahayana tradition.
mahasiddha: in the Tantric, or esoteric, traditions of India and Tibet, a person who, by the practice of meditative disciplines, has attained siddha (miraculous powers); a great magician.
Mahathir bin Mohamad: Malaysian politician, who served as prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, overseeing his country's transition to an industrialized nation.
Mahavairocana-sutra: text of late Tantric Buddhism and a principal scripture of the large Japanese Buddhist sect known as Shingon ("True Word"). The text received a Chinese translation, under the title Ta-jih ...
Mahavamsa: (Pali: "Great Chronicle"), historical chronology of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), written in the 5th or 6th century, probably by the Buddhist monk Mahanama. It deals more with the history of ...
Mahavastu: (Sanskrit: "Great Story"), important legendary life of the Buddha, produced as a late canonical work by the Mahasanghika school of early Buddhism and presented as a historical introduction to the ...
Mahavihara: Buddhist monastery founded in the late 3rd century BCE in Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). The monastery was built by the Sinhalese king Devanampiya Tissa not ...
Mahavira: Epithet of Vardhamana, the last of the 24 Tirthankaras ("Ford-makers," i.e., saviours who promulgated Jainism), and the reformer of the Jain monastic community. According to the traditions of the two ...
Mahavira: Indian mathematician who made significant contributions to the development of algebra.
Mahaweli Ganga: (Sinhalese: "Great Sandy River"), river, central and eastern Sri Lanka. At 208 mi (335 km) in length, it is Sri Lanka's longest river. It rises on the Hatton Plateau on ...
Mahayana: (Sanskrit: Greater Vehicle), one of the two major Buddhist traditions and the form most widely adhered to in China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet. Mahayana Buddhism emerged in about the 1st ...
Mahayana-sraddhotpada-sastra: (Sanskrit: "Treatise on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana"), relatively brief but influential exposition of the fundamentals of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy and faith. Though the work is said to ...
Mahbubnagar: town, administrative headquarters of Mahbubnagar district, west central Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. Located on the Central Railway route southwest of Hyderabad, Mahbubnagar is also a road centre. Cotton ginning ...
mahdi: (Arabic: "divinely guided one"), in Islamic eschatology, a messianic deliverer who will fill the Earth with justice and equity, restore true religion, and usher in a short golden age lasting ...
Mahdi, al-: creator of a vast Islamic state extending from the Red Sea to Central Africa and founder of a movement that remained influential in The Sudan a century later. As a ...
Mahdist: (Arabic: "Helper"), follower of al-Mahdi (Muhammad Ahmad ibn as-Sayyid 'Abd Allah) or of his successor or descendants. Ansar is an old term applied to some of the companions of the ...
Mahdiyah, al-: town and fishing port on as-Sahil (coastal strip), eastern Tunisia. It lies on the narrow rocky peninsula of Cape Ifriqiya. The town owes its name to the mahdi (Arabic: mahdi, ...
Mahe: town in Pondicherry union territory, which is an enclave in northern Kerala state, southwestern India. Mahe lies on the left bank of the Naluthara River, northwest of Kozhikode (Calicut). The ...
Mahe Island: largest island of the Seychelles archipelago, Republic of Seychelles, in the western Indian Ocean. The island is 4 miles (6 km) wide and 16 miles (26 km) long and has ...
Mahendra: king of Nepal from 1955 to 1972.
Mahendra: propagator of Buddhism in Ceylon. Generally believed to be the son of the Indian emperor Asoka, he is honoured in Sri Lanka as a founding missionary of that country's majority ...
Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi: Hindu religious leader who introduced the practice of transcendental meditation (q.v.; TM) to the West.
Maheshwar: town, western Madhya Pradesh state, central India. It lies just north of the Narmada River. It is located on the ancient site of Mahesvari, the capital (c. 200 BC) of ...
Mahfouz, Naguib: Egyptian novelist and screenplay writer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, the first Arabic writer to be so honoured.
Mahi River: stream in western India, rising in the western Vindhya Range, just south of Sardarpur, and flowing northward through Madhya Pradesh state. Turning northwest, it enters Rajasthan state and then turns ...
Mahican: Algonquian-speaking Indians of what is now the upper Hudson Valley above the Catskill Mountains in New York state, U.S. Their name means "wolf," but they were also known to the ...
Mahillon, Victor-Charles: Belgian musical scholar who collected, described, and copied musical instruments and wrote on acoustics and other subjects.
Mahilyow: city and administrative centre of Mahilyow oblast (province), east-central Belarus, on the Dnieper River. It was founded in 1267 as a fortress and became a town in 1526, when it ...
Mahilyow: oblast (province), east-central Belarus, occupying an area of 11,200 square miles (29,000 square km) in the middle Dnieper River lowland, astride the Dnieper, which bisects it north-south. It consists of ...
Mahir Pasha, 'Ali: jurist and official who served three times as prime minister of Egypt.
Mahir, Ahmad: Egyptian jurist and politician who was premier of Egypt from 1944 to 1945.
Mahler, Alma: wife of Gustav Mahler, known for her relationships with celebrated men.
Mahler, Gustav: Austrian-Jewish composer and conductor noted for his 10 symphonies and various songs with orchestra, which drew together many different strands of Romanticism. Although his music was largely ignored for 50 ...
Mahmoud: (foaled 1933), racehorse (Thoroughbred), the fastest horse ever to run in the Derby, making a record time of 2:33 45.
Mahmud: sultan of the kingdom of Ghazna (998-1030), originally comprising modern Afghanistan and northeastern modern Iran but, through his conquests, eventually including northwestern India and most of Iran. He transformed his ...
Mahmud I: Ottoman sultan who on succeeding to the throne in 1730 restored order after the Patrona Halil uprising in Constantinople; during his reign the Ottomans fought a successful war against Austria ...
Mahmud II: Ottoman sultan (1808-39) whose westernizing reforms helped to consolidate the Ottoman Empire despite defeats in wars and losses of territory.
Mahmud Muzaffar Shah: last sultan of Riau (Riouw) and Lingga (archipelagoes south of Singapore), whose deposition cleared the way for Dutch colonial control.
Mahmud Nedim Pasa: Ottoman diplomat and grand vizier (served 1871-72 and 1875-76) whose conservative policies and hostility to reforms permitted Sultan Abdulaziz to become an absolute monarch and thereby destroyed the westernizing reforms ...
Mahmud Shah: sultan of Malacca from 1488 until capture of the city by the Portuguese in 1511, after which he founded the kingdom of Johore.
mahogany: any of several tropical hardwood timber trees, especially certain species in the family Meliaceae. One such is Swietenia mahagoni, from tropical America. It is a tall evergreen tree with hard ...