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orthographic projection: common method of representing three-dimensional objects, usually by three two-dimensional drawings, in each of which the object is viewed along parallel lines that are perpendicular to the plane of the ...
orthonectid: any of a class (Orthonectida) of rare wormlike parasites of various marine invertebrates; they are sometimes included in the mesozoans, a group regarded as intermediate between protozoans (single-celled animals) and ...
orthopedics: medical specialty concerned with the preservation and restoration of function of the skeletal system and its associated structures, i.e., spinal and other bones, joints, and muscles.
orthopteran: broadly, any member of one of four insect orders. Orthopteran has come to be regarded as the common name for these related groups, which exhibit considerable morphological, physiological, and paleontological ...
orthopyroxene: any of a series of common silicate minerals in the pyroxene family. Orthopyroxenes typically occur as fibrous or lamellar (thin-plated) green masses in igneous and metamorphic rocks and in meteorites.
orthorhombic system: one of the structural categories systems to which crystalline solids can be assigned. Crystals in this system are referred to three mutually perpendicular axes that are unequal in length. If ...
Ortigao, Jose Duarte Ramalho: Portuguese essayist and journalist known for his mastery of Portuguese prose and his critical reflections on his native land.
Ortiz, Fernando: anthropologist, essayist, and philologist who pioneered in the study of neo-African cultures in the Americas, particularly in Cuba.
ortolan: (Emberiza hortulana), Eurasian garden and field bird of the subfamily Emberizinae, family Fringillidae. It grows fat in autumn, when large flocks gather for migration to northern Africa and the Middle ...
Orton, Joe: British playwright noted for his outrageous and macabre farces.
Ortona: town, Chieti province, Abruzzi region, central Italy, on a promontory 230 feet (70 m) above sea level, on the Adriatic coast, about 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Pescara. An ...
Orumiyeh: city, extreme northwestern Iran. It lies just west of Lake Urmia on a large fertile plain that yields grains, fruits, tobacco, and other crops. The population is mainly Azeri Turkish, ...
Oruro: city, west-central Bolivia. It lies at 12,150 feet (3,702 m) above sea level in the Altiplano region, 30 miles (48 km) north of Poopo Lake. Founded in 1606 as Real ...
Orvieto: town, Terni provincia, in the Umbria regione of central Italy. The town is situated atop an isolated rock 640 feet (195 m) above the junction of the Paglia and Chiana ...
Orvieto ware: Italian maiolica, a tin-glazed earthenware produced originally at Orvieto, in Umbria, from the 13th century onward. It was copied from, or inspired by, the faience produced in Paterna, Spain. The ...
Orwell, George: English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), the latter a profound anti-Utopian novel that examines the dangers of totalitarian rule.
Ory, Kid: American trombonist and composer who was perhaps the first musician to codify, purely by precept, the role of the trombone in classic three-part contrapuntal jazz improvisation. Ory is often remembered ...
Oryol: city and administrative centre of Oryol oblast (region), western Russia. It is located on the headwaters of the Oka River at its confluence with the Orlik River. ...
Oryol: oblast (region), western Russia. It occupies an area of rolling hills of the Central Russian Upland, into which are cut many broad, shallow river valleys. The greater ...
oryx: (genus Oryx), any of four large antelopes (family Bovidae, order Artiodactyla) living in herds on deserts and dry plains of Africa and Arabia.
Orzeszkowa, Eliza: Polish novelist and a leading writer of the Positivist period (the Polish Positivists took their name from Auguste Comte's philosophy but were themselves mainly utilitarians). Questions of education, independence, and ...
Osa: city and administrative centre of Osa rayon (sector), Perm oblast (province), Russia, on the left bank of the Kama River near its confluence with the Tulva River. The city is ...
Osa Peninsula: peninsula, southern Costa Rica, bounded on the northwest by Coronado Bay, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the east by the Gulf of Dulce. Costa Rica's second ...
Osage: North American Indian tribe of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan linguistic stock. They are now concentrated on a reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. Like other members of this subgroup (the ...
Osage orange: (Maclura pomifera), thorny tree with large, yellow-green, wrinkled fruit and a milky sap that can produce dermatitis in humans. It is the only species of its genus in the mulberry ...
Osage River: river rising as the Marais des Cygnes (French: "Swan Marshes") in the Flint Hills near Eskridge, Kan., U.S. It becomes the Osage (named for the Osage Indians) after its junction ...
Osaka: fu (urban prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It is bordered by Kyoto urban prefecture (north) and by the ken (prefectures) of Hyogo (northwest), Nara (east), and ...
Osaka: city and capital of Osaka fu (urban prefecture), south-central Honshu, Japan. The city, together with its neighbouring city Kobe and nearby Kyoto, are the centres of the Keihanshin Industrial Zone ...
Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area: second largest urban and industrial agglomeration in Japan, located on Osaka Bay in west-central Honshu at the eastern end of the Inland Sea. The cities of Osaka and Kobe are ...
Osasco: city, southeastern Sao Paulo estado ("state"), Brazil. Located at 2,360 feet (720 m) above sea level, Osasco lies along the Tiete River. It is 12 miles (20 km) northwest of ...
Osawatomie: city, Miami county, eastern Kansas, U.S. It lies along the Marais des Cygnes River at the mouth of Pottawatomie Creek; its name combines elements of the words Osage and Pottawatomie. ...
Osborn, Henry Fairfield: American paleontologist and museum administrator who greatly influenced the art of museum display and the education of paleontologists in the United States and Great Britain.
Osborne, Dorothy, Lady Temple: English gentlewoman best known for the letters she wrote to her future husband, William Temple, before their marriage. The letters are simply written in an easy, conversational style and present ...
Osborne, John: British playwright and film producer whose Look Back in Anger (performed 1956) ushered in a new movement in British drama and made him known as the first of the "Angry ...
Osborne, Thomas Mott: U.S. penologist whose inauguration of self-help programs for prisoners through Mutual Welfare Leagues functioned as a model for the humanitarian programs of later penologists.
Oscan language: one of the Italic languages closely related to Umbrian and Volscian and more distantly related to Latin and Faliscan. Spoken in southern and central Italy, it was probably the native ...
Oscar I: king of Sweden and Norway from 1844 to 1859, son of Charles XIV John, formerly the French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte.
Oscar II: king of Sweden from 1872 to 1907 and of Norway from 1872 to 1905.
Osceola: city, southern seat (1832) of Mississippi county (the northern seat is Blytheville), northeastern Arkansas, U.S., on the Mississippi River, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Memphis, Tennessee. It was ...
Osceola: American Indian leader during the Second Seminole War, which began in 1835 when the U.S. government attempted to force the Seminole Indians off their traditional lands in Florida and into ...
oscillator: any of various electronic devices that produce alternating electric current, commonly employing tuned circuits and amplifying components such as thermionic vacuum tubes. Oscillators used to generate high-frequency currents for carrier ...
Oscillatoria: genus of blue-green algae found commonly in a variety of freshwater environments, including hot springs. This unbranched filamentous alga, occurring singly or in tangled mats, derives its name from its ...
oscillograph: instrument for indicating and recording time-varying electrical quantities, such as current and voltage. The two basic forms of the instrument in common use are the electromagnetic oscillograph and the cathode-ray ...
oscine: any bird of the suborder Passeres (order Passeriformes), which includes all songbirds. See songbird.
Osco-Umbrian languages: language group proposed by some scholars to be included in the Italic branch of Indo-European languages. The group includes Oscan, Umbrian, and the minor dialects of central Italy-Marsian, Marrucinian, Paelignian, ...
Osei Tutu: founder and first ruler of the Asante (Ashanti) empire (in present-day Ghana) who as chief of the small state of Kumasi came to realize (c. 1680-90) that a fusion of ...
Osh: city, southwestern Kyrgyzstan. The city lies at an elevation of 3,300 feet (1,000 m) on the Akbura River where it emerges from the Alay foothills. First mentioned in writings of ...
Oshawa: city, regional municipality of Durham county, southeastern Ontario, Canada. It lies on the north shore of Lake Ontario, just northeast of Toronto. Founded as Skea's Corners on the military Kingston ...
Osheroff, Douglas D.: American physicist who, along with David Lee and Robert Richardson, was the corecipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of superfluidity in the isotope helium-3.
Oshkosh: city, seat (1848) of Winnebago county, east-central Wisconsin, U.S. It lies on the western shore of Lake Winnebago where the Fox River enters, some 80 miles (130 km) northwest of ...
Oshogbo: town and capital, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. It lies along the Oshun River and on the railroad from Lagos, 182 miles (293 km) to the southwest, and at the intersection ...
Osiander, Andreas: German theologian who helped introduce the Protestant Reformation to Nurnberg.
Osijek: industrial town and agricultural centre in Croatia, on the Drava River.
Osinniki: city, Kemerovo oblast (province), central Russia. It is situated at the confluence of the Kandalep and Kondoma rivers. The city developed in the 1930s as a mining centre in the ...
Osiris: one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt. The origin of Osiris is obscure; he was a local god of Busiris, in Lower Egypt, and may have been a ...
Oskaloosa: city, seat (1844) of Mahaska county, southeastern Iowa, U.S. It lies between the Des Moines and South Skunk rivers, about 60 miles (100 km) southeast of Des Moines. The region ...
Osler, Sir William, Baronet: Canadian physician and professor of medicine who practiced and taught in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain and whose book The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892) was a ...
Osler-Rendu-Weber disease: a hereditary disorder causing bleeding from local capillary lesions. The disorder is classed as a type of purpura. In the disease, capillaries (minute blood vessels) in the fingertips and around ...
Oslo: capital and largest city of Norway, forming also a separate fylke (county). It lies at the head of Oslo Fjord in the southeastern part of the country. The original site ...
Oslo Fjord: fjord on the Skagerrak (strait) penetrating the southern coast of Norway for 60 miles (100 km) from about Fredrikstad to Oslo. With an area of 766 square miles (1,984 square ...
Osman Ali: nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad in the period 1911-48 and its constitutional president until 1956. Once one of the richest men in the world, he ruled over a state the size ...
Osman Digna: a leader of the Mahdist revolt that broke out in the Sudan in 1881.
Osman I: ruler of a Turkmen principality in northwestern Anatolia who is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman Turkish state. Both the name of the dynasty and the empire that the ...
Osman II: Ottoman sultan who came to the throne as an active and intelligent boy of 14 and who during his short rule (1618-22) understood the need for reform within the empire.
Osman Nuri Pasa: Ottoman pasa and musir (field marshal) who became a national hero for his determined resistance at Plevna (modern Pleven, Bulg.) during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.
Osmanabad: town, administrative headquarters of Osmanabad district, Maharashtra state, western India, north of Sholapur. Part of the ancient Yadava Hindu kingdom, it fell to Bahmani and Bijapur kingdoms in the 14th ...
Osmena, Sergio: Filipino statesman, founder of the Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista) and president of the Philippines from 1944 to 1946.
osmium: (Os), chemical element, one of the platinum metals of Group VIII of the periodic table and the densest naturally occurring element. A gray-white metal, osmium is very hard, brittle, and ...
osmoregulation: in biology, maintenance by an organism of an internal balance between water and dissolved materials regardless of environmental conditions. In many marine organisms osmosis (the passage of solvent through a ...
osmosis: the spontaneous passage or diffusion of water or other solvents through a semipermeable membrane (one that blocks the passage of dissolved substances-i.e., solutes). The process, important in biology, was first ...
Osmund Of Salisbury, Saint: Norman priest, who was chancellor of England (c. 1072-78) and bishop of Salisbury (1078-99).
Osmunda: fern genus of the family Osmundaceae, with divided fronds and often growing to a height of 1.5 metres (5 feet). The matted fibrous roots of these abundant ferns are called ...
Osmundaceae: the royal fern family, only family of the fern order Osmundales (suborder Osmundineae in some classification systems). A primitive group consisting of three present-day genera of large ferns (Osmunda, Todea, ...
Osnabruck: city, Lower Saxony Land (state), northwestern Germany. It lies on the canalized Hase River between the Teutoburg Forest (Teutoburger Wald) and the Wiehen Mountains (Wiehengebirge).
Osorno: capital of Osorno province, Los Lagos region, southern Chile, lying at the junction of the Damas and Rahue rivers, 40 mi (64 km) inland from the Pacific coast. It was ...
osprey: large, long-winged hawk, about 65 cm (26 inches) long, that lives along seacoasts and larger interior waterways, where it catches fish. It is brown above and white below, with some ...