American sociologist and scholar whose theory of social action influenced the intellectual bases of several disciplines of modern sociology. His work is concerned with a general theoretical system for the ...
town, Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan state, northwestern India. The town was founded in 1689 and was the capital of the former princely state of Partabgarh (founded in the 15th century), which ...
district, Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Part of the Ganges alluvial plain, it is 1,440 sq mi (3,730 sq km) in area and is bounded on the southwest by the ...
usual form in which vocal or instrumental polyphonic music was handwritten or printed in the 15th and 16th centuries. Each partbook contained the notation of only one voice, or part. ...
visionary and eclectic composer and instrument builder, largely self-taught, whose compositions are remarkable for the complexity of their scores (each instrument has its own characteristic notation, often involving 43 tones ...
the division of garden beds in such a way that the pattern is itself an ornament. It is a sophisticated development of the knot garden, a medieval form of bed ...
development of fruit without fertilization. The fruit resembles a normally produced fruit but is seedless. Varieties of the pineapple, banana, cucumber, grape, orange, grapefruit, persimmon, and breadfruit exemplify naturally occurring ...
biological reproduction that involves development of a female (rarely a male) gamete (sex cell) without fertilization. It occurs commonly among lower plants and invertebrate animals, particularly rotifers, aphids, ants, wasps, ...
chief temple of the Greek goddess Athena on the hill of the Acropolis at Athens, Greece. It was built in the mid-5th century BC and is generally considered to be ...
short-lived republic in Naples proclaimed on Jan. 23, 1799, after a popular uprising of pro-French republicans resulted in the ouster of King Ferdinand IV. A counterrevolution the same year, aided ...
ancient land corresponding roughly to the modern region of Khorasan in Iran. The term is also used in reference to the Parthian empire (247 BC-AD 224). The first certain occurrence ...
Middle Iranian language that originated in the ancient province of Parthia (the northeastern portion of modern Iran) and became the official language of the Arsacid period of Persian dynastic history ...
provincial Canadian political party founded in 1968 by journalist Rene Levesque and other French Canadian separatists in the largely French-speaking province of Quebec. It has dominated provincial elections in Quebec ...
(French: "Red Party"), radical party formed in Lower Canada (now in Quebec) about 1849 and inspired primarily by the French-Canadian patriot Louis Joseph Papineau. In general the Parti Rouge advocated ...
(See the .) any device that produces a beam of fast-moving, electrically charged atomic or subatomic particles. Physicists use accelerators in fundamental research on the structure of nuclei, the nature ...
school of anthropological thought associated with the work of Franz Boas and his students (among them Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and A.L. Kroeber), whose studies of culture emphasized the integrated ...
a lyric poem of dispute composed by Provencal troubadours in which one poet stated a proposition and a second disputed it. The first poet then defended his position, and the ...
in metallurgy, the separation of gold and silver by chemical or electrochemical means. Gold and silver are often extracted together from the same ores or recovered as by-products from the ...
member of a guerrilla force led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia during World War II against the Axis powers, their Yugoslav collaborators, and a rival resistance force, the royalist ...
in mathematics and logic, division of a set of objects into a family of subsets that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive; that is, no element of the original set ...
city, Primorsky kray (region), far eastern Russia. It lies in the valley of the Partizanskaya River. It was formed in 1932 by the amalgamation of mining settlements that developed near ...
voluntary association of two or more persons for the purpose of managing a business enterprise and sharing its profits or losses. In the usual partnership each general partner has full ...
any of many small game birds native to the Old World and belonging to the family Phasianidae (order Galliformes). They are larger than quails, with stronger bills and feet. (For ...
(Mitchella repens), North American plant of the madder family (Rubiaceae), growing in dry woods from southwestern Newfoundland to Minnesota and southward to Florida and Texas. It is evergreen, with nearly ...
process of bringing forth a child from the uterus, or womb. (The prior development of the child in the womb is described in the article human embryology.)
river, northern Brazil, rising on the southern slopes of the Tumuc-Humac Mountains, on the Suriname border, and flowing for about 500 miles (800 km) south-southeastward through Para state. It empties ...
the songbird family of birds, order Passeriformes, consisting of the woodwarblers and bananaquits. The Parulidae comprise about 119 species of small, active birds, notable for their bright spring plumage and ...
matched set of jewelry consisting of such pieces as earrings, bracelet, brooch, necklace, and ring. By the mid-17th century, jewels had ceased to be created as individual works of art ...
(Sanskrit: "Daughter of the Mountain"), wife of the Hindu god Siva (Shiva). Parvati is the benevolent aspect of the goddess Sakti and is sometimes identified with Uma. The legendary account ...
resort town, northern Free State province, South Africa. It is situated on the southern bank of the Vaal River. Parys was founded in 1873 and most likely named by a ...
a popular eight-day festival in Jainism, a religion of India. It generally is celebrated by members of the Svetambara sect from the 13th day of the dark half of the ...
(French: "high steps"), all jumping and leaping movements in classical ballet. The steps are admired for the height at which they are performed and for the dancer's ability to ascend ...
(French: "step for two"), dance for two performers. The strictly classical balletic pas de deux followed a fixed pattern: a supported adagio, a solo variation for the male dancer, a ...
city, Harris county, southeastern Texas, U.S. It borders Houston (west) between the Houston Ship Channel and the Clear Lake area. It was founded in 1895 by J.H. Burnett and named ...
city, Los Angeles county, southern California, U.S. It is located in the San Gabriel Valley, at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The area was part of Rancho el ...
theatre in Pasadena, California, that was one of the first community theatres in the United States. It was founded in 1917-18 when Gilmor Brown organized a semiprofessional acting company known ...
first dynastic capital of the Achaemenian Empire, situated northeast of Persepolis in modern southwestern Iran. Traditionally, Cyrus II the Great (reigned 559-c. 529 BC) chose the site because it lay ...
city, central Luzon, Philippines, situated on the eastern shore of Manila Bay. A major residential suburb of Manila (immediately north), it is well known for the nightclubs that line the ...
city, seat (1812) of Jackson county, southeastern Mississippi, U.S. It is situated on Pascagoula Bay of Mississippi Sound (an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico), at the mouth of the ...
unit of pressure in the metre-kilogram-second system. (See the International System of Units.) It was named in honour of the French mathematician-physicist Blaise Pascal (1623-62). A pascal is a pressure ...
in fluid (gas or liquid) mechanics, statement that in a fluid at rest in a closed container a pressure change in one part is transmitted without loss to every portion ...
French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as Pascal's law of pressure, ...
in the Christian Church, disputes concerning the correct date for observing Easter (Greek Pascha). The earliest controversy was over the question of whether Easter should always be celebrated on a ...
in Judaism, the lamb sacrificed at the first Passover, on the eve of the Exodus from Egypt, the most momentous event in Jewish history. According to the story of the ...
French abbot, theologian, and author whose monograph De corpore et sanguine Christi ("Concerning Christ's Body and Blood") later became the dominant interpretation of the Eucharist.
department (formed 1944) of central Peru, stretching from the Andes eastward to the Amazon Basin. It occupies an area of 8,438 sq mi (21,854 sq km). Western Pasco, a mountainous ...
city, seat (1889) of Franklin county, southeastern Washington, U.S., situated at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers, opposite Kennewick and immediately southeast of Richland. Established on the site ...
Italian classical scholar and poet whose graceful and melancholy Italian lyric poems, perfect in form, rhythmic in style, and innovative in wording, were an important influence on the crepuscolari ("twilight ...
town, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania Land (state), northeastern Germany, on the Ucker River about 18 miles (29 km) south of Ueckermunde and about 24 miles (39 km) west of Szczecin (Stettin), Poland. ...
title of a man of high rank or office in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. It was the highest official title of honour in the Ottoman Empire, always used ...
Eastern Iranian language spoken by the Pashtun in eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Its dialects fall into two main divisions: the southern, which preserves the ancient sh (as in "Pashto") ...
Pashto-speaking people of southeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They constitute the majority of the population of Afghanistan and bore the exclusive name of Afghan before that name came to denote ...
town, central Nepal, situated in the Kathmandu Valley on the Baghmati River, just east of Kathmandu. Regarded as the holiest place in Nepal, it is the site of an ancient ...
prime minister of Serbia (1891-92, 1904-05, 1906-08, 1909-11, 1912-18) and prime minister of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1918, 1921-24, 1924-26). He was one of the founders, in ...
river draining Laguna de Bay, the largest lake in the Philippines, into Manila Bay at Manila. It flows north-northwest through the market town of Pasig and bisects Manila, then enters ...
Greek sculptor notable for having written a book, in five volumes, about works of art throughout the world. None of Pasiteles' own sculpture has survived.
genus of annual and perennial grasses of the family Poaceae, containing about 400 species distributed throughout warm regions of the world. Some are valuable forage grasses. P. dilatatum, a South ...
French lawyer and man of letters who is known for his Recherches de la France, 10 vol. (1560-1621), which is not only encyclopaedic but also an important work of historical ...
brief and generally anonymous satirical comment in prose or verse that ridicules a contemporary leader or national event. Pasquinade is derived from "Pasquino," the popular name for the remains of ...
city, Harrison county, southern Mississippi, U.S., just west-southwest of Gulfport, on Mississippi Sound (an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico). It is named for the nearby deepwater channel known as ...
