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Plateau ... Pleven, Siege of

Plateau: state, east-central Nigeria, created in 1976 out of the northern half of former Benue-Plateau state. It is bounded by the states of Kaduna and Bauchi on the north, Taraba on ...
Plateau Indian: member of any of the aboriginal North American peoples inhabiting the high plateau region between the Rocky Mountains and the coastal mountain system.
platelet: small, colourless, nonnucleated, usually round body that is very important in the formation of blood clots and is found only in the blood of mammals.
Platen, August, Graf von: German poet and dramatist who was almost unique among his contemporaries in aiming at classical purity of style; although he was schooled in the Romantic tradition, he opposed its undisciplined ...
Plateosaurus: dinosaurs known from extensive fossil material found in Europe dating to the Late Triassic Period (227 million to 206 million years ago) that were representative of the prosauropods, an early ...
Plateresque: ("Silversmith-like"), main architectural style in Spain during the late 15th and the 16th centuries, also used in Spain's American colonies. Cristobal de Villalon first used the term in 1539 while ...
platform rocker: rocking chair with rockers fixed to move on a stationary base instead of on the floor. Introduced in the United States about 1870, it achieved quick popularity, partly because the ...
platform tennis: sport that is a combination of tennis and squash, devised in 1928 by American sports enthusiasts Fessenden Blanchard and James Cogswell at Scarsdale, N.Y. It is played on specially constructed ...
Plath, Sylvia: American poet and novelist whose best-known works are preoccupied with alienation, death, and self-destruction.
plating: coating a metal or other material such as plastic or china with a hard, nonporous metallic surface to improve durability and beauty. Such surfaces as gold, silver, stainless steel, palladium, ...
platinum: (Pt), chemical element, the best known and most widely used of the six platinum metals of Group VIII, Period 6, of the periodic table. A very heavy, precious, silver-white metal, ...
platinum group: six metals, in order of increasing atomic weight, ruthenium (Ru), rhodium (Rh), palladium (Pd), osmium (Os), iridium (Ir), and platinum (Pt). The elements all possess a silvery white colour-except osmium, ...
Plato: ancient Greek philosopher, the second of the great trio of ancient Greeks-Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle-who between them laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture. Building on the life and thought ...
Platonic Academy: a group of scholars in mid-15th-century Florence who met under the leadership of the outstanding translator and promulgator of Platonic philosophy Marsilio Ficino (q.v.), to study and discuss philosophy and ...
Platonic solid: any of the five geometric solids whose faces are all identical, regular polygons meeting at the same three-dimensional angles. Also known as the five regular polyhedra, they consist of the ...
Platonism: any philosophy that derives its ultimate inspiration from Plato. Though there was in antiquity a tradition about Plato's "unwritten doctrines" (much discussed by German scholars since 1959), Platonism then and ...
Platonov, Sergey Fyodorovich: leading Russian historian of the early 20th century.
platoon: principal subdivision of a military company, battery, or troop. Usually commanded by a lieutenant, it consists of from 25 to 50 men organized into two or more sections, or squads, ...
Platt Amendment: rider appended to the U.S. Army appropriations bill of March 1901, stipulating the conditions for withdrawal of U.S. troops remaining in Cuba since the Spanish-American War, and molding fundamental Cuban-U.S. ...
Platt, Orville Hitchcock: U.S. senator from Connecticut (1879-1905) who introduced the Platt Amendment (q.v.), which became the basis for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Cuba following the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Platt, Thomas Collier: U.S. representative and senator from New York, who unwillingly furthered the rise to the U.S. presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (whom he called "a perfect bull in a china shop").
Platte River: river formed at the city of North Platte, Neb., U.S., by the confluence of the North Platte and South Platte rivers. The Platte proper is 310 miles (500 km) long, ...
Platter, Thomas: Swiss writer and humanist known for his autobiography.
Platters, the: American vocal ensemble, one of the foremost singing groups of the early days of rock and roll and also often associated with the doo-wop style. The principal members were Tony ...
Plattsburgh: city, seat (1788) of Clinton county, northeastern New York, U.S., on the west shore of Lake Champlain, at the mouth of the Saranac River, 60 miles (97 km) south of ...
Plattsmouth: city, seat (1855) of Cass county, eastern Nebraska, U.S., near the confluence of the Platte and Missouri rivers. Founded in 1854, it developed as a trading post, stagecoach stop, and ...
platy: (species Xiphophorus maculatus), popular tropical aquarium fish of the live-bearer family, Poeciliidae (order Atheriniformes). The platy is a compact fish, about 5 cm (2 inches) long and extremely variable in ...
Platyceras: genus of extinct gastropods (snails) that occurs as fossils in rocks of Silurian to Permian age (438 to 245 million years ago). Its distinctive shape is easily recognized. The caplike ...
Platycrinites: genus of extinct crinoids, or sea lilies, especially characteristic as fossils of Early Carboniferous marine deposits (360 to 320 million years ago). Platycrinites, of moderate size, had a columnar stem ...
platypus: a small amphibious Australian mammal noted for its odd combination of primitive features and special adaptations, especially the flat, almost comical bill that early observers thought was that of a ...
Platystrophia: genus of extinct brachiopods (lamp shells) occurring as fossils in marine rocks of the Middle Ordovician epoch to about the middle of the Silurian period (i.e., from about 478 to ...
Plauen: city, Saxony Land (state), east-central Germany, on the slopes of the Weisse Elster River valley, in the Vogtland. Chartered in 1220, it is the centre of the Vogtland region, which ...
Plautus: great Roman comic dramatist, whose works, loosely adapted from Greek plays, established a truly Roman drama in the Latin language.
play: in zoology, behaviour performed in the absence of normal stimuli or behaviour elicited by normal stimuli but not followed to the completion of the ritualized behaviour pattern. Play has been ...
playa: flat-bottom depression found in interior desert basins and adjacent to coasts within arid and semiarid regions, periodically covered by water that slowly filtrates into the ground water system or evaporates ...
player piano: a piano that mechanically plays music recorded by means, usually, of perforations on a paper roll or digital memory on a computer disc.
Player, Gary: South African who was one of the world's best professional golfers in the post-World War II era. He was the third man (after Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan, both of ...
Playford, John: English music publisher and bookseller whose popular and frequently expanded collection of music and dance steps remains the principal source of knowledge of English country dance steps and melodies. His ...
playground: controlled setting for children's play. This institutionalized environment consists of a planned, enclosed space with play equipment that encourages children's motor development.
playing card: one of a set of cards that are numbered or illustrated (or both) and are used for playing games, for education, for divination, and for conjuring. Modern cards are divided ...
Playing Cards, Master of the: anonymous German artist who is one of the most important of the early engravers in the Rhineland. He is known for a set of playing cards (60 remain) that are ...
pleached alley: garden path, on each side of which living branches have been intertwined in such a way that a wall of self-supporting living foliage has grown up. To treat each side ...
pleading: in law, written presentation by a litigant in a lawsuit setting forth the facts upon which he claims legal relief or challenges the claims of his opponent. A pleading includes ...
pleasing fungus beetle: any member of any of the more than 1,400 species of the insect family Erotylidae (order Coleoptera). Some bore into the stems of plants or wood rather than feed on ...
plebeian: member of the general citizenry in ancient Rome as opposed to the privileged patrician class. The distinction was probably originally based on the wealth and influence of certain families who ...
plebiscite: a vote by the people of an entire country or district to decide on some issue, such as choice of a ruler or government, option for independence or annexation by ...
Plectoceras: extinct genus of small marine nautiloid cephalopods, forms related to the modern pearly nautilus, that had a coiled shell composed of a series of chambers; Plectoceras was active in the ...
Plectomycetes: name often given fungi constituting a series of the class Ascomycetes (sac fungi) within the division Mycota. Its more than 2,500 species produce saclike structures (asci) containing ascospores in either ...
Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America: pledge to the flag of the United States. It was first published in the juvenile periodical The Youth's Companion on September 8, 1892, in the following form: ...
Plehve, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich: Russian imperial statesman whose efforts to uphold autocratic principle, a police-bureaucratic government, and class privilege resulted in the suppression of revolutionary and liberal movements as well as minority nationality groups ...
Pleiade, La: group of seven French writers of the 16th century, led by Pierre de Ronsard, whose aim was to elevate the French language to the level of the classical tongues as ...
Pleiades: in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all fell in love with gods (except ...
Pleiades: (catalog number M45), open cluster of stars in the zodiacal constellation Taurus, about 400 light-years from the solar system. It contains a large amount of bright nebulous material and several ...
Pleiku: town, central Vietnam, located in the central highlands. The town has a hospital, a commercial airfield, and several airbases that are a legacy of its strategic importance during the later ...
plein-air painting: in its strictest sense, the practice of painting landscape pictures out-of-doors; more loosely, the achievement of an intense impression of the open air (French: plein air) in ...
Pleione: star in the Pleiades, thought to be typical of the shell stars, so called because in their rapid rotation they throw off shells of gas. In 1938 sudden changes in ...
Pleistocene Epoch: earlier and major of the two epochs that constitute the Quaternary Period of the Earth's history, and the time period during which a succession of glacial and interglacial climatic cycles ...
Pleistocene Series: worldwide division of rocks deposited during the Pleistocene Epoch (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago). It overlies rocks from the Pliocene Epoch (5.3 to 1.6 million years ago) and is itself ...
Plekhanov, Georgy Valentinovich: Marxist theorist, the founder and for many years the leading exponent of the Marxist movement in Russia. A Menshevik, he opposed the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917 ...
Plenty, Bay of: bay of the South Pacific Ocean, eastern North Island, New Zealand. About 100 miles (160 km) wide, it extends along a narrow lowland strip from Waihi Beach eastward to Opotiki. ...
pleochroism: (from Greek pleion, "more," and chros, "colour"), in optics, the selective absorption in crystals of light vibrating in different planes. Pleochroism is the general term for both dichroism, which is ...
pleomorphism: the existence of irregular and variant forms in the same species or strain of microorganisms, a condition analogous to polymorphism in higher organisms. Pleomorphism is particularly prevalent in certain groups ...
plesiosaur: any of a group of long-necked marine reptiles found as fossils from the Late Triassic Period into the Late Cretaceous Period (215 million to 80 million years ago). Plesiosaurs had ...
Plessner, Helmuth: German philosopher credited with establishing European philosophical anthropology, the study of the nature of individuals through their experiences. In his theory of existence based on a balance between an "inner" ...
Plessy v. Ferguson: case in which, on May 18, 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court, by an eight-to-one majority, advanced the controversial "separate but equal" doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. ...
pleura: membrane lining the thoracic cavity (parietal pleura) and covering the lungs (visceral pleura). The parietal pleura folds back on itself at the root of the lung to become the visceral ...
pleurisy: inflammation of the pleura, the membrane that lines the thoracic cavity and folds in to cover the lungs. The inflamed membrane exudes varying quantities of fluid into the pleural cavity, ...
Pleurococcus: genus of green algae. Several other algae and a number of lichens are also popularly called "mosses" (e.g. Irish moss, oak moss), as are all members of the plant class ...
pleurodynia: viral (coxsackie B) epidemic disease with an incubation period of two to four days, marked by a brief fever, severe chest and lower back pain aggravated by deep breathing and ...
Pleuromeia: a genus of extinct club mosses, order Pleuromeiales (class Lycopsida). It represents a curious line of small, treelike Late Triassic Period (from 230 to 208 million years ago) lycopsids, perhaps ...
pleuronectiform: any member of the order Pleuronectiformes, which includes about 600 species of bony, oval-shaped, flattened fishes such as the flounder, halibut, and turbot. The pleuronectiforms are unique among fishes in ...
pleuropneumonia: lung disease of cattle and sheep, characterized by inflammation of the lungs and caused by the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides. Fever, thirst, loss of appetite, and difficult breathing are signs of ...
Pleurothallis: genus of more than 1,000 species of tropical American orchids, family Orchidaceae, that grow on other plants and range greatly in size. The flowers may be solitary or borne on ...
Pleven: town, northern Bulgaria. It lies a few miles east of the Vit River, which is a tributary of the Danube. At one time a Thracian settlement called Storgosia, the town ...
Pleven, Rene: French politician, twice premier of the Fourth Republic (1950-51, 1951-52), who is best known for his sponsorship of the Pleven Plan for a unified European army. His efforts spurred the ...
Pleven, Siege of: (July 20-Dec. 10, 1877), in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the Russian siege of the Turkish-held Bulgarian town of Pleven (Russian: Plevna). Four battles were fought, three being repulses of ...