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pale ... Palmela, Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Duke de

pale: (from Latin palus, "stake"), district separated from the surrounding country by defined boundaries or distinguished by a different administrative and legal system. It is this definition of pale from which ...
Palembang: kotamadya (municipality) and capital, Sumatera Selatan provinsi ("province"), Indonesia. It lies on both banks of the Musi River, there spanned by the Ampera Bridge. Sumatra's second largest city (after Medan), ...
Palencia: inland provincia, in the Castile-Leon comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), northern Spain. It is bounded by the autonomous community (and province) of Cantabria (north) and by the provinces of Burgos (east), ...
Palencia: capital of Palencia provincia, in the Castile-Leon comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), north-central Spain. It lies on the Campos Plain southwest of Burgos. Called the Pallantia by the ancient Greek geographers ...
Palenque: Indian tribe of northern Venezuela at the time of the Spanish conquest (16th century). The Palenque were closely related to the neighbouring Cumanagoto (q.v.); their language probably belonged to the ...
Palenque: ruined ancient Mayan city of the Late Classic Period (c. AD 600-900) in what is now Chiapas state, Mexico, about 80 miles (130 km) south of Ciudad del Carmen. Its ...
Paleo-Siberian: any member of those peoples of northeastern Siberia who are believed to be remnants of earlier and more extensive populations pushed into this area by later Neosiberians. The Paleo-Siberians include ...
Paleo-Siberian languages: languages spoken in Asian Russia (Siberia) that belong to four genetically unrelated groups-Yeniseian, Luorawetlan, Yukaghir, and Nivkh.
paleoanthropology: interdisciplinary branch of anthropology concerned with the origins and development of early humans. Fossils are assessed by the techniques of physical anthropology, comparative anatomy, and the theory of evolution. Artifacts, ...
Paleocene Epoch: major worldwide division of Early Tertiary rocks and time that began 66.4 million years ago and ended 57.8 million years ago. The earliest division of the Tertiary Period, it precedes ...
paleoclimatology: scientific study of the extended climatic conditions of past geologic ages. Paleoclimatologists seek to explain climate variations for all parts of the Earth during any given geologic period, beginning with ...
Paleogene Period: older of the two stratigraphic divisions of the Cenozoic Era (the Cenozoic Era began about 66.4 million years ago and extends to the present). The Paleogene, whose beginning coincides with ...
paleogeography: the geography of selected portions of the Earth's surface at specific times in the geologic past. This geography consists of interpreted reconstructions, produced in map form, which represent visual summaries ...
paleogeology: the geology of a region at any given time in the distant past. Paleogeologic reconstructions in map form show not only the ancient topography of a region but also the ...
paleography: study of ancient and medieval handwriting. The primary tasks of the paleographer are to read the writings of the past and to assign them a date and a place of ...
paleography: study of ancient and medieval handwriting. The term is derived from the Greek palaios ("old") and graphein ("to write").
paleohydrology: science concerned with hydrologic systems as they existed during previous periods of Earth history. Changing hydrologic conditions are inferred from the evidence of the alteration, deposition, and erosion in rocks ...
Paleolithic Period: ancient cultural stage, or level, of human development, characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools.
Paleologue, Maurice-Georges: French diplomat and writer who encouraged the Franco-Russian alliance before and during World War I.
paleontology: scientific study of life of the geologic past that involves the analysis of plant and animal fossils, including those of microscopic size, preserved in rocks. It is concerned with all ...
Paleozoic Era: major interval of geologic time that began about 540 million years ago with an extraordinary diversification of marine animals and ended about 245 million years ago with the greatest extinction ...
Palermo: city, capital of Palermo provincia and of the island regione of Sicily in Italy. It lies on Sicily's northwestern coast at the head of the Bay of Palermo, facing east. ...
Palermo Stone: one of the basic sources of information about the chronology and cultural history of Egypt during the first five dynasties (c. 2925-c. 2325 BC). Named for the Sicilian city where ...
Pales Matos, Luis: Puerto Rican lyric poet who enriched the vocabulary of Spanish poetry with words, themes, and rhythms of African and Afro-American folklore and dance.
Palestine: area of the eastern Mediterranean region, comprising parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip (along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea) and the West Bank ...
Palestine Liberation Organization: umbrella political organization claiming to represent the world's estimated eight million Palestinians-those Arabs, and their descendants, who lived in mandated Palestine before the creation there of the State of Israel ...
Palestinian Authority: governing body of the emerging Palestinian autonomous regions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip established in 1994 as part of the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation ...
Palestinian Talmud: one of two compilations of Jewish religious teachings and commentary that was transmitted orally for centuries prior to its compilation by Jewish scholars in Palestine. The other such compilation, produced ...
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da: Italian Renaissance composer of more than 105 masses and 250 motets, a master of contrapuntal composition.
Paley, Grace: American short-story writer and poet known for her realistic seriocomic portrayals of working-class New Yorkers and for her political activism.
Paley, William: English Anglican priest, Utilitarian philosopher, and author of influential works on Christianity, ethics, and science, among them the standard exposition in English theology of the teleological argument for the existence ...
Paley, William S.: American broadcaster who served as the Columbia Broadcasting System's president (1928-46), chairman of the board (1946-83), founder chairman (1983-86), acting chairman (1986-87), and chairman (1987-90). For more than half a ...
Palghat: town, central Kerala state, southwestern India. The town lies on the Ponnani River in a break in the Western Ghats range known as the Palghat Gap. Its location has always ...
Palghat Gap: major break in the Western Ghats mountain range, in southwestern India. Located between the Nilgiri Hills (north) and the Anaimalai Hills (south), it is about 20 miles (32 km) wide ...
Palgrave, Francis Turner: English critic and poet, editor of the influential anthology The Golden Treasury.
Pali: town, central Rajasthan state, northwestern India, just north of the Bandi River, a tributary of the Luni. A trade centre in ancient times, Pali is divided into an ancient and ...
Pali language: sacred language of the Theravada Buddhist canon, a Middle Indo-Aryan language of north Indian origin. On the whole, Pali seems closely related to the Old Indo-Aryan Vedic and Sanskrit dialects ...
Pali literature: body of canonical texts and commentaries in the sacred Pali language of Theravada Buddhism. See Tipitaka.
Palime: town, major commercial centre in the Plateaux region, southwestern Togo, western Africa, situated about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Lome, the national capital. The town lies in a mountainous ...
palimpsest: manuscript in roll or codex form carrying a text erased, or partly erased, underneath an apparent additional text. The underlying text is said to be "in palimpsest," and, even though ...
palindrome: word, number, sentence, or verse that reads the same backward or forward. The term derives from the Greek palin dromo ("running back again").
Palio, The: ("Course of the Banner"), festival of medieval origin conducted annually in certain Italian cities and featuring bareback horse races. Best known to foreigners is the Palio of Siena. Horse racing ...
Palisa, Johann: Silesian astronomer best known for his discovery of 120 asteroids. He also prepared two catalogs containing the positions of almost 4,700 stars.
Palisades, The: basalt bluffs 200-540 feet (60-165 metres) high along the west side of the Hudson River, southeastern New York and northeastern New Jersey, U.S. Rising vertically from near the water's edge, ...
Palissy, Bernard: French Huguenot potter and writer, particularly associated with decorated rustic ware, a type of earthenware covered with coloured lead glazes sometimes mistakenly called faience (tin-glazed earthenware).
Palk Strait: inlet of the Bay of Bengal, between southeastern India and northern Sri Lanka and bounded on the south by Pamban Island (India), Adam's (Rama's) Bridge (a chain of shoals), and ...
Palkonda Hills: series of ranges in southern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. The hills trend northwest to southeast and form the central part of the Eastern Ghats. Geologically they are relics of ...
pall-mall: (from Italian pallamaglio, palla, "ball," and maglio, "mallet"), obsolete game of French origin, resembling croquet. An English traveler in France mentions it early in the 17th century, and it was ...
Palladian window: in architecture, three-part window composed of a large, arched central section flanked by two narrower, shorter sections having square tops. This type of window, popular in 17th- and 18th-century English ...
Palladianism: style of architecture based on the writings and buildings of the humanist and theorist from Vicenza, Andrea Palladio (1508-80), perhaps the greatest architect of the latter 16th century and certainly ...
Palladio, Andrea: Italian architect, regarded as the greatest architect of 16th-century northern Italy. His designs for palaces (palazzi) and villas, notably the Villa Rotonda (1550-51) near Vicenza, and his treatise I quattro ...
palladium: (Pd), chemical element, lightest and lowest-melting of the platinum metals of Group VIII of the periodic table, used especially as a catalyst (a substance that speeds up chemical reactions without ...
Palladium: in Greek religion, image of the goddess Pallas (Athena), especially the archaic wooden statue of the goddess that was preserved in the citadel of Troy as a pledge of the ...
Palladius: Galatian monk, bishop, and chronicler whose Lausiac History, an account of early Egyptian and Middle Eastern Christian monasticism, provides the most valuable single source for the origins of Christian asceticism.
Pallas: second largest known asteroid and the second such object to be discovered. It was detected in 1802 by the German astronomer and physician Wilhelm Olbers following the discovery of Ceres, ...
Pallas's cat: (Felis manul), small, long-haired cat (family Felidae) native to deserts and rocky, mountainous regions from Tibet to Siberia. It was named for the naturalist Peter Simon Pallas. The Pallas's cat ...
Pallas, Peter Simon: German naturalist who advanced a theory of mountain formation and, by the age of 15, had outlined new classifications of certain animal groups.
pallasite: any stony iron meteorite containing about 50 percent olivine as well as kamacite, plessite, taenite, and troilite. The olivine is present as single crystals larger than those in any other ...
Pallava Dynasty: early 4th-century to late 9th-century southern Indian line of rulers whose members originated as indigenous subordinates of the Satavahanas in the Deccan, moved into Andhra, and then to Kanci (Kanchipuram ...
Pallenberg, Max: actor, an exponent of the Austrian tradition of extempore farce, whose talents contributed to the evolution of German theatrical practice.
pallium: liturgical vestment worn over the chasuble by the pope, archbishops, and some bishops in the Roman Catholic church. It is bestowed by the pope on archbishops and bishops having metropolitan ...
palm: any member of the Arecaceae, or Palmae, the single family of monocotyledonous flowering plants of the order Arecales, subclass Arecidae.
Palm Bay: city, Brevard county, east-central Florida, U.S. It lies along the Indian River, a lagoon (part of the Intracoastal Waterway) which at that point is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by ...
Palm Beach: town, Palm Beach county, southeastern Florida, U.S., on a narrow barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean (east) and Lake Worth (west). The latter, actually a lagoon (part of the Intracoastal ...
palm chestnut: edible nut of the peach palm (Bactris gasipaes, or in some classifications Guilielma gasipaes), family Arecaceae (Palmae), that is grown extensively from Central America as far south as Ecuador. The ...
Palm Springs: city, Riverside county, southern California, U.S. It lies in the Coachella Valley, at the foot of Mount San Jacinto, which rises to 10,804 feet (3,293 metres). The area originally was ...
Palm Sunday: in the Christian tradition, first day of Holy Week and the Sunday before Easter, commemorating Jesus Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is associated in the Roman Catholic church (and ...
palm-chat: (species Dulus dominicus), songbird of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and nearby Gonave Island, which may belong in the waxwing family (Bombycillidae) but which is usually separated as the ...
Palma: capital of the Balearic Islands comprising Baleares provincia and comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), Spain, in the western Mediterranean Sea. The city lies on the southwestern coast of the island of ...
Palma, Jacopo: Venetian painter of the High Renaissance, noted for the craftsmanship of his religious and mythological works. He may have studied under Giovanni Bellini, the originator of the Venetian High Renaissance ...
Palma, Ricardo: Peruvian writer best known for his collected legends of colonial Peru, one of the most popular collections in Spanish American literature.
Palmares: autonomous republic within Alagoas state in northeastern Brazil during the period 1630-94; it was formed by the coalescence of as many as 10 separate communities (called quilombos, or mocambos) of ...
Palmas: city, capital of Tocantins estado (state), north-central Brazil. It lies at the centre of the state, east of the Tocantins River. When Tocantins state was created in 1989, its provisional ...
Palmdale: city, Los Angeles county, southwestern California, U.S. North of the city of Los Angeles, Palmdale lies at the southern end of Antelope Valley. The area was first settled in the ...
Palme, Olof: prime minister of Sweden (1969-76, 1982-86), prominent leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party (Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetar Partiet), Sweden's oldest continuing party. He became Sweden's best-known international politician.
Palmela, Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Duke de: Portuguese liberal statesman and supporter of Queen Maria II.