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Rankine cycle: in heat engines, ideal cyclical sequence of changes of pressure and temperature of a fluid, such as water, used in an engine, such as a steam engine. It is used ...
Rankine, William John Macquorn: Scottish engineer and physicist and one of the founders of the science of thermodynamics, particularly in reference to steam-engine theory.
Ranks, Table of: (Jan. 24, 1722), classification of grades in the Russian military, naval, and civil services into a hierarchy of 14 categories and the foundation of a system of promotion based on ...
Rannoch: geographic region in the Grampian Mountains of Scotland, composed mainly of moorland and lochs (lakes). The region includes Loch Rannoch, part of the Tummel-Ericht hydroelectric scheme, and, south of the ...
Ranong: town, southern Thailand, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Ranong town is a fishing port in the Pakchan River estuary. Burma lies to the northwest, and there are ...
Ransier, Alonzo J.: black member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina during Reconstruction.
Ransom, John Crowe: American poet and critic, leading theorist of the Southern literary renaissance that began after World War I. Ransom's The New Criticism (1941) provided the name of the influential mid-20th-century school ...
Ransome, Arthur: English writer best known for the Swallows and Amazons series of children's novels (1930-47), which set the pattern for "holiday adventure" stories.
Rantoul: village, Champaign county, east-central Illinois, U.S. It lies about 15 miles (25 km) north of Urbana. Settled with the arrival of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1854, it was named ...
Ranunculaceae: the buttercup family (order Ranunculales), comprising about 1,900 species in some 50 genera of flowering plants, mostly herbs, which are widely distributed in all temperate and subtropical regions. In the ...
Ranunculales: buttercup order of dicotyledonous flowering plants, a division of the subclass Magnoliidae. The order contains 8 families, 167 genera, and about 3,200 species. They range from annual and perennial herbs, ...
Rao, P.V. Narasimha: leader of the Congress (I) Party and prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996.
Rao, Raja: Indian writer of English-language novels and short stories.
Raoult, Francois-Marie: French chemist who formulated a law on solutions (called Raoult's law) that made it possible to determine the molecular weights of dissolved substances.
Rapacki, Adam: Polish socialist and economist who joined the communists after World War II and who, as minister of foreign affairs, was noted for his "Rapacki Plan" for an atom-bomb-free zone in ...
Rapallo: city, Genova provincia, Liguria regione, northwestern Italy, on the Levante Riviera at the head of Rapallo Gulf, southeast of Genoa.
rape: act of sexual intercourse with an individual without his or her consent, through force or the threat of force. In many jurisdictions, the crime of rape has been subsumed under ...
rape: (species Brassica napus), plant of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Europe. Rape is an annual, 30 cm (1 foot) or more tall, with a long, usually thin taproot. Its ...
Raphael: in the Bible and the Qur'an, one of the archangels. In the Old Testament apocryphal Book of Tobit, he is the one who, in human disguise and under the name ...
Raphael: master painter and architect of the Italian High Renaissance. Raphael is best known for his Madonnas (see ) and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican in Rome. His ...
Rapid City: city, seat (1877) of Pennington county, western South Dakota, U.S. It lies at the eastern edge of the Black Hills on Rapid Creek, from which it derived its name.
rapid transit: system of railways, usually electric, that is used for local transit in a metropolitan area. A rapid transit line may run underground (subway), above street level (elevated transit line), or ...
rapier loom: a shuttleless weaving loom in which the filling yarn is carried through the shed of warp yarns to the other side of the loom by fingerlike carriers called rapiers. One ...
Rapier, James T.: black planter and labour organizer who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama during Reconstruction.
RAPP: association formed in the Soviet Union in 1928 out of various groups of proletarian writers who were dedicated to defining a truly proletarian literature and to eliminating writers whose works ...
Rapp, George: German-born American ascetic who founded the Rappites (Harmonists), a Pietist sect that formed communes in the United States.
Rappahannock River: river flowing entirely through Virginia, U.S. It rises near Chester Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains east of Front Royal and flows southeastward past Fredericksburg (head of navigation and of ...
rapparee: any of the Irish nationalists who employed guerrilla methods to resist the English after the regular Irish army had surrendered in the war (1689-91) in Ireland. They were termed rapparees ...
rapporteur: in French civil law, a judge who furnishes a written report on the case at hand to other judges of the court, in which he sets forth the arguments of ...
raptor: in general, any bird of prey; the term raptor is sometimes restricted to birds of the order Falconiformes (hawks, eagles, falcons, and their allies). See bird of prey.
Raqqah ware: Islamic earthenware produced at Ar-Raqqah, Syria, between the 9th and 14th centuries. The body of the ware, which is white tending to buff, is coated with a siliceous glaze. Designs, ...
Raqqah, Ar-: town, northern Syria, on the Euphrates River just west of its confluence with the Balikh River. Ar-Raqqah is on the site of an ancient Greek city, Nicephorium, and a later ...
rare-earth element: any of a large family of chemical elements consisting of scandium (atomic number 21), yttrium (atomic number 39), and 15 elements from lanthanum to lutetium (atomic numbers 57-71). They form ...
rarefaction: in the physics of sound, segment of one cycle of a longitudinal wave during its travel or motion, the other segment being compression. If the prong of a tuning fork ...
Raritan River: largest stream lying wholly within New Jersey, U.S., formed by the confluence of the North Branch Raritan and the South Branch Raritan rivers in western Somerset county. It flows about ...
Rarotonga: largest of the lower Cook Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean, 2,100 miles (3,400 km) northeast of New Zealand. Its area is 26 square miles (67 square km). Volcanic in ...
Ras Algethi: red supergiant star, whose diameter is probably larger than the orbit of the Earth. It lies in the constellation Hercules and is of about third magnitude, its brightness varying. The ...
Ras Tanura: port on the Persian Gulf, in eastern Saudi Arabia, at the tip of a small peninsula. Developed by the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) after the discovery of nearby petroleum ...
rasa: in Sanskrit literature, the concept of aesthetic flavour, or an essential element of any work of art that can only be suggested, not described. It is a kind of contemplative ...
rasbora: (genus Rasbora), any of a group of about 45 species of schooling, freshwater tropical fishes in the carp family, Cyprinidae. Most species are found in Southeast Asia, but a few ...
Rasch, Albertina: Austrian-born American dancer, choreographer, and teacher whose troupes became well known during the 1920s and '30s for their appearances in Broadway musicals and Hollywood films.
Rashi: renowned medieval French commentator on the Bible and Talmud (the authoritative Jewish compendium of law, lore, and commentary). Rashi combined the two basic methods of interpretation, literal and nonliteral, in ...
Rashid ad-Din: leader of the Syrian branch of the Assassins (an Isma'ili Shi'i Muslim sect) at the time of the Third Crusade. He had his headquarters at a fortress in Masyaf, in ...
Rashid ad-Din: Persian statesman and historian who was the author of a universal history, Jami' at-tawarikh.
Rashid Rida: Syrian scholar who helped Muslims formulate an intellectual response to the problem of reconciling their Islamic heritage to the modern world.
Rashid, ar-: founder (1666) of the reigning 'Alawi (Filali) dynasty of Morocco. By force of arms he filled a power vacuum that, with the collapse of the Sa'di dynasty, had allowed half ...
Rashidun: (Arabic: "Rightly Guided," or "Perfect"), the first four caliphs of the Islamic community, known in Muslim history as the orthodox or patriarchal caliphs: Abu Bakr (reigned 632-634), 'Umar (reigned 634-644), ...
Rashnu: in Zoroastrianism, the deity of justice, who with Mithra, the god of truth, and Sraosha, the god of religious obedience, determines the fates of the souls of the dead. Rashnu ...
Rasht: city, north-central Iran. It lies about 15 miles (24 km) south of the Caspian Sea on a branch of the Safid River, where the higher ground merges into the marshlands ...
Rasin, Alois: Czech statesman, one of the founders and first finance minister of the Republic of Czechoslovakia.
Rask, Rasmus: Danish language scholar and a principal founder of the science of comparative linguistics. In 1818 he first showed that, in their consonant sounds, words in the Germanic languages vary with ...
Raskob, John Jakob: American financier who played a major role in the early 20th-century expansion of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and of General Motors Corporation.
Raskol: (Russian: "Schism"), division in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century over reforms in liturgy and forms of worship. Over the centuries, many features of Russian religious practice had ...
raslila: folk dance drama of northern India, mainly Uttar Pradesh, based on scenes from the life of Krishna. Solo and group dancing are combined with singing, chanted recitation, and instrumental accompaniment.
Rasmussen, Halfdan: Danish poet of social protest, as well as an excellent writer of nonsense verse.
Rasmussen, Knud Johan Victor: Danish-Eskimo explorer and ethnologist who, in the course of completing the longest dog-sledge journey to that time, across the American Arctic, made a scientific study of virtually every Eskimo tribe ...
raspberry: fruit-bearing bush of the genus Rubus (family Rosaceae), mentioned by Pliny the Elder as a wild fruit. John Parkinson (Paradisus [1629]) speaks of red, white, and thornless varieties of raspberries; ...
Raspe, Rudolf Erich: German scholar and adventurer best remembered as the author of the popular tall tales The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Rasputin, Grigory Yefimovich: Siberian peasant and mystic whose ability to improve the condition of Aleksey Nikolayevich, the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne, made him an influential favourite at the court of Emperor ...
Rassam, Hormuzd: Assyriologist who excavated some of the finest Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities that are now in the possession of the British Museum and found vast numbers of cuneiform tablets at Nineveh ...
rasse: small Asiatic mammal, a species of civet (q.v.).
Rastafari: religious and political movement, begun in Jamaica in the 1930s and adopted by many groups around the globe, that combines Protestant Christianity, mysticism, and a pan-African political consciousness.
Rastatt and Baden, treaties of: (March 6 and Sept. 7, 1714), peace treaties between the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI and France that ended the emperor's attempt to continue the War of the Spanish Succession ...
Rastell, William: English printer, lawyer, and man of letters. He edited and published the works of his uncle, Thomas More. He also printed the only surviving plays of John Heywood, who married ...
Rastrakuta Dynasty: Hindu dynasty that ruled the Deccan and neighbouring areas of India from c. 755 to 975.
Rasulid Dynasty: Muslim dynasty that ruled Yemen and Hadramawt (1229-1454) after the Ayyubids of Egypt abandoned the southern provinces of the Arabian Peninsula.
rat: the term generally and indiscriminately applied to numerous members of several rodent families having bodies longer than about 12 cm, or 5 inches. (Smaller thin-tailed rodents are just as often ...
Rat Islands: uninhabited group of the Aleutian Islands, southwestern Alaska, U.S. They extend about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of the Near Islands and west of the Andreanof Islands. The largest of ...
rat kangaroo: any of the nine species of Australian and Tasmanian marsupials constituting a subfamily Potoroinae, of the kangaroo family, Macropodidae (see kangaroo). Some authorities recognize a separate family, Potoroidae. They differ ...
rat opossum: any of several South American marsupial mammals of the family Caenolestidae. The seven species, together with opossums (Didelphidae), form the New World section of the superorder Marsupialia. Rat opossums, named ...
rat snake: any of between 40 and 55 species of the genus Elaphe, of the family Colubridae and similar forms. They occur in North America, Europe, and Asia east to the Philippines. ...
rat-bite fever: relapsing type of infection caused by the bacterium Spirillum minus (also called Spirillum minor) and transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected ...
Ratana church: 20th-century religious awakening among the New Zealand Maoris and a national political influence, especially during the period 1943-63, when its members held all four Maori parliamentary seats in the national ...
Ratchaburi: town, western Thailand, west of Bangkok. Prehistoric relics, cave drawings, and old Buddhist temples indicate that the site of Ratchaburi town, on the Mae Klong River, has been inhabited from ...
ratchet: mechanical device that transmits intermittent rotary motion or permits a shaft to rotate in one direction but not in the opposite one. In the the arm A and the ...
ratel: (Mellivora capensis), badgerlike member of the weasel family (Mustelidae) noted for its fondness for honey. Ratels live in covered and forested regions of Africa and southern Asia. The adult stands ...