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Raynaud's disease ... reciprocity
Raynaud's disease
disease, occurring primarily in young women, in which spasms in the arteries to the fingers cause the fingertips of both hands to become first pale and then cyanotic-bluish-upon exposure to ...
Raynouard, Francois-Juste-Marie
French dramatist and Romance philologist who also played a part in the politics of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods.
rayon
any man-made textile fibre produced from the plant substance cellulose. Developed in an attempt to produce silk chemically, the fibre was originally known by such terms as artificial silk and ...
Rayong
town, southern Thailand. It lies southeast of Bangkok, on the northeastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand. Rayong is a fishing port and produces tapioca from locally grown cassava. Cassava, ...
Rayonism
Russian art movement founded by Mikhail F. Larionov, representing one of the first steps toward the development of abstract art in Russia. Larionov exhibited one of the first Rayonist works, ...
Raytheon Company
major American industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in corporate and special-mission aircraft, defense systems, and defense and commercial electronics. It is the third largest defense contractor in the United ...
Rayy
formerly one of the great cities of Iran. The remains of the ancient city lie on the eastern outskirts of the modern city of Shahr-e-Rey, which itself is located just ...
Rayy ware
in Islamic ceramics, style of pottery found at Rayy, near Tehran, and dating from the 12th century. Particularly characteristic is a fine minai (a kind of enamel) ...
Razgrad
town, northeastern Bulgaria, on the Beli Lom River. It is the largest producer of antibiotics in Bulgaria and also manufactures concrete, porcelain, and glass and is an agricultural centre for ...
Razi, ar-
celebrated alchemist and Muslim philosopher who is also considered to have been the greatest physician of the Islamic world.
Razin, Stenka
leader of a major Cossack and peasant rebellion on Russia's southeastern frontier (1670-71).
Razmara, Ali
Iranian army officer and government official who was prime minister of Iran from 1950 to 1951.
razor
keen-edged cutting implement for shaving or cutting hair. Prehistoric cave drawings show that clam shells, shark's teeth, and sharpened flints were used as shaving implements, and flints are still in ...
razor clam
any of the species of marine bivalve mollusks of the family Solenidae. In England the species of the genera Ensis and Solen are called razor shells. The Solenidae are common ...
razor-billed auk
(Alca torda), black and white seabird of the North Atlantic, bearing a sharp, heavy, compressed beak. About 40 cm (16 inches) long, it is the largest living member of the ...
RCA Corporation
major American electronics and broadcasting conglomerate that is a unit of General Electric Company. Among its subsidiaries is the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Headquarters are in New York City.
RDX
powerful explosive, discovered by Georg Friedrich Henning of Germany and patented in 1898 but not used until World War II, when most of the warring powers introduced it. Relatively safe ...
Re
in ancient Egyptian religion, god of the sun and creator god. He was believed to travel across the sky in his solar bark and, during the night, to make his ...
Re Island
island in the Bay of Biscay, Charente-Maritime departement, off the west coast of France, opposite La Pallice and La Rochelle. It was for long separated from the mainland by the ...
REA Express, Inc.
American company that at one time operated the nation's largest ground and air express services, transporting parcels, money, and goods, with pickup and delivery.
reactance
in electricity, measure of the opposition that a circuit or a part of a circuit presents to electric current insofar as the current is varying or alternating. Steady electric currents ...
reaction rate
the speed, or velocity, at which a chemical reaction proceeds, expressed in terms of the amount of a product formed per unit time or the amount of a reactant used ...
reaction, heat of
the amount of heat that must be added or removed during a chemical reaction in order to keep all of the substances present at the same temperature. If the pressure ...
reactive dye
any of a class of highly coloured organic substances, primarily used for tinting textiles, that attach themselves to their substrates by a chemical reaction that forms a covalent bond between ...
reactor
in chemical engineering, device or vessel within which chemical processes are carried out for experimental or manufacturing purposes.
Read, Opie
American journalist, humorist, novelist, and lecturer. Read specialized in the homespun humour of life in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas; Southern colonels, blacks, and drunken printers are frequently found in his ...
Read, Sir Herbert
poet and critic who was the chief British advocate and interpreter of modern art movements from the 1930s to the '60s. His critical scrutiny embraced society, art, and literature from ...
Reade, Charles
English author whose novels expose, with passionate indignation, the social injustices of his times. His greatest work, however, The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), a brilliant historical romance, relates the ...
Reader's Digest
U.S.-based monthly magazine, having probably the largest circulation of any periodical in the world. It was first published in 1922 as a digest of condensed articles of topical interest and ...
readerly and writerly
opposite types of literary text, as defined by the French critic Roland Barthes in his book S/Z (1970). Barthes used the terms lisible ("readerly") and scriptible ("writerly") to distinguish, respectively, ...
Reading
town and unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Berkshire, southern England, 38 miles (61 km) west of London. It is an important junction of railways running west from London ...
Reading
city, seat (1752) of Berks county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., on the Schuylkill River, 51 miles (82 km) northwest of Philadelphia. Laid out in 1748 by Nicholas Scull and William Parsons ...
Reading Company
American railroad in Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware, absorbed into the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in 1976. At its peak in the first half of the 20th century, it was ...
Reading, Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of, Earl Of Reading, Viscount Erleigh Of Erleigh, Viscount Reading Of Erleigh, Baron Reading Of Erleigh
politician, lord chief justice of England, and diplomat.
ready-made
everyday object selected and designated as art; the name was coined by the French artist Marcel Duchamp.
Reagan, Nancy
American first lady (1981-89), the wife of Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, and an actress, noted for her efforts to discourage drug use by American youths.
Reagan, Ronald W.
40th president of the United States (1981-89), noted for his conservative Republicanism, his fervent anticommunism, and his appealing personal style, characterized by a jaunty affability and folksy charm. The only ...
reagin
type of antibody found in the serum and skin of allergically hypersensitive persons and in smaller amounts in the serum of normally sensitive persons. Most reaginic antibodies are the immunoglobulin ...
Reagon, Bernice Johnson
African American musician and historian whose work ranged from African spirituals to militant civil rights anthems.
real
monetary unit of Brazil. Each real (plural: reais) is divided into 100 centavos. The Central Bank of Brazil (Banco Central do Brasil) has the exclusive authority to issue banknotes and ...
real and personal property
a basic division of property in English common law, roughly corresponding to the division between immovables and movables in civil law. At common law most interests in land and fixtures ...
Real Cuerpo de Mineria
(Spanish: "Royal Mining Company"), guild of mine owners in the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The guild was set up by royal decree in 1777 in the Viceroyalty of New ...
real number
in mathematics, a quantity that can be expressed as an infinite decimal expansion. Real numbers are used in measurements of continuously varying quantities such as size and time, in contrast ...
real tennis
racket sport that is descended from and almost identical to the medieval tennis game jeu de paume ("game of the palm"). Real tennis has been played since the Middle Ages, ...
Real, Cordillera
major mountain system, the easternmost of the two in Bolivia. It extends generally north-south for about 750 miles (1,200 km) through the length of the country. The Cordillera Real separates ...
realgar
an important ore of arsenic, a red or orange mineral containing both arsenic and sulfur. Typically it is a minor constituent of ore veins in association with orpiment (into which ...
Realism
in philosophy, the viewpoint that accords to the objects of knowledge an existence that is independent of whether anyone is perceiving or thinking about them. Though it may seem strange ...
realism
in the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances. As such, realism ...
realschule
German secondary school with an emphasis on the practical that evolved in the mid-18th century as a six-year alternative to the nine-year gymnasium. It was distinguished by its practical curriculum ...
Ream, Vinnie
American sculptor, who is best remembered for her sculpture of Abraham Lincoln in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
reamer
rotary cutting tool of cylindrical or conical shape used for enlarging and finishing to accurate dimensions holes that have been drilled, bored, or cored. A reamer cannot be used to ...
Reaney, James Crerar
Canadian poet and playwright whose works, dealing with Ontario small-town life, transcend their manifest content to move into areas of symbol and dream.
reanimation rite
in Egyptian religion, rite to prepare the deceased for afterlife, performed on statues of the deceased, the mummy itself, or statues of a god located in a temple. An important ...
reaper
any farm machine that cuts grain. Early reapers simply cut the crop and dropped it unbound, but modern machines include harvesters, combines, and binders, which also perform other harvesting operations. ...
reason
in philosophy, the faculty or process of drawing logical inferences. The term "reason" is also used in several other, narrower senses. Reason is in opposition to sensation, perception, feeling, desire, ...
Reaumur temperature scale
scale established in 1730 by the French naturalist Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), with its zero set at the freezing point of water and its 80° mark at the boiling ...
Reaumur, Rene-Antoine Ferchault de
French scientist and foremost entomologist of the early 18th century who conducted research in widely varied fields.
rebate
retroactive refund or credit given to a buyer after he has paid the full list price for a product or for a service such as transportation. Rebating was a common ...
rebec
bowed, stringed musical instrument of European medieval and early Renaissance music. It was originally called a rubebe, developed about the 11th century from the similar Arab rabab, and was carried ...
Rebecca Riots
disturbances that occurred briefly in 1839 and with greater violence from 1842 to 1844 in southwestern Wales. The rioting was in protest against charges at the tollgates on the public ...
Rebelo, Jorge
African poet, lawyer, and journalist.
Reber, Grote
U.S. astronomer and radio engineer who built the first radio telescope and was largely responsible for the early development of radio astronomy, which opened an entirely new research front in ...
Rebmann, Johannes
German missionary and explorer, the first European to penetrate Africa from its Indian Ocean coast. Rebmann and his associate, Johann Ludwig Krapf, also were the discoverers of Kilimanjaro and Mt. ...
rebus
representation of a word or syllable by a picture of an object the name of which resembles in sound the represented word or syllable. Several rebuses may be combined-in a ...
recall
in psychology, the spontaneous remembering or repetition of something learned earlier, such as a poem, the image of an old friend, or a free association of words, ideas, and images. ...
Recamier, Julie, dame de
French hostess of great charm and wit whose salon attracted most of the important political and literary figures of early 19th-century Paris.
receivership
in law, the judicial appointment of a person, a receiver, to collect and conserve certain assets and to make distributions in accordance with judicial authorization. A receivership is properly an ...
receptor
in biology, a specialized cell or group of cells that translates a certain type of stimulus, received from the environment or from within the organism, into nerve impulses that aid ...
recession
in economics, a downward trend in the business cycle characterized by a decline in production and employment, which in turn causes the incomes and spending of households to decline. Even ...
recessiveness
in genetics, the failure of one of a pair of genes (alleles) present in an individual to express itself in an observable manner because of the greater influence, or dominance, ...
Rechabite
member of a conservative, ascetic Israelite sect that was named for Rechab, the father of Jehonadab. Jehonadab was an ally of Jehu, a 9th-century-BC king of Israel, and a zealous ...
Rechitsa
city and centre of Rechitsa rayon (sector), Gomel oblast (province), Belarus, a port on the Dnieper River. The city dates from at least the 12th century, and it became an ...
Rechy, John
American novelist whose semiautobiographical works explore the worlds of sexual and social outsiders and occasionally draw on his Mexican-American heritage.
recidivism
tendency toward chronic criminal behaviour leading to numerous arrests and re-imprisonment. Studies of the yearly intake of prisons, reformatories, and jails in the United States and Europe show that from ...
Recife
capital of Pernambuco state, northeastern Brazil, and centre of an area that includes several industrial towns. It is an Atlantic seaport located at the confluence of the Capibaribe and Beberibe ...
reciprocity
in international trade, the granting of mutual concessions in tariff rates, quotas, or other commercial restrictions. Reciprocity implies that these concessions are neither intended nor expected to be generalized to ...