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Sabratha ... safe-conduct

Sabratha: western-most of the three cities of ancient Tripolis, located near the modern town of Sabratah, west of Tripoli, in Libya. Founded by the Carthaginians as a trading post, it was ...
sabre: heavy military sword with a long cutting edge and, often, a curved blade, derived from a Hungarian cavalry sword introduced from the Orient in the 18th century; also a light ...
sabre-toothed cat: any of the extinct carnivores forming the subfamily Machairodontinae of the cat family, Felidae. Sabre-toothed cats are named for the pair of elongated, bladelike canine teeth they possessed in the ...
Sabzevari, 'Abd al-A'la al-Musawi al-: Iranian-born cleric who, from 1992 to 1993, was the grand ayatollah in the Islamic holy city of Al-Najaf and, thus, spiritual leader to millions of Iraqi Shi'ites.
Sabzevari, Hajji Hadi: Iranian teacher and philosopher who advanced the hikmah (wisdom) school of Islamic philosophy. His doctrines-composed of diverse elements of gnosis (esoteric spiritual knowledge), philosophy, and revelation-are an exposition and clarification ...
sac spider: any member of the family Clubionidae (order Araneida), a relatively common, widespread group. Sac spiders range in body length from 3 to 15 mm (about 0.12 to 0.6 inch) and ...
Sacagawea: Shoshone Indian woman who, as interpreter, traveled thousands of wilderness miles with the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-06), from the Mandan-Hidatsa villages in the Dakotas to the Pacific Northwest.
Sacasa, Juan Bautista: Nicaraguan statesman who served as his country's president in 1932-36.
saccharin: organic compound employed as a non-nutritive sweetening agent. It occurs as insoluble saccharin or in the form of various salts, primarily sodium and calcium. Saccharin has about 200-700 times the ...
Saccharomyces: genus of yeasts belonging to the family Endomycetales. An outstanding characteristic of members of Saccharomyces is their ability to convert sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol by means of enzymes. ...
Sacchetti, Franco: Italian poet and storyteller whose work is typical of late 14th-century Florentine literature.
Sacchi, Andrea: Italian painter, the chief Italian representative of the Classical style in the 17th-century painting of Rome.
Sacco-Vanzetti case: controversial murder trial in Massachusetts, U.S., extending over seven years, 1920-27, and resulting in the execution of the defendants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Saccopastore skulls: two Neanderthal fossils found in 1929 and 1935 in a river deposit on the bank of a small tributary of the Tiber River outside Rome. The skulls, which represent an ...
Sacheverell, Henry: English preacher, a fanatical High Church Anglican whose impeachment by the Whigs enabled the Tories to win control of the government in 1710. Although he was an undistinguished, somewhat ludicrous ...
Sachs, Curt: eminent German musicologist, teacher, and authority on musical instruments.
Sachs, Hans: German burgher, meistersinger, and poet who was outstanding for his popularity, output, and aesthetic and religious influence. He is idealized in Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
Sachs, Julius von: German botanist whose work on nutrition, tropism, and transpiration of water greatly advanced the knowledge of plant physiology during the second half of the 19th century.
Sachs, Nelly: German poet and dramatist who was transformed by the Nazi experience from a dilettante into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. When, with Shmuel ...
Sachsenhausen: one of the major Nazi German concentration camps, located at the edge of Oranienburg, 21 miles (34 km) northwest of Berlin. Sachsenhausen was established in 1936 as the northern German ...
Sachsenspiegel: the most important of the medieval compilations of Saxon customary law. Collected in the early 13th century by Eike von Repgow (also spelled Repkow, Repchow, or Repgau), a knight and ...
sackbut: (from Old French saqueboute: "pull-push"), early trombone, invented in the 15th century, probably in Burgundy. It has thicker walls than the modern trombone, imparting a softer tone, and its bell ...
Sackler, Arthur M.: American physician, medical publisher, and art collector who made large donations of money and art to universities and museums.
Sackville: town, Westmorland county, southeastern New Brunswick, Canada. It lies near the Nova Scotia border, 27 miles (43 km) southeast of Moncton. Three French villages occupied the site about 1720, but ...
Sackville, George Sackville-Germain, 1st Viscount, Baron Bolebrooke of Sussex: English soldier and politician. He was dismissed from the British army for his failure to obey orders in the Battle of Minden (1759) during the Seven Years' War. As colonial ...
Sackville, Thomas, 1st Earl of Dorset: English statesman, poet, and dramatist, remembered largely for his share in two achievements of significance in the development of Elizabethan poetry and drama: the collection A Myrrour for Magistrates (1563) ...
Sackville-West, V: married name Victoria Mary Nicolson English novelist and poet who wrote chiefly about the Kentish countryside, where she spent most of her life.
Saco: city, York county, southwestern Maine, U.S., at the mouth of the Saco River opposite Biddeford. Founded with Biddeford in 1631 as a single plantation, it was the seat of Sir ...
sacra rappresentazione: (Italian: "holy performance"), in theatre, 15th-century Italian ecclesiastical drama similar to the mystery plays of France and England and the auto sacramental of Spain. Originating and flourishing in Florence, these ...
sacrament: religious sign or symbol, especially associated with Christian churches, in which a sacred or spiritual power is believed to be transmitted through material elements viewed as channels of divine grace.
Sacramento: city, capital of California, U.S., and seat (1850) of Sacramento county, in the north-central part of the state. It is situated in the Sacramento Valley (the northern portion of the ...
Sacramento Mountains: segment of the southern Rockies, extending southward for 160 mi (260 km) from Ancho, in south central New Mexico, into Culberson County, western Texas, U.S. They include the Sierra Blanca ...
Sacramento River: river rising in the Klamath Mountains, near Mount Shasta (in Siskiyou county), northern California, U.S. The river flows 382 miles (615 km) south-southwest between the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges, ...
sacred: the power, being, or realm understood by religious persons to be at the core of existence and to have a transformative effect on their lives and destinies. Other terms, such ...
sacred clown: ritual or ceremonial figure, in various preliterate and ancient cultures throughout the world, who represents a reversal of the normal order, an opening to the chaos that preceded creation, especially ...
sacred cow: English-language formulation of the Hindu principle of the sanctity of all life, including animal life and especially that of the cow, which is accorded veneration. See cow, sanctity of the.
Sacred Heart: in the Roman Catholic Church, the physical heart of Jesus as an object of devotion. The use of Jesus' heart to symbolize his love for men is not found in ...
Sacred Heart, Society of the: (R.S.C.J.), a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women devoted to the education of girls, founded in France in 1800 by Madeleine Sophie Barat. Joseph Varin, a leader in the religious ...
sacred kingship: religious and political concept by which a ruler is seen as an incarnation, manifestation, mediator, or agent of the sacred or holy (the transcendent or supernatural realm). The concept originated ...
sacred pipe: one of the central ceremonial objects of American Indian culture. Though smoked for relaxation, it was primarily an object of profound veneration and smoked on all ceremonial occasions. Because of ...
sacrifice: a religious rite in which an object is offered to a divinity in order to establish, maintain, or restore a right relationship of a human being to the sacred order. ...
sacrilege: originally, the theft of something sacred; as early as the 1st century BC, however, the Latin term for sacrilege came to mean any injury, violation, or profanation of sacred things. ...
sacristan: a sexton (q.v.) or, more commonly, the officer of the church in charge of the sacristy and its contents, such as the sacred vessels and vestments. The person may be ...
sacristy: in architecture, room in a Christian church in which vestments and sacred objects used in the services are stored and in which the clergy and sometimes the altar boys and ...
sacroiliac: weight-bearing synovial joint that articulates, or connects, the hip bone with the the sacrum at the base of the spinal column. Strong ligaments around the joint help to stabilize it ...
sacrum: wedge-shaped triangular bone at the base of the vertebral column, above the caudal (tail) vertebrae, or coccyx, that articulates (connects) with the pelvic girdle. In humans it is usually composed ...
Sada: city, northwestern Algeria, on the southern slopes of the Tell Atlas and the northern fringe of the High Plateaus (Hauts Plateaux). The city's site has been of military importance since ...
Sadat, Madinat as-: industrial city, in al-Buhayrah muhafazah (governorate), between Wadi an-Natrun and the western edge of the Nile delta, Lower Egypt. Construction on Madinat as-Sadat (named for President Anwar el-Sadat) began in ...
Saddam Hussein: president of Iraq (1979-2003), whose brutal rule was marked by costly and unsuccessful wars against neighbouring countries.
saddha: in Buddhism, the initial acceptance of the Buddha's teachings, prior to the acquisition of right understanding and right thought. Buddhism does not rely on supernatural authority or the word of ...
saddle: seat for a rider on the back of an animal, most commonly a horse or pony. Horses were long ridden bareback or with simple cloths or blankets, but the development ...
saddle bronc-riding: rodeo event in which a cowboy tries to ride a bucking horse (bronco) for a specified time (usually 8 or 10 seconds). The horse is equipped with saddle, stirrups, and ...
saddleback: (Creadion, sometimes Philesturnus, carunculatus), rare songbird of the family Callaeidae (q.v.; order Passeriformes), which survives on a few small islands off New Zealand. Its 25-centimetre (10-inch) body is black except ...
Sadducee: member of a Jewish priestly sect that flourished for about two centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in AD 70. Not much is known with certainty ...
Sade, Marquis de: French nobleman whose perverse sexual preferences and erotic writings gave rise to the term sadism. His best-known work is the novel Justine (1791).
Sadeddin, Hoca: Turkish historian, the author of the renowned Tac ut-tevarih ("Crown of Histories"), which covers the period from the origins of the Ottoman Empire to the end of the reign of ...
Sadeler, Egidius, II: Flemish engraver, print dealer, and painter, most noted for his reproduction engravings of Renaissance and Mannerist paintings.
sadhana: ("realization"), in Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism, spiritual exercise by which the practitioner evokes a divinity, identifying and absorbing it into himself-the primary form of meditation in the Tantric Buddhism of ...
sadhu and swami: in India, religious or holy men. Sadhu signifies any religious ascetic or holy man. The class of sadhus includes not only genuine saints of many faiths but also men (and ...
sadism: psychosexual disorder in which sexual urges are gratified by the infliction of pain on another person. The term was coined by the late 19th-century German psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in ...
Sadji, Abdoulaye: Senegalese writer and teacher who was one of the founders of African prose fiction in French. Sadji was the son of a marabout (Muslim holy man) and attended Qur'anic school ...
Sadki Na grades: (1454), rules of land tenure established in Thailand by King Trailok of Ayutthaya (1448-88) to regulate the amount of land a man could own.
Sadler, Michael Thomas: radical politician, philanthropic businessman, and leader of the factory reform movement in England, who was a forerunner of the reformers from the working class whose activities (from the late 1830s) ...
Sadler, Sir Michael Ernest: world-renowned authority on secondary education and a champion of the English public school system.
Sado: island, western Niigata ken (prefecture), central Japan, in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), 32 miles (51 km) west of Honshu. It faces Niigata, the prefectural capital, ...
Sadovsky, Prov: Russian character actor and patriarch of a three-generation theatrical family. He is regarded as the greatest interpreter of Aleksandr Ostrovsky's plays and was responsible, in part, for securing Ostrovsky's reputation.
Sadr Diwani 'Adalat: in Mughal and British India, a high court of civil and revenue jurisdiction. It was instituted by Warren Hastings, the British governor general, in 1772. It sat in Calcutta and ...
Saemundr Frode Sigfusson: Icelandic chieftain-priest and first chronicler of Iceland.
Saenredam, Pieter Jansz: painter, pioneer of the "church portrait," and the first Dutch artist to abandon the tradition of fanciful architectural painting in favour of a new realism in the rendering of specific ...
Saenz Pena, Roque: president of Argentina from 1910 until his death, an aristocratic conservative who wisely responded to popular demand for electoral reform. Universal and compulsory male suffrage from age 18 by secret ...
Saenz, Manuela: mistress to the South American liberator Simon Bolivar, whose revolutionary activities she shared.
Safaqis: major port town, east-central Tunisia on the northern shore of the Gulf of Gabes. Built on the site of two small settlements of antiquity, Taparura and Thaenae, the town grew ...
Safarik, Pavel Josef: leading figure of the Czech national revival and a pioneer of Slavonic philology and archaeology.
Safavid Dynasty: (1502-1736), Iranian dynasty whose establishment of Shi'ite Islam as the state religion of Iran was a major factor in the emergence of a unified national consciousness among the various ethnic ...
Safdie, Moshe: Canadian-Israeli architect who designed Habitat '67 at the site of Expo 67, a year-long international exhibition at Montreal. Habitat '67 was a prefabricated concrete housing complex comprising three clusters of ...
safe-conduct: procedure by which a person is permitted to enter or leave a jurisdiction in which he would normally be subject to arrest, detention, or other deprivation. Historically, the habit of ...