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tent caterpillar moth ... terrestrial locomotion

tent caterpillar moth: any member of the insect genus Malacosoma of the Lasiocampidae family of moths (order Lepidoptera) that also includes the eggars, named for their egg-shaped cocoons, and the lappets, having lateral ...
tentacle worm: (Thelepus), any of a genus of tube-dwelling segmented worms of the class Polychaeta (phylum Annelida). They are sedentary forms that remain fixed to the sea bottom except as larvae. T. ...
Tenterfield: town, northeastern New South Wales, Australia, in the Northern Tablelands (New England district) of the Eastern Highlands. Founded in 1848 and named after the Scottish homestead of an early settler, ...
tenure: length and conditions of office in civil, judicial, academic, and similar services. Security of tenure, usually granted in the civil service and in academic appointments after a probationary period, is ...
Tenure of Office Act: (March 2, 1867), in the post-Civil War period of U.S. history, law forbidding the president to remove civil officers without senatorial consent. The law was passed over Pres. Andrew Johnson's ...
Tenzing Norgay: Tibetan mountaineer who, with Edmund (later Sir Edmund) Hillary of New Zealand, was the first person to set foot on the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak (29,035 ...
teosinte: (Zea mexicana or Euchlaena mexicana), tall, stout, annual grass of the family Poaceae, native to Mexico. Teosinte is related to corn (maize) and grows in large clumps, with tassels (staminate ...
Teotihuacan: the most important and largest city of pre-Aztec central Mexico, located about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of modern Mexico City. At its apogee (c. AD 500), it encompassed some ...
Tepe Gawra: ancient Mesopotamian settlement east of the Tigris River near Nineveh and the modern city of Mosul, northwestern Iraq. It was excavated from 1931 to 1938 by archaeologists from the University ...
Tepe Yahya: ancient Iranian site located northeast of Dowlatabad in southeastern Iran; it has yielded valuable information on the economic exchange patterns of the 3rd millennium BC. Excavations (1968-70) by the American ...
tepee: tall tent dwelling of the Indians of the American Great Plains. Although it is often thought to be the dwelling used by all North American Indians, only the Plains tribes, ...
Tepehuan: Middle American Indians of southern Chihuahua, southern Durango, and northwestern Jalisco states in northwestern Mexico. The Tepehuan are divided into the Northern Tepehuan, of Chihuahua, and the Southern Tepehuan, of ...
tephrochronology: method of age determination that makes use of layers of ash (tephra). Tephra layers are excellent time-stratigraphic markers, but, to establish a chronology, it is necessary to identify and correlate ...
tephroite: olivine mineral found only in iron-manganese ore deposits and skarns and in metamorphosed manganese-rich sediments, such as those of Cornwall, Eng., and Franklin, N.J., in the United States. Tephroite (manganese ...
Tepic: city, capital of Nayarit estado ("state"), west-central Mexico, lying at 3,002 feet (915 m) above sea level along the Tepic River, at the foot of extinct Sanganguey volcano. Founded in ...
Teplice: city, Severocesky kraj (region), northwestern Czech Republic, on a rocky spur below the Ore Mountains (Krusne hory). Local radioactive springs (82°-115° F [28°-46° C]) were, according to archaeological evidence, known ...
Tequendama Falls: waterfalls on the Bogota (Funza) River, which is a tributary of the Magdalena River, in the Andean Cordillera (mountains) Oriental, central Colombia. One of the country's major tourist attractions, the ...
tequila: distilled liquor, usually clear in colour and unaged, that is made from the fermented juice of the Mexican agave plant, specifically several varieties of Agave tequilana Weber. ...
Tequistlatec: Indian people centred in the Sierra Madre del Sur of Oaxaca estado ("state"), Mexico. Their subsistence is based on agriculture (staples are corn [maize], chilies, and beans), hunting, gathering, and ...
Teraina Island: coral atoll of the Northern Line Islands, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. With a circumference of 9 miles (14 km), the atoll has a land area of ...
Teramo: city, capital of Teramo provincia, Abruzzi regione, central Italy. It lies at the confluence of the Tordino and Vezzola rivers, between the Adriatic Sea and the Gran Sasso d'Italia mountain ...
teratology: branch of the biological sciences dealing with the causes, development, description, and classification of congenital malformations in plants and animals and with the experimental production, in some instances, of these ...
Terauchi Masatake, Count: Japanese soldier and politician who served as Japanese prime minister (1916-18) during World War I.
terbium: (Tb), chemical element, rare-earth metal of transition Group IIIb of the periodic table. One of the least abundant of the rare earths, terbium, when reduced to metallic form, is silvery ...
Terborch, Gerard: Dutch Baroque painter who developed his own distinctive type of interior genre in which he depicted with grace and fidelity the atmosphere of well-to-do, middle-class life in 17th-century Holland.
Terbrugghen, Hendrik: Dutch painter, among the earliest northern followers of the Italian painter Caravaggio.
Terceira Island: island, part of the Portuguese Azores archipelago, in the North Atlantic Ocean. It occupies an area of 153 square miles (397 square km). Terceira (The Third) was so called because ...
tercet: a unit or group of three lines of verse, usually containing rhyme, as in William Shakespeare's "The Phoenix and the Turtle": Death is now the phoenix' nest; And the turtle's ...
terefah: any food, food product, or utensil that, according to the Jewish dietary laws (kashruth, q.v.), is not ritually clean or prepared according to law and is thus prohibited as unfit ...
Terek River: river that rises in northern Georgia and flows north and then east through Russia to empty into the Caspian Sea. It is one of the main streams draining northward from ...
Terence: after Plautus the greatest Roman comic dramatist, the author of six verse comedies that were long regarded as models of pure Latin. Terence's plays form the basis of the modern ...
Terengganu: traditional region of northeastern West Malaysia (Malaya), bounded by those of Kelantan (north and northwest) and Pahang (south and southwest). It has a 200-mile- (320-kilometre-) long coastline along the South ...
Teresa of Avila, Saint: Spanish nun, one of the great mystics and religious women of the Roman Catholic church, and author of spiritual classics. She was the originator of the Carmelite Reform, which restored ...
Teresa, Blessed Mother: founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to the poor, particularly to the destitute of India. She was the recipient of ...
Tereshkova, Valentina: Soviet cosmonaut, the first woman to travel into space. On June 16, 1963, she was launched in the spacecraft Vostok 6, which completed 48 orbits in 71 ...
Teresina: city, capital of Piaui estado (state), northeastern Brazil. The city lies along the Parnaiba River (there bridged to Timon in Maranhao state), 220 miles (354 km) upstream ...
Terespolis: city, central Rio de Janeiro estado (state), southwestern Brazil. It lies in the Orgaos Mountains at 2,959 feet (902 metres) above sea level, about 35 miles (56 ...
Tereus: in Greek legend, king of Thrace who married Procne, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens. Later Tereus seduced her sister Philomela, pretending that Procne was dead. In order to hide ...
Terhune, Albert Payson: American novelist and short-story writer who became famous for his popular stories about dogs.
Terhune, Mary Virginia Hawes: American writer who achieved great success with both her romantic novels and her books and columns of advice for homemakers.
teriyaki: (Japanese: "glossy broil"), in Japanese cuisine, foods grilled with a highly flavoured glaze of soy sauce and sake or mirin (sweet wine). Garlic and fresh ginger are sometimes added to ...
term: in the visual arts, element consisting of a sculptured figure or bust at the top of a stone pillar or column that usually tapers downward to a quadrangular base. Often ...
term: in logic, the subject or predicate of a categorical proposition (q.v.), or statement. Aristotle so used the Greek word horos ("limit"), apparently by an analogy between the terms of a ...
Terman, Frederick Emmons: American electrical engineer known for his contributions to electronics research and antiradar technology.
Terman, Lewis Madison: American psychologist who published the individual intelligence test widely used in the United States, the Stanford-Binet.
Termez: city and administrative centre of Surkhandarya oblast (province), Uzbekistan, and a port of the Amu Darya (river) on the frontier of Afghanistan. The ancient town of Termez, a little to ...
Termier, Henri-Francois-Emile: French geologist known for his studies of the stratigraphy (study of stratified rocks) and paleontology of North Africa and France.
terminal velocity: steady speed achieved by an object freely falling through a gas or liquid. A typical terminal velocity for a parachutist who delays opening the chute is about 150 miles (240 ...
Terminalia: genus of about 200 species of trees of the family Combretaceae. Some species are commercially important for products such as gums, resins, and tanning extracts. T. arjuna, of Southeast Asia; ...
Termini Imerese: town, Palermo province, northern Sicily, Italy, on the Golfo (gulf) di Termini Imerese (an inlet of the Tyrrhenian Sea), southeast of Palermo city. It was possibly a Phoenician seaport or ...
Terminos Lagoon: lagoon in southwestern Campeche state, at the base of the Yucatan Peninsula, eastern Mexico. An inlet of the Bay of Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico, it measures 45 mi ...
Terminus: (Latin: Boundary Stone), originally, in Roman cult, a boundary stone or post fixed in the ground during a ceremony of sacrifice and anointment. Anyone who removed a boundary stone was ...
termite: any of the cellulose-eating social insects that constitute the order Isoptera. Although they are referred to popularly as white ants, they are not closely related to ants, which are grouped ...
terms of trade: relationship between the prices at which a country sells its exports and the prices paid for its imports. If the prices of a country's exports rise relative to the prices ...
tern: any of about 40 species of slender, graceful water birds that constitute the subfamily Sterninae, of the family Laridae, which also includes the gulls. Terns inhabit seacoasts and inland waters ...
ternary form: musical form consisting of three sections, the last of which is a repeat of the first. The symmetrical construction of this scheme (aba) provides one of the basic shapes in ...
Ternate Island: one of the northernmost of a line of Indonesian islands stretching southward along the western coast of the island of Halmahera to the Bacan Islands east of the Molucca Sea. ...
terneplate: steel sheet with a coating of terne metal, an alloy of lead and tin applied by dipping the steel in molten metal. The alloy has a dull appearance resulting from ...
Terni: city, capital of Terni provincia, Umbria regione, central Italy. It lies along the Nera River, north of Rome. The city was founded on the site of the ancient city of ...
Ternifine: site of paleoanthropological excavations located about 20 km (12 miles) east of Mascara, Algeria, known for its remains of Homo erectus. Ternifine was quarried for sand in the 19th century, ...
Ternopil: oblast (province), western Ukraine. It occupies an area on the Volyn-Podilsk Upland. Its southern boundary runs along the Dniester River, to which the greater part of the oblast drains. The ...
Ternopil: city and administrative centre of Ternopil oblast (province), western Ukraine. It lies along the upper Seret River, 70 miles (115 km) east of Lviv. Although its date of foundation is ...
Terpander: Greek poet and musician of the Aegean island of Lesbos.
terpene: any of a class of hydrocarbons occurring widely in plants and animals and empirically regarded as built up from isoprene, a hydrocarbon consisting of five carbon atoms attached to eight ...
Terpsichore: in Greek religion, one of the nine Muses, patron of lyric poetry and dancing (in some versions, flute playing). She is perhaps the most widely known of the Muses, her ...
terra sigillata ware: bright-red, polished pottery used throughout the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD. The term means literally ware made of clay impressed with designs. Other ...
terra-cotta: (Italian: "baked earth"), literally, any kind of fired clay but, in general usage, a kind of object-e.g., vessel, figure, or structural form-made from fairly coarse, porous clay that when fired ...
terrace cultivation: method of growing crops on sides of hills or mountains by planting on graduated terraces built into the slope. Though labour-intensive, the method has been employed effectively to maximize arable ...
terrace, marine: a rock terrace formed where a sea cliff, with a wave-cut platform (q.v.) before it, is raised above sea level.
Terracina: town and episcopal see, Latina province, Lazio (Latium) region, south central Italy, on the Golfo (gulf) di Gaeta (an inlet of the Tyrrhenian Sea) at the foot of the Monti ...
terrapin: any aquatic turtle of the family Emydidae, especially the diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin). The diamondback terrapin inhabits salt marshes and coastal waters from New England to the Gulf of Mexico. ...
terrarium: enclosure with glass sides, and sometimes a glass top, arranged for keeping plants or terrestrial or semi-terrestrial animals indoors. The purpose may be decoration, scientific observation, or plant or animal ...
Terray, Joseph-Marie: French controller general of finances during the last four years of the reign of King Louis XV. Terray instituted a series of financial reforms that, had they been maintained and ...
Terre Haute: city, seat (1818) of Vigo county, western Indiana, U.S. It lies on a 10-mile (16-km) square plateau above the Wabash River (whence its French name meaning "high ground"), 71 miles ...
Terrell, Mary Eliza Church: American social activist who was cofounder and first president of the National Association of Colored Women. She was an early civil rights advocate, an educator, an author, and a lecturer ...
terrestrial locomotion: any of several forms of animal movement such as walking and running, jumping (saltation), and crawling. Walking and running, in which the body is carried well off the surface on ...