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Violales: violet order of dicotyledonous flowering plants, a division of the subclass Dilleniidae. The order consists chiefly of shrubs and trees, but it also contains herbaceous plants, including the large family ...
Violence Against Women Office: federal agency, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, that was established in March 1995 to help implement and coordinate some of the measures called for in the 1994 Violence ...
violin: bowed, stringed musical instrument that evolved during the Renaissance from earlier bowed instruments: the medieval fiddle; its 16th-century Italian offshoot, the lira da braccio; and the rebec. The violin is ...
Violle, Jules: French physicist who at Mont Blanc in the French-Swiss Alps made the first high-altitude determination of the solar constant (1875). A graduate of the Ecole Normale Superieure at Paris, he ...
Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene-Emmanuel: French Gothic Revival architect, restorer of French medieval buildings, and writer whose theories of rational architectural design linked the revivalism of the Romantic period to 20th-century Functionalism.
Viotti, Giovanni Battista: Italian violinist and composer, principal founder of the 19th-century school of violin playing.
viper: any of more than 200 species of venomous snakes belonging to two groups: pit vipers (subfamily Crotalinae) and Old World vipers (subfamily Viperinae), which are considered separate families by some ...
viperfish: any of six species of marine fishes belonging to the genus Chauliodus, the sole genus in the family Chauliodontidae (order Salmoniformes). They are found in tropical regions of the major ...
Viphya Mountains: highlands in north-central Malawi. They comprise two main blocks, divided by a 15-mile- (24-km-) wide saddle (pass), and extend 130 miles (209 km) from Mount Champhila (5,971 feet [1,820 metres]) ...
Vir Singh, Bhai: Sikh writer and theologian who was chiefly responsible for raising the Punjabi language to a literary level never before attained.
Viracocha: creator deity originally worshiped by the pre-Inca inhabitants of Peru and later assimilated into the Inca pantheon. He was believed to have created the sun and moon on Lake Titicaca. ...
viral hemorrhagic fever: any of a variety of highly fatal viral diseases that are characterized by massive external or internal bleeding or bleeding into the skin. Other symptoms vary by the type of ...
Virchow, Rudolf: German pathologist and statesman, one of the most prominent physicians of the 19th century. He pioneered the modern concept of pathological processes by his application of the cell theory to ...
Virden: town, southwestern Manitoba, Canada. It lies near the Assiniboine River, 47 miles (76 km) west of Brandon. A farming and grain-shipping centre, the community prospered after the discovery of oil ...
Virden: city, Macoupin county, west-central Illinois, U.S. Virden lies about 20 miles (30 km) south of Springfield. Laid out in 1852 along the Chicago and Mississippi Railroad, it was named for ...
virelai: one of several formes fixes ("fixed forms") in French lyric poetry and song of the 14th and 15th centuries (compare ballade; rondeau). It probably did not originate in France, and ...
Viren, Lasse: Finnish distance runner, who was the first athlete to win gold medals for both the 5,000- and 10,000-metre races at consecutive Olympic Games: at Munich, West Germany, in 1972 and ...
vireo: any of 42 species of New World birds constituting the family Vireonidae (order Passeriformes). This includes pepper-shrikes and shrike-vireos-about five tropical species sometimes separated as the families Cyclarhidae and Vireolaniidae, ...
Viret, Pierre: champion of the Reformation in the Swiss canton of the Vaud and the most important native religious Reformer of French-speaking Switzerland.
Virgil: Roman poet, best known for his national epic, the Aeneid (from c. 30 BC; unfinished at his death).
Virgilian series: major division of Late Carboniferous rocks and time in the United States (the Late Carboniferous epoch, approximately equivalent to the Pennsylvanian period, began about 320 million years ago and ended ...
Virgin Birth: fundamental doctrine of orthodox Christianity that Jesus Christ had no natural father but was conceived by Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine that Mary was the ...
Virgin Gorda Island: one of the British Virgin Islands, in the West Indies, lying 80 miles (130 km) east of Puerto Rico. It forms two rectangles joined by a spit, or point, of ...
Virgin Islands: group of about 90 small islands, islets, cays, and rocks in the West Indies, situated some 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 kilometres) east of Puerto Rico. The islands ...
Virgin Islands National Park: conservation area covering nearly two-thirds of the island of St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, West Indies. The park (area 14,696 ac [5,947 ha]) has steep mountains, deep valleys, ...
Virgin Islands of the United States: organized unincorporated island territory of the United States, at the eastern end of the Greater Antilles, about 40 miles (64 km) east of Puerto Rico, in the northeastern Caribbean Sea. ...
Virgin Mary, Presentation of the: feast celebrated in the Roman Catholic and Eastern churches on November 21. Based on a legend contained in the Protevangelium of James, a 2nd-century work not included in the Bible, ...
virginal: musical instrument of the harpsichord family, of which it may be the oldest member. The virginal may take its name from Latin virga ("rod"), referring to the jacks, or wooden ...
Virginia: city, St. Louis county, northeastern Minnesota, U.S. It lies in the Mesabi Range, about 60 miles (95 km) northwest of Duluth. Iron ore was discovered in 1890 by Leonidas Merritt ...
Virginia: constituent state of the United States of America, one of the original 13 colonies. It has an area of 40,767 square miles (105,587 square kilometres). It is bordered by Maryland ...
Virginia: town and gold-mining centre, north-central Free State province, South Africa, in one of the world's richest goldfields. Virginia was a former whistle stop (named, 1892) on the line between Johannesburg ...
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions: (1798 and 1799), in U.S. history, measures passed by the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky as a protest against the Federalist Alien and Sedition Acts. The resolutions were written by ...
Virginia Beach: independent city, southeastern Virginia, U.S., on the Atlantic coast and Chesapeake Bay, adjacent to the cities of Norfolk and Chesapeake in the Hampton Roads region. The city extends 28 miles ...
Virginia Capes, Battle of: (September 5, 1781), in the American Revolution, French naval victory over a British fleet that took place outside Chesapeake Bay. The outcome of the battle was indispensable to the successful ...
Virginia City: unincorporated town, seat (1861) of Storey county, western Nevada, U.S., on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada range, 20 miles (32 km) south of Reno. Settled in 1859 and ...
Virginia City: town, seat (1876) of Madison county, southwestern Montana, U.S., on the Ruby River. Founded as Verona (after Varina Davis, wife of the president of the Confederate States of America) in ...
Virginia Commonwealth University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Richmond, Virginia, U.S. It comprises the College of Humanities and Sciences and 12 other schools, including the School of Medicine on the Medical ...
Virginia Company: commercial trading company, chartered by King James I of England in April 1606 with the object of colonizing the eastern coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N. ...
Virginia creeper: woody vine, in the grape family (Vitaceae), that climbs by means of disk-tipped tendrils. It is commonly found in eastern North America and is often grown as a covering vine ...
Virginia Declaration of Rights: in U.S. constitutional history, declaration of rights of the citizen adopted June 12, 1776, by the constitutional convention of the colony of Virginia. It was a model for the Bill ...
Virginia Falls: cataract on the South Nahanni River, a tributary of the Liard, in Nahanni National Park (1,840 square miles [4,766 square km]), Northwest Territories, Canada, 76 miles (120 km) east of ...
Virginia Military Institute: , public institution of higher learning in Lexington, Virginia, U.S. It is a state military college modeled on the U.S. service academies. Students are referred to as cadets; all cadets ...
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S. Virginia Tech is a comprehensive, land-grant university, consisting of colleges of agriculture and life sciences, architecture and urban studies, arts ...
Virginia reel: spirited American country dance for couples. It stems from the rinnce fadha, a pre-Christian Irish dance that evolved into the English dance called the Sir Roger de Coverley. Brought to ...
Virginia State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Petersburg, Virginia, U.S. The historically African-American university consists of schools of agriculture, business, liberal arts and education, science and technology, and graduate studies ...
Virginia, University of: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S., on a campus of 1,000 acres (405 hectares) near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Founded by Thomas Jefferson, ...
Virginius affair: (1873), seizure of the Cuban ship Virginius (fraudulently flying the U.S. flag and carrying U.S. registration) by Spanish authorities and the summary execution of 53 of its passengers and crew, ...
Virgo: in astronomy, zodiacal constellation lying between Leo and Libra, at about 13 hours right ascension (the coordinate on the celestial sphere analogous to longitude on the Earth) and 2° south ...
Virgo A: giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo whose nucleus provides the strongest observational evidence for the existence of a black hole. Virgo A is the most powerful known source of ...
virion: an entire virus particle, consisting of an outer protein shell called a capsid and an inner core of nucleic acid (either ribonucleic or deoxyribonucleic acid-RNA or DNA). The core confers ...
viroid: an infectious particle smaller than any of the known viruses, an agent of certain plant diseases. The particle consists only of an extremely small circular RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecule, lacking ...
virology: branch of microbiology that deals with the study of viruses.
Virtanen, Artturi Ilmari: Finnish biochemist whose investigations directed toward improving the production and storage of protein-rich green fodder, vitally important to regions characterized by long, severe winters, brought him the Nobel Prize for ...
virtual museum: a collection of digitally recorded images, sound files, text documents, and other data of historical, scientific, or cultural interest that are accessed through electronic media. A virtual museum does not ...
virtual reality: the use of computer modeling and simulation that enables a person to interact with an artificial three-dimensional (3-D) visual or other sensory environment. VR applications immerse the user in a ...
virtue: in Christianity, any of the seven virtues selected as being fundamental to Christian ethics. They consist of the four "natural" virtues, those inculcated in the old pagan world that spring ...
Virunga Mountains: volcanic range north of Lake Kivu in east-central Africa, extending about 50 miles (80 km) along the borders of Congo (Kinshasa), Rwanda, and Uganda. The range runs east-west, perpendicular to ...
Virunga National Park: park in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa). Created in 1925, it has an area of some 3,050 square miles (7,900 square km) and contains a vast diversity of ...
virus: an infectious agent of small size and simple composition that can multiply only in living cells of animals, plants, or bacteria. The name is from a Latin word meaning "slimy ...
Vis: Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, the outermost major island of the Dalmatian archipelago. Its area is 35 square miles (90 square km), and its highest point is Mount Hum, ...
Visalia: city, seat (1853) of Tulare county, south-central California, U.S. It lies on the Kaweah River delta in the San Joaquin Valley, 42 miles (68 km) southeast of Fresno. Founded in ...
Visayan: any of three cultural-linguistic groups of the Philippines-Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Samaran (qq.v.).
Visayas: island group, central Philippines. The Visayas group consists of seven large and several hundred smaller islands clustered around the Visayan, Samar, and Camotes seas. They have a total area of ...
Visby: city and capital of the lan (county) of Gotland, southeastern Sweden. It lies on the northwest coast of the island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. Because of its remarkably ...
Viscaceae: one of the mistletoe families of flowering plants of the sandalwood order (Santalales), including about 11 genera and more than 450 species of semiparasitic shrubs. This family is sometimes considered ...
viscacha: any of four species of slender yet fairly large South American rodents similar to chinchillas. They have short forelimbs, long hindlimbs, and a long, bushy tail. The soft fur is ...
Vischer Family: sculptors and brass founders working in Nurnberg in the 15th and 16th centuries. Hermann the Elder (d. Jan. 13, 1488) established the foundry. His son Peter the Elder (1460-1529) was ...
Vischer, Friedrich Theodor von: German literary critic and aesthetician known for his efforts to create a theoretical basis for literary realism.
viscometer: instrument for measuring the viscosity (resistance to internal flow) of a fluid. In one version, the time taken for a given volume of fluid to flow through an opening is ...
Visconti Family: Milanese family that dominated the history of northern Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Visconti, Gian Galeazzo: Milanese leader who brought the Visconti dynasty to the height of its power and almost succeeded in becoming the ruler of all northern Italy.
Visconti, Louis-Tullius-Joachim: Italian-born French designer of the tomb of Napoleon I.
Visconti, Luchino: Italian motion-picture director whose realistic treatment of individuals caught in the conflicts of modern society contributed significantly to the post-World War II revolution in Italian filmmaking and earned him the ...
Visconti, Matteo I: early head of the powerful dynasty of the Visconti, who for almost two centuries ruled Milan.
Visconti-Venosta, Emilio, Marchese: (Marquess) Italian statesman whose political-diplomatic career of more than 50 years spanned Italian history from the Risorgimento to the power politics of World War I.
viscosity: resistance of a fluid (liquid or gas) to a change in shape, or movement of neighbouring portions relative to one another. Viscosity denotes opposition to flow. The reciprocal of the ...