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vascular system ... Veeck, Bill

vascular system: in plants, assemblage of conducting tissues and associated supportive fibres. Xylem tissue transports water and dissolved minerals to the leaves, and phloem tissue conducts food from the leaves to all ...
vase carpet: any of the most widely known group of floor coverings among the "classic" Kermans of the 16th and 17th centuries. At their best these carpets are extremely handsome, combining an ...
vasectomy: severing of the vas deferens in the male reproductive tract to bring about sterility or to prevent infection. The testes in the male produce the sperm cells that fertilize the ...
Vasiliki ware: elaborately shaped handmade pottery from Vasiliki, eastern Crete, produced in the second phase of the Early Minoan period (c. 3000-c. 2000 BC). The surface of the wares is covered with ...
Vasily I: in full Vasily Dmitriyevich grand prince of Moscow from 1389 to 1425.
Vasily II: grand prince of Moscow from 1425 to 1462.
Vasily III: grand prince of Moscow from 1505 to 1533. Succeeding his father, Ivan III (ruled Moscow 1462-1505), Vasily completed his father's policy of consolidating the numerous independent Russian principalities into a ...
Vasily Shuysky: original name Vasily Ivanovich, Knyaz (Prince) Shuysky, or Shuisky boyar who became tsar (1606-10) during Russia's Time of Troubles.
Vaslui: judet (county), eastern Romania, occupying an area of 2,046 sq mi (5,300 sq km), bounded on the east by Moldova. The terrain consists of rolling hills. The Elan, Barlad, and ...
Vaslui: town, seat of Vaslui judet (county), northeastern Romania, on the Barlad River. Near Vaslui, in 1475, Stephen (Stefan) the Great, with 40,000 troops, defeated a Turkish army three times as ...
vassa: the Buddhist monastic retreat observed primarily in Buddhist communities in Southeast Asia during the three-month monsoon period each year.
vassal: in feudal society, one invested with a fief in return for services to an overlord. Some vassals did not have fiefs and lived at their lord's court as his household ...
Vassar College: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Poughkeepsie, New York, U.S., one of the Seven Sisters schools. It is a liberal arts college offering undergraduate studies in the arts, languages ...
Vasteras: city and capital of Vastmanland lan (county), east-central Sweden. It lies at the confluence of the Svart River and Lake Malar, west of Stockholm.
Vasterbotten: lan (county), northern Sweden, extending from the Gulf of Bothnia west to the Norwegian border. Its area comprises the traditional landskap (province) of Vasterbotten and parts of Angermanland and Lappland. ...
Vastergotland: landskap (province), southwestern Sweden. It is composed largely of the administrative lan (county) of Vastra Gotaland and of portions of Halland and Orebro counties. Lying between Lakes Vattern and Vanern, ...
Vasternorrland: lan (county) of northeast Sweden, on the Gulf of Bothnia. Its area takes in most of the two traditional landskap (provinces) of Medelpad and Angermanland. Rising from the low coastal ...
Vastitas Borealis: nearly level lowland plain that surrounds the north pole of the planet Mars and extends southward to about latitude 50°. The plain lies 4-5 km (2.5-3 miles) below the planet's ...
Vastmanland: lan (county) of central Sweden, extending north of Lake Malar. Its area includes the southwestern part of the traditional landskap (province) of Uppland and the eastern part of Vastmanland. A ...
Vasto: town, Chieti provincia, Abruzzi regione, south-central Italy. It is a beach resort on the Adriatic Sea, with brickmaking, candlemaking, and agricultural-processing industries. The town, the ancient name of which was ...
Vastra Gotaland: lan (county), southwestern Sweden. It was created in 1998 by the amalgamation of the counties of Alvsborg, Goteborg och Bohus, and Skaraborg. The capital is Goteborg, Sweden's major port and ...
Vasubandhu: Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician, younger brother of the philosopher Asanga. His conversion from the Sarvastivada to the Mahayana Buddhist tradition is attributed to Asanga. Vasubandhu refined classical Indian syllogistic ...
Vasudeva: in Hindu mythology, the patronymic of Krishna (Krsna), who, according to one tradition, was a son of Vasudeva. The worshipers of Vasudeva, or Krishna, formed one of the earliest theistic ...
vat dye: any of a large class of water-insoluble dyes, such as indigo and the anthraquinone derivatives, that are used particularly on cellulosic fibres. The dye is applied in a soluble, reduced ...
Vatican Apostolic Library: official library of the Vatican, especially notable as one of the world's richest manuscript depositories. The library is the direct heir of the first library of the Roman pontiffs. Very ...
Vatican City: ecclesiastical state, seat of the Roman Catholic church, and an enclave in Rome, situated on the west bank of the Tiber River. Vatican City is the world's smallest fully independent ...
Vatican Council, First: 20th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church (1869-70), convoked by Pope Pius IX to deal with contemporary problems. The pope was referring to the rising influence of rationalism, liberalism, ...
Vatican Council, Second: 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church (1962-65), announced by Pope John XXIII on Jan. 25, 1959, as a means of spiritual renewal for the church and as an ...
Vatican Museums and Galleries: art collections of the popes since the beginning of the 15th century, housed in the papal palaces and other buildings in the Vatican. The Pio-Clementino Museum (Museo Pio-Clementino or Musei ...
Vatican palace: papal residence in the Vatican north of St. Peter's Basilica. From the 4th century until the Avignonese period (1309-77) the customary residence of the popes was at the Lateran. Pope ...
Vatnajokull: extensive ice field, southeastern Iceland, covering an area of 3,200 sq mi (8,400 sq km) with an average ice thickness of more than 3,000 ft (900 m). Generally about 5,000 ...
Vattel, Emmerich de: Swiss jurist who, in Le Droit des gens (1758; "The Law of Nations"), applied a theory of natural law to international relations. His treatise was especially influential in the United ...
Vattern: English Lake Vatter, lake in south-central Sweden, southeast of Lake Vanern between the administrative lan (counties) of Vastra Gotaland and Ostergotland and north of the traditional landskap (province) of Smaland. ...
Vauban, Sebastien Le Prestre de: French military engineer who revolutionized the art of siege craft and defensive fortifications. He fought in all of France's wars of Louix XIV's reign (1643-1715).
Vaucanson, Jacques de: prolific inventor of robot devices of significance for modern industry.
Vaucheria: genus of yellow-green algae characterized by oil food reserves and multinucleate tubular branches lacking cross walls except in association with reproductive organs or an injury. Asexual reproduction is by motile ...
Vaud: canton, southwestern Switzerland, bordering France and the Jura Mountains to the west and Lake Geneva (Lac Leman) to the south. It has an area of 1,243 sq mi (3,219 sq ...
vaudeville: light entertainment popular in the United States from the mid-1890s until the early 1930s that consisted of 10 to 15 individual unrelated acts, featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, jugglers, ...
Vaugelas, Claude Favre, seigneur de, Baron De Perouges: French grammarian and an original member of the Academie Francaise who played a major role in standardizing the French language of literature and of polite society. A courtier, he was ...
Vaughan Williams, Ralph: English composer of the first half of the 20th century, founder of the nationalist movement in English music.
Vaughan, Henry: Anglo-Welsh poet and mystic remarkable for the range and intensity of his spiritual intuitions.
Vaughan, Sarah: American jazz vocalist and pianist known for her rich voice, with an unusually wide range, and for the inventiveness and virtuosity of her improvisations.
vault: in building construction, a structural member consisting of an arrangement of arches, usually forming a ceiling or roof.
vaulting: gymnastics exercise in which the athlete leaps over a form that was originally intended to mimic a horse. At one time the pommel horse (side horse) was used in the ...
Vaupes: departamento, southeastern Colombia. It is bounded by Guainia departamento (north), Brazil (east), the Apoporis River (south), and Guaviare departamento (west). Vaupes was administratively created in 1963, and its area was ...
Vauquelin, Nicolas-Louis: French chemist who discovered the elements chromium (1797) and beryllium (1798).
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de: French moralist and essayist whose belief in the individual's capacity for goodness played a part in the shift of opinion away from the pessimistic view of human nature elaborated by ...
Vaux, Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron: one of the early English Tudor poets associated with Sir Thomas Wyat and the Earl of Surrey.
Vaux-le-Vicomte: chateau near Melun, France, designed in 1656 by Louis Le Vau for Nicolas Fouquet, who was finance minister to King Louis XIV. The chateau, finished in 1661, is considered to ...
Vauxhall: neighbourhood in the borough of Lambeth in London, England. It lies on the south bank of the River Thames near Vauxhall Bridge. Public gardens were laid out there about 1661 ...
Vava'u Group: northernmost major island cluster of Tonga, in the South Pacific. With a total land area of 46 square miles (119 square km), the group comprises two chains, one coral and ...
Vavilov, Nikolay Ivanovich: Soviet plant geneticist whose research into the origins of cultivated plants incurred the animosity of T.D. Lysenko, official spokesman for Soviet biology in his time.
Vaxjo: city and capital of the administrative lan (county) of Kronoberg, southern Sweden, on Vaxjosjon (lake). The city was a medieval trading centre; it was burned several times by the Danes, ...
Vazov, Ivan: man of letters whose poems, short stories, novels, and plays are inspired by patriotism and love of the Bulgarian countryside and reflect the main events in his country's history.
veal: meat of calves slaughtered between 3 and 14 weeks, delicate in flavour, pale grayish white in colour, firm and fine-grained, with velvety texture. It has no marbling, and the small ...
Veblen, Oswald: American mathematician who made important contributions to differential geometry and the early development of topology. Many of his contributions found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity.
Veblen, Thorstein: American economist and social scientist who sought to apply an evolutionary, dynamic approach to the study of economic institutions. With The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) ...
Vecchi, Orazio: Italian composer best known for his madrigal-comedy L'Amfiparnaso and other entertainment music.
Vecchio, Palazzo: most important historic government building in Florence, having been the seat of the Signoria of the Florentine Republic in the 14th century and then the government centre of the Medici ...
veche: popular assembly that was a characteristic institution in Russia from the 10th to the 15th century. The veche probably originated as a deliberative body among early Slavic tribes. As the ...
Vecheka: the first Soviet political police agency and earliest forerunner of the Kgb (q.v.).
vector: in mathematics, a quantity that has both magnitude and direction but not position. Examples of such quantities are velocity and acceleration. In their modern form, vectors appeared late in the ...
vector analysis: a branch of mathematics that deals with quantities that have both magnitude and direction. Some physical and geometric quantities, called scalars, can be fully defined by specifying their magnitude in ...
vector space: a set of multidimensional quantities, known as vectors, together with a set of one-dimensional quantities, known as scalars, such that vectors can be added together and vectors can be multiplied ...
Ved-ava: among the Mordvins, the water mother, a spirit believed to rule the waters and their bounty; she is known as Vete-ema among the Estonians and Veen emo among the Finns. ...
Veda: sacred hymn or verse composed in archaic Sanskrit and current among the Indo-European-speaking peoples who entered India from the Iranian regions. No definite date can be ascribed to the composition ...
vedana: (Sanskrit and Pali), in the Buddhist chain of dependent origination, the sensation that leads to thirst. See pratitya-samutpada.
Vedanta: one of the six orthodox systems (darshans) of Indian philosophy and the one that forms the basis of most modern schools of Hinduism. The term Vedanta means in Sanskrit the ...
Vedantadesika: also called Venkatanatha leading theologian of the Visistadvaita (Qualified Nondualism) school of philosophy and founder of the Vadakalai, a subsect of the Srivaisnavas, a religious movement of South India.
Vedda: people of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) who were that island's aboriginal inhabitants prior to the 6th century BC. They adopted Sinhala and now no longer speak their own language. Physically they ...
Vedder, Elihu: American-born Romantic painter and illustrator whose reputation is based primarily on paintings derived from dreams and fantasies.
Vedel, Anders Sorensen: Danish historian and ballad collector who translated the Gesta Danorum of the medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus from Latin into Danish (1575).
Vedic chant: religious chant of India, the expression of hymns from the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. The practice dates back at least 3,000 years and is probably the world's oldest ...
Vedic religion: the religion of the ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples who entered India about 1500 BC from the region of present-day Iran; it takes its name from the collections of sacred texts known ...
veduta: (Italian: "view"), detailed, largely factual painting, drawing, or etching depicting a city, town, or other place. The first vedute probably were painted by northern European artists who worked in Italy, ...
Veeck, Bill: American professional baseball club executive and owner, who introduced many innovations in promotion.