nonmigratory earless seal (family Phocidae) found around the South Pole, on or near the coast of Antarctica. The Weddell seal is a rotund animal that grows to about 3 metres ...
German submarine commander whose feat of sinking three British armoured cruisers in about an hour, during the second month of World War I, made him one of the most famous ...
German actor and dramatist who became an intense personal force in the German artistic world on the eve of World War I. A direct forebear of the modern Theatre of ...
(Landgreve) Norwegian patriot and statesman. He was the leading advocate of Norwegian-Swedish union in the last years of the Danish-Norwegian state and the first Norwegian governor (statholder) in the Norwegian-Swedish ...
American military leader who was the principal author of the 1941 Victory Program, a comprehensive war plan devised for the U.S. entry into World War II.
in mechanics, device that tapers to a thin edge, usually made of metal or wood, and used for splitting, lifting, or tightening, as to secure a hammer head onto its ...
English stoneware, including creamware, black basaltes, and jasperware, made by the Staffordshire factories originally established by Josiah Wedgwood at Burslem, at Etruria, and finally at Barlaston, all in Staffordshire. In ...
English pottery designer and manufacturer, outstanding in his scientific approach to pottery making and known for his exhaustive researches into materials, logical deployment of labour, and sense of business organization.
any plant growing where it is not wanted. Ever since human beings first attempted the cultivation of plants, they have had to fight the invasion by weeds into areas chosen ...
township, Hudson county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. It lies 5 miles (8 km) north of Jersey City and opposite New York City on the Hudson River. An industrial port and ...
period of seven days, a unit of time artificially devised with no astronomical basis. The origin of the term is generally associated with the ancient Jews and the biblical account ...
spring and tourist attraction in Hernando county, west-central Florida, U.S., 55 miles (90 km) north of St. Petersburg. The spring, with a measured depth of more than 250 feet (75 ...
American clergyman, itinerant book agent, and fabricator of the story of George Washington's chopping down the cherry tree. This fiction was inserted into the fifth edition (1806) of Weems's book ...
any of four species of small marine fishes of the family Trachinidae (order Perciformes). Weevers are long-bodied fishes that habitually bury themselves in the sand. They have large, upwardly slanted ...
true weevil of the insect family Curculionidae. This family is not only the largest family of the order Coleoptera (about 40,000 species) but is also the largest family in the ...
American sprinter who held the world record for the 200-metre dash (straightaway; 1896-1921, though tied by five other runners) and for the 220-yard dash (straightaway; 1896-1921, also tied by the ...
uncommon disorder marked by inflammation and necrosis (death of tissue) of small blood vessels. The disease commonly occurs in mid-adult life. Almost any organ may be affected, but most often ...
(Sept. 19, 1657), agreement in which John Casimir, king of Poland from 1648 to 1668, renounced the suzerainty of the Polish crown over ducal Prussia and made Frederick William, who ...
German skier who was the only three-time winner of the Nordic combined (two ski jumps totaled, plus a 15-km race) in Olympic history. In doing so, he was the first ...
one of the many warring states into which China was divided during the Eastern Chou period (770-221 BC). The state was located in what is now Shansi province, in north-central ...
eunuch who completely dominated the Chinese government between 1624 and 1627, ruthlessly exploiting the population and terrorizing the official class. He is usually considered by historians to have been the ...
(AD 386-534/535), the longest lived and most powerful of the northern Chinese dynasties that existed before the reunification of China under the Sui and T'ang dynasties.
river in Kansu and Shensi provinces, China, a western tributary of the Huang Ho. It rises in the Ma-wei Mountains in the Kansu plateau, between Lin-t'ao and Wei-yuan, flows east, ...
(Chinese: "guard post"), any of the military garrison units utilized by China's Ming dynasty (1368-1644) to maintain peace throughout its empire. Originally developed by the preceding Yuan, or Mongol, dynasty ...
major division of late Pleistocene deposits and time in western Europe (the Pleistocene Epoch began about 1,600,000 years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago). The Weichsel Glacial Stage followed ...
city, Bavaria Land (state), southeastern Germany, on the Naab River at the entrance to the Oberpfalzerwald, a section of the Bohemian Forest, west of the Czech frontier. Chartered in 1268, ...
German anatomist and physical anthropologist whose reconstruction of prehistoric human remains and work on Peking man (then called Sinanthropus pekinensis) and other hominids brought him to preeminence in the study ...
genus with 12 species of East Asian flowering shrubs belonging to the family Caprifoliaceae, some widely grown as ornamentals for their spring and summer flowers. The tubular, white to red ...
gravitational force of attraction on an object, caused by the presence of a massive second object, such as the Earth or Moon. Weight is a consequence of the universal law ...
sport of throwing a weight for distance or height. Men have long matched strength and skill at hurling objects. The roth cleas, or wheel feat, reputedly was a major test ...
system of physical conditioning using free weights (barbells and dumbbells) and weight machines (e.g., Nautilus-type equipment). It is a training system rather than a competitive sport such as Olympic weightlifting ...
condition experienced while in free-fall (q.v.), in which the effect of gravity is canceled by the inertial (e.g., centrifugal) force resulting from orbital flight. The term zero gravity is often ...
the standard or agreed upon units for expressing the amount of some quantity, such as capacity, volume, length, area, number, and weight. See measurement system.
French mathematician who was one of the most influential figures in mathematics during the 20th century, particularly in number theory and algebraic geometry.
French mystic, social philosopher, and activist in the French Resistance during World War II, whose posthumously published works had particular influence on French and English social thought.
city, Thuringia Land (state), eastern Germany. Weimar lies along the Ilm River, just east of Erfurt. First mentioned in documents in 975 as Wimare, it was declared ...
the government of Germany (q.v.) from 1919 to 1933, so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar from Feb. 6 to Aug. 11, 1919.
sporting-dog breed developed in the early 19th century by German nobles of the court of Weimar. First used to hunt big game, the dog was later trained as a bird ...
American nuclear physicist who in 1979 shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Sheldon Lee Glashow and Abdus Salam (qq.v.) for work in formulating the electroweak theory, which explains the ...
city, Baden-Wurttemberg Land (state), southwestern Germany. It lies along the Mountain Road, at the west foot of the Oden Forest, northeast of Mannheim. A Frankish village in 500, it was ...
Aboriginal community and mining town, northern Queensland, Australia, on the northwestern coast of Cape York Peninsula; it lies on Albatross Bay at the estuaries of the Hey, Embley, and Mission ...
any control or barrier placed in an open channel to permit measurement of water discharge. The latter may be computed from a formula expressing the discharge in terms of crest ...
city, Brooke and Hancock counties, in the northern panhandle of West Virginia, U.S., on the Ohio River (bridged just south to Steubenville, Ohio). The area, originally settled during the American ...
German biologist and one of the founders of the science of genetics, who is best known for his opposition to the doctrine of the inheritance of acquired traits and for ...
German theologian known for his work in New Testament criticism. He wrote the first eschatological interpretations of the Gospel (1892) and also set forth the principles of "form-criticism" (1912)-the analysis ...
Austrian-born American biologist who did pioneering research on the mechanics of nerve regeneration, nerve repair, and cellular organization. During World War II Weiss and his colleagues developed and tested the ...
German dramatist and novelist whose plays achieved widespread success in both Europe and the United States in the 1960s. He was a Marxist, but a heterodox one.
city, Saxony-Anhalt Land (state), eastern Germany. It lies on the right bank of the Saale River, south of Halle. A German town on the site of an old Slav settlement, ...
American freestyle swimmer of the 1920s who won five Olympic gold medals and set 67 world records. He became even more famous as a motion-picture actor, most notably in the ...
city, seat of McDowell county, southern West Virginia, U.S., at the confluence of Elkhorn Creek and Tug Fork. Settled in 1885, it was named for I.A. Welch, an early settler. ...
American pathologist who played a major role in the introduction of modern medical practice and education to the United States while directing the rise of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, to ...
politician, statesman, and prime minister of New Zealand (1864-65), whose "self-reliant" policy was that the colony have full responsibility for the conduct of all Maori affairs, including the settlement of ...
