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wing chair: a tall-backed, heavily upholstered easy chair with armrests and wings, or lugs, projecting between the back and arms to protect against drafts. They first appeared in the late 17th century-when ...
wing nut: (genus Pterocarya), any of about six species of Asian trees of the walnut family (Juglandaceae). They often are 30 m (about 100 feet) tall and bear winged, edible, one-seeded nuts. ...
Wingate, Orde Charles: British soldier, an outstanding "irregular" commander and unconventional personage in the tradition of General Charles George Gordon and Colonel T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"). His "Chindits," or "Wingate's Raiders," a ...
Wingate, Sir Reginald, 1st Baronet: British general and imperial administrator, principal founder and governor-general (1899-1916) of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (from 1956 the independent Republic of The Sudan).
Winisk River: river, north-central Ontario, Canada, emptying into Hudson Bay. Arising from Wunnummin Lake, it flows eastward to Winisk Lake and then north and east for 295 miles (475 km) to its ...
Winkfield, James: American jockey, the last African American to win the Kentucky Derby.
Winkler Prins Encyclopedie: the standard Dutch encyclopaedia, published by Elsevier in Amsterdam. The first edition (1870-82) was based on the German Brockhaus Enzyklopadie (q.v.). The 6th edition (1947-54) appeared in 18 volumes. A ...
Winkler, Clemens Alexander: German chemist who discovered the element germanium.
Winkler, Hans Gunter: German equestrian champion who won seven Olympic medals and was the most decorated Olympic show jumper of all time.
Winneba: coastal town, southern Ghana. It lies along the Gulf of Guinea near the mouth of the Ayensu River. It was originally a roadstead port, dependent upon the forest products of ...
Winnebago: a Siouan-speaking Native American people who lived in what is now eastern Wisconsin when first encountered by the French explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634. Settled in permanent villages of dome-shaped ...
Winnemucca: city, seat (1873) of Humboldt county, in northwestern Nevada, U.S., on the Humboldt River. Originally known as French Ford for the first settler, the Frenchman Joseph Ginacca, who operated a ...
Winnemucca, Sarah: Native American educator, lecturer, tribal leader, and writer best known for her book Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). Her writings, valuable for their description of Northern ...
Winnetka: village, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. It lies along Lake Michigan and is an affluent residential suburb of Chicago, located about 20 miles (30 km) north of downtown. German settler ...
Winnetka Plan: widely imitated educational experiment in individualized ungraded learning, developed in 1919 under the leadership of Carleton Washburne in the elementary school system of Winnetka, Ill., U.S. The Winnetka Plan grew ...
Winnipeg: city, capital (1870) of Manitoba, Canada. It lies at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, 40 miles (65 km) southwest of Lake Winnipeg and 60 miles (95 km) ...
Winnipeg Free Press: daily newspaper published in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Can., whose outspoken independence and championship of public service and minority causes have made it known as "Canada's Gadfly."
Winnipeg River: river in southeastern Manitoba and western Ontario, Canada. The river issues from the Lake of the Woods along the Canada-U.S. border and flows generally northwestward through several lakes for about ...
Winnipeg, Lake: lake in south-central Manitoba, Canada, at the southwestern edge of the Canadian Shield, the rocky, glaciated region of eastern Canada. Fed by many rivers, including the Saskatchewan, Red, and Winnipeg, ...
Winnipegosis, Lake: lake in western Manitoba, Canada, between Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan border, a remnant of glacial Lake Agassiz. Supplied by numerous small streams on the west, the 2,075-square-mile (5,374-square-kilometre) lake ...
Winnipesaukee, Lake: lake in Belknap and Carroll counties, east-central New Hampshire, U.S. It lies at the foothills of the White Mountains east of Laconia. The state's largest lake, Winnipesaukee is of glacial ...
Winogradsky, Sergey Nikolayevich: Russian microbiologist whose discoveries concerning the physiology of the processes of nitrification and nitrogen fixation by soil bacteria helped to establish bacteriology as a major biological science.
Winona: city, seat of Winona county, southeastern Minnesota, U.S. It lies in the Hiawatha Valley on the Mississippi River (bridged to Wisconsin), backed by high bluffs, in a mixed-farming area, about ...
Winona State University: coeducational institution of higher learning, located in the Hiawatha Valley of the Mississippi River in Winona, southeastern Minnesota, U.S. It is the oldest school in the Minnesota State University system. ...
Winooski: city, Chittenden county, northwestern Vermont, U.S. The city lies on a steep side hill rising from the Winooski River just northeast of Burlington. It was founded in 1787 by Ira ...
Winooski River: river in north-central Vermont, U.S. It rises near Cabot in Washington county and flows southwest, then northwest across the state through the Green Mountains, past Montpelier and Waterbury, to drain ...
Winslow: city, Navajo county, east-central Arizona, U.S. It lies in the valley of the Little Colorado River. Founded in 1882 as a divisional terminal of what was then the Santa Fe ...
Winslow, Edward: English founder of the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts.
Winslow, Josiah: British-American military leader and governor of the Plymouth colony who established the colony's first public school.
Winsor, Justin: librarian who, as superintendent of the Boston Public Library (1868-77) and librarian of Harvard University (from 1877), came to be regarded as the leading figure of the library profession in ...
Winstanley, Gerrard: leader and theoretician of the group of English agrarian communists known as the Diggers, who in 1649-50 cultivated common land on St. George's Hill, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, and at nearby Cobham ...
Winsted: city and principal community in the town (township) of Winchester, Litchfield county, northwestern Connecticut, U.S., at the confluence of the Still and Mad rivers. The area was settled in 1750. ...
Winstedt, Sir Richard Olof: director of education in British Malaya who shaped Malay education and produced an extensive body of writings on Malaya.
Winston-Salem: city, port of entry, and seat of Forsyth county, in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, U.S. With High Point and Greensboro it forms the Piedmont Triad metropolitan area.
winter: coldest season of the year, between autumn and spring; the name comes from an old Germanic word that means "time of water" and refers to the rain and snow of ...
winter aconite: any of about seven species of perennial herbaceous plants constituting the genus Eranthis of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) native to the temperate regions of Europe and widely planted for their ...
winter cress: any of about 12 species of the genus Barbarea, weedy herbs of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to the north temperate region. Common winter cress, or rocket (B. vulgaris), in ...
Winter Haven: city, Polk county, central Florida, U.S., situated amid a large cluster of small lakes, about 15 miles (25 km) east of Lakeland. The area was settled in the 1860s. The ...
winter hazel: any of about 10 species of the genus Corylopsis, deciduous shrubs or small trees of the witch hazel family (Hamamelidaceae). They are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayas but ...
Winter Park: city, Orange county, central Florida, U.S., just north of Orlando. The city was founded as Lakeview in 1858, and the name was changed to Osceola in 1870. In 1881 Loring ...
Winter's Tale, The: play in five acts by William Shakespeare, written about 1609-11 and produced at the Globe Theatre in London. It was published in the First Folio of 1623 from a transcript, ...
Winteraceae: family of aromatic trees and shrubs of the order Magnoliales that contains seven or eight genera and 88 to 120 species, depending on the authority consulted. All but four species ...
Winterbotham, Frederick William: British secret-service official who played a key role in the Ultra code-breaking project during World War II.
wintergreen: any of several evergreen plants, within the heath order (Ericales).
Winterhalter, Franz Xaver: German painter and lithographer, known for his portraits of royalty.
Winters, Jonathan: American comedian who was once described by talk-show host Jack Paar as "pound for pound, the funniest man alive."
Winters, Yvor: American poet, critic, and teacher who held that literature should be evaluated for its moral and intellectual content as well as on aesthetic grounds.
Winterson, Jeanette: British novelist noted for her quirky, unconventional, and often comic novels.
Winterthur: city, Zurich canton, northern Switzerland. It lies in a wooded basin east of the Toss River, northeast of Zurich city. The Roman settlement of Vitodurum was on ...
Winterthur Museum: museum in Winterthur, Del., U.S., near Wilmington, that specializes in American decorative arts and furnishings. Occupying a mansion built in 1839 by James Antoine Bidermann and his wife, the great-aunt ...
Winthrop, John: first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the chief figure among the Puritan founders of New England.
Winthrop, John, The Younger: lawyer and a colonial governor in British North America.
Winton: town, central Queensland, Australia, on Western Mills Creek, an intermittent tributary of the Diamantina River. Settled in 1873 and originally called Pelican Waterholes, it became a village in 1875 and ...
Winton, Alexander: Scottish-born American pioneer automobile manufacturer who put thousands of "Winton Sixes" on the road.
Wintun: any of a number of groups of Penutian-speaking California Indians originally inhabiting the west side of the Sacramento Valley, some 250 miles (400 km) from north to south, together with ...
wire: thread or slender rod, usually very flexible and circular in cross section, made from various metals and alloys, including iron, steel, brass, bronze, copper, aluminum, zinc, gold, silver, and platinum. ...
wireworm: any of certain millipede (q.v.) species.
Wirral: metropolitan borough, metropolitan county of Merseyside, historic county of Cheshire, England, occupying the major portion of the Wirral peninsula, which is bounded by the River Mersey, the Irish Sea, and ...
Wirt, William: innovative American educator best known for his "platoon" system of alternating two groups of students between classroom and recreational or vocational activities.
Wirth, Joseph: liberal German statesman and chancellor during the Weimar Republic (1919-33), who advocated a policy of fulfillment of Germany's obligations under the Versailles Treaty settlement and consistently opposed German militarism after ...
Wirth, Louis: American sociologist who pioneered in the study of urban problems.
Wisbech: town ("parish"), Fenland district, administrative and historic county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies along the River Nene 11 miles (18 km) above the latter's outlet in the Wash. Wisbech is ...
Wisconsin: constituent state of the United States of America. One of the north-central states, it is situated between Lake Michigan to the east and the upper Mississippi River to the west. ...
Wisconsin Dells: scenic region and city along the Wisconsin River, in Columbia, Sauk, Juneau, and Adams counties, south-central Wisconsin, U.S. The city of Wisconsin Dells is located about 50 miles (80 km) ...
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod: conservative Lutheran church in the United States, formed in 1892 as a federation of three conservative synods of German background and then known as the General Evangelical Lutheran Synod of ...
Wisconsin Glacial Stage: most recent major division of Pleistocene time and deposits in North America (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago). It was named for rock deposits studied in the state of Wisconsin. At ...
Wisconsin River: river rising in Lac Vieux Desert (lake), Vilas county, northern Wisconsin, U.S., on the Wisconsin-Michigan border. It flows generally southward through central Wisconsin past Rhinelander, Wausau, Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids, ...
Wisconsin, University of: system of higher education of the state of Wisconsin, U.S. It comprises 13 four-year institutions and 13 two-year colleges. The four-year campuses are located in Eau Claire, Green Bay, Kenosha ...
Wise Men of Gotham: in English legend, wise fools, villagers of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, Eng. The story is that, threatened by a visit from King John (reigned 1199-1216), they decided to feign stupidity and avoid ...
Wise, Isaac Mayer: rabbi whose goal of uniting American Jewry made him the greatest organizer of Reform Jewish institutions in the United States.
Wise, John: colonial American Congregational minister, theologian, and pamphleteer in support of liberal church and civil government.
Wise, Robert: American movie director and producer whose work includes films of nearly every genre.
Wise, Stephen Samuel: Reform rabbi, a leader of the Zionist movement in the United States, and a liberal activist who influenced the development of Reform Judaism in that country.
Wiseman, Frederick: American filmmaker noted for his documentaries that examine the functioning of American institutions.
Wiseman, Nicholas: first cardinal resident in England since the Reformation and first archbishop of Westminster. He was one of the chief architects of the 19th-century revival of Roman Catholicism in England.
wisent: oxlike mammal, also known as the European bison. See bison.