city, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania Land (state), northern Germany. It lies along Wismar Bay (Wismarbucht), an inlet of the Baltic Sea, east of Lubeck. First mentioned in 1229, it ...
Flemish novelist, essayist, and critic whose avant-garde works examine the individual's search for identity and the relationship between literature and life.
chain of three highland lakes located in the Sudirman Range of Irian Jaya provinsi (province), Indonesia, western New Guinea. They comprise Paniai, the largest and northernmost; Tage, to its south; ...
German explorer who twice crossed the continent of Africa and added to the knowledge of the upper Congo River basin. His explorations led to the establishment of German colonies in ...
genus of twining, usually woody vines, of the pea family (Fabaceae), mostly native to Asia and North America but widely cultivated in other regions for their attractive growth habit and ...
the council of the Anglo-Saxon kings in and of England; its essential duty was to advise the king on all matters on which he chose to ask its opinion. It ...
town, Mpumalanga province, South Africa, east of Pretoria. Established in 1890, it is at the centre of a coal-mining area in which more than 20 collieries operate. During the South ...
a hollow glass sphere, sometimes as large as 7 inches (18 cm) in diameter. Witch balls are made in several colours, among which green and blue predominate. Its name is ...
a healer or benevolent worker of magic in a nonliterate society. The term originated in England in the 18th century and is generally considered to be pejorative and anthropologically inaccurate. ...
any of six species of the genus Hamamelis (family Hamamelidaceae), all of which are shrubs and small trees that are native to eastern North America and eastern Asia. Some are ...
the exercise or invocation of alleged supernatural powers to control people or events, practices typically involving sorcery or magic. Although defined differently in disparate historical and cultural contexts, witchcraft has ...
nocturnal gathering of witches, a colourful and intriguing part of the lore surrounding them in Christian European tradition. The concept dates from the mid-14th century when it first appeared in ...
symptom of plant disease that occurs as an abnormal brushlike cluster of dwarfed, weak shoots arising at or near the same point; twigs and branches of woody plants may die ...
any plant of the genus Striga in the figwort family (Scrophulariaceae), including about 50 species of the Old World tropics and one species introduced into the southeastern United States. About ...
a carbonate mineral, barium carbonate (BaCO3), that is, with the exception of barite, the most common barium mineral, despite its rarity. It is ordinarily found in fairly pure form in ...
Scottish-American Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University); he was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.
South American Indians of southeastern Colombia and northern Peru, belonging to an isolated language group. There were more than 31 Witotoan tribes in an aboriginal population of several thousand. Exploitation, ...
one of the foremost European statesmen of the 17th century who as councillor pensionary (the political leader) of Holland (1653-72) guided the United Provinces in the First and Second Anglo-Dutch ...
German figure skater who was the first woman to win consecutive Olympic gold medals (1984 and 1988) in singles figure skating since Sonja Henie in 1936. The charismatic Witt defined ...
(Count) Russian minister of finance (1892-1903) and first constitutional prime minister of the Russian Empire (1905-06), who sought to wed firm authoritarian rule to modernization along Western lines.
uppermost member of the Cape System of sedimentary rocks in South Africa. It consists of about 805 metres (2,640 feet) of shales and sandstones and is transitional between the Late ...
German noble family that provided rulers of Bavaria and of the Rhenish Palatinate until the 20th century. The name was taken from the castle of Wittelsbach, which formerly stood near ...
city, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), northwestern Germany. It lies on the Ruhr River, bordering Dortmund (north) and Bochum (northwest). Chartered in 1825, it was severely damaged in ...
American mathematical physicist who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his work in superstring theory. He also received the Dirac Medal from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics ...
city, Saxony-Anhalt Land (state), north-central Germany. It lies on the Elbe River, southwest of Berlin. First mentioned in 1180 and chartered in 1293, it was the residence ...
American relief worker and reformer who helped supply medical aid and dietary assistance to army hospitals during the Civil War and was subsequently an influential organizer in the temperance movement.
Austrian-born English philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Wittgenstein's two major works, Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (1921; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922) and Philosophische Untersuchungen (published posthumously in ...
French avant-garde novelist and radical feminist whose works include unconventional narratives about utopian nonhierarchical worlds, often devoid of men.
(Oct. 4, 1636), military engagement of the Thirty Years' War, the greatest victory of the Swedish general Johan Baner, pupil of Gustavus II Adolphus. The battle took place at a ...
volcanic island group of the Bismarck Archipelago, eastern Papua New Guinea. The islands lie 40 miles (65 km) north of New Britain Island in the Bismarck Sea, southwestern Pacific. The ...
ridge of gold-bearing rock mostly in Gauteng province, South Africa. Its name means "Ridge of White Waters." The highland, which forms the watershed between the Vaal and Limpopo rivers, is ...
major division of Precambrian rocks in South Africa (the Precambrian began about 3.8 billion years ago and ended 540 million years ago). The Witwatersrand rocks overlie rocks of the Dominion ...
southernmost of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast of North America. They lived along the lower Mad River, Humboldt Bay, and lower Eel River of California and spoke Wiyot, ...
king of Poland (1320-33), a ruler who succeeded in bringing together a series of Polish principalities into a kingdom and laying the foundations for a strong Polish nation.
Lithuanian Jogaila, or Iogaila, English Jagiello, or Jagello grand duke of Lithuania (as Jogaila, 1377-1401) and king of Poland (1386-1434), who joined two states that became the leading power of ...
Polish king (1434-44) who was also king of Hungary (as Ulaszlo I; 1440-44) and who attempted unsuccessfully to push the Ottoman Turks out of the Balkans. His reign was overshadowed ...
king of Poland (1632-48), a popular monarch who did much to heal the wounds and solve the problems created by his father, Sigismund III Vasa, an obstinate man and religious ...
(Isatis tinctoria), biennial or perennial herb, of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), formerly grown as a source of the blue dye indigo and now sometimes cultivated for its clusters of small, ...
city, Middlesex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S., located just north of Boston. The community, named for Woburn, England, was set off from Charlestown and incorporated as a town in 1642. Aided ...
Bedfordshire, Eng., seat of the dukes of Bedford, with a house that was rebuilt from a medieval Cistercian abbey by Henry Flitcroft (in 1747-61) and Henry Holland (in 1787-88). Its ...
English-born comic novelist, short-story writer, lyricist, and playwright, best known as the creator of Jeeves, the supreme "gentleman's gentleman." He wrote more than 90 books and more than 20 film ...
city, Slaskie wojewodztwo (province), south-central Poland. Located in the Rybnik coal fields, it is 6 miles (10 km) north of the border with the Czech Republic and ...
German chemist, first to synthesize (1828) an organic compound (urea) from an inorganic substance. About the same time, he developed a process for preparing metallic aluminum.
American writer whose semiautobiographical fiction reflects his early childhood in a tiny town on the western North Dakota plains, where five generations of his family had lived.
one of the leaders in the struggle for Polish independence from Russia in the years before World War I. He later served as the second president of the Polish Republic ...
thin-walled cooking pan, shaped like a shallow bowl with handles, widely used in Chinese-style cooking. The wok has a round bottom that concentrates heat, cooking food quickly with relatively little ...
town, Nagaland state, northeastern India, at the foot of the Wokha Hills, 50 miles (80 km) north of Kohima town. It is a trade and agricultural centre for the surrounding ...
borough (district), administrative and historic county of Surrey, England. Woking lies about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of London. It developed as a residential town in an attractive setting of ...
town and unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Berkshire, England. It lies 33 miles (53 km) west of London. The town of Wokingham, which lay in Windsor Royal Forest, ...
any of three species of wild doglike carnivores. The gray, or timber, wolf (Canis lupus) is the best-known. It is the largest nondomestic member of the dog ...
huge meteorite crater 65 miles (105 km) south of Halls Creek, Western Australia. The crater is on the edge of a little-explored desert and was first sighted from an airplane ...
(Chirocentrus dorab), species of fish belonging to the family Chirocentridae (order Clupeiformes). It is exclusively marine in habitat, occurring in the Indian Ocean and in the western Pacific to Japan ...
any of a number of nonvenomous members of the family Colubridae, named for enlarged teeth at the front of both jaws. Southeast Asian wolf snakes are placed in the genera ...
any member of the spider family Lycosidae (order Araneida), a large and widespread group. They are named for the wolflike habit of chasing and pouncing upon prey. About 125 species ...
German classical scholar who is considered the founder of modern philology but is best known for his Prolegomena ad Homerum (1795), which created the "Homer question" in its modern form.
