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Wayne ... Weddell Sea

Wayne: county, extreme northeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., bounded to the northeast and north by New York state (the West Branch Delaware and Delaware rivers constituting the boundary), to the southeast by Lake ...
Wayne: county, north-central New York state, U.S. It comprises a lowland region bordered by Lake Ontario to the north and intersected by the New York State Canal System (completed 1918), which ...
Wayne State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Detroit, Mich., U.S. It is a comprehensive research university, comprising colleges of liberal arts, science, education, engineering, fine arts, nursing, pharmacy and allied ...
Wayne, Anthony: prominent American general during the Revolutionary War, who later destroyed the Northwest Indian Confederation at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in Ohio (Aug. 20, 1794).
Wayne, James M.: associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1835-67).
Wayne, John: major American motion-picture actor, who embodied the image of the strong, taciturn cowboy or soldier, and who in many ways personified the idealized American values of his era.
Waynesboro: city, administratively independent of, but located in, Augusta county, north-central Virginia, U.S. It lies in the Shenandoah Valley along the South River, near the junction of Skyline Drive and the ...
Waynflete, William of: English lord chancellor and bishop of Winchester who founded Magdalen College of the University of Oxford.
Wazir, Khalil Ibrahim al-: Palestinian leader who became the military strategist and second in command of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Wazirabad: town, northern Punjab province, Pakistan, just east of the Chenab River. It is an important rail junction, with the Sialkot and Faisalabad (formerly Lyallpur) lines of the Pakistan Western Railway ...
Waziristan: geographic region of the North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. It is a barren, mountainous country occupied by part of the Sulaiman Range and bounded north by the Kurram River, south by ...
Wazyk, Adam: Polish poet and novelist who began his career as a propagandist for Stalinism but ended as one of its opponents.
Wd al-Jadd, Al-: desert muhafazah (governorate), southwestern Egypt. It includes the entire southwestern quadrant of the country, from the Nile River valley (east) to the frontiers with The Sudan (south) ...
Wd alf: town, extreme northern Sudan. It lies on the east bank of the Nile River 6 miles (10 km) below the Second Cataract, just south of the Egyptian border. Located within ...
Weah, George: Liberian football (soccer) player, who was named African, European, and World Player of the Year in 1995-an unprecedented achievement. He won his first African Player of the Year award in ...
weak force: a fundamental force of nature that underlies some forms of radioactivity, governs the decay of unstable subatomic particles such as mesons, and initiates the nuclear fusion reaction that fuels the ...
weakfish: (genus Cynoscion), any member of a group of fishes in the croaker family, Sciaenidae (order Perciformes). A half dozen species inhabit the coastal regions of North America.
Weald, The: ancient raised tract of forest nearly 40 miles (64 km) wide in southeastern England, separating the London basin from the English Channel coast. The Weald (Saxon: Andredsweald) is developed on ...
Wealden: district, administrative county of East Sussex, historic county of Sussex, England. The district takes its name from that of the Weald, a region of forested ridges that lies between the ...
wealth and income, distribution of: the way in which the wealth and income of a nation are divided among its population, or the way in which the wealth and income of the world are divided ...
weapon: an instrument used in combat for the purpose of killing, injuring, or defeating an enemy. A weapon may be a shock weapon, held in the hands, such as the club, ...
weapon of mass destruction: weapon with the capacity to inflict death and destruction on such a massive scale and so indiscriminately that its very presence in the hands of a hostile power can be ...
weapons system: any integrated system, usually computerized, for the control and operation of weapons of a particular kind. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, long-range bombers, and antiballistic missiles are the weaponry of the strategic ...
wear: the removal of material from a solid surface as a result of mechanical action exerted by another solid. Wear chiefly occurs as a progressive loss of material resulting from the ...
Wear Valley: district, administrative and historic county of Durham, northeastern England, in the northwestern part of the county. Lying mostly within a section of the Pennines, Wear Valley district is predominantly a ...
Wear, River: river that rises near Wearhead in the county of Durham, England, and enters the North Sea at Sunderland. With headwaters in the Pennines, it flows through Weardale and once entered ...
weasel: any of various small carnivores with very elongated, slender bodies. Most live in the Northern Hemisphere and belong to the genus Mustela, which in addition to weasels ...
weather: state of the atmosphere at a particular place during a short period of time. It involves such atmospheric phenomena as temperature, humidity, precipitation (type and amount), air pressure, wind, and ...
weather bureau: agency established by many nations to observe and report the weather and to issue forecasts and warnings of weather and flood conditions affecting national safety, welfare, and economy. In each ...
weather forecasting: the prediction of the weather through application of the principles of physics, supplemented by a variety of statistical and empirical techniques. In addition to predictions of atmospheric phenomena themselves, weather ...
weather map: any map or chart that shows the meteorological elements at a given time over an extended area. The earliest weather charts were made well before 1835 by collecting synchronous weather ...
weather modification: the deliberate or the inadvertent alternation of atmospheric conditions by human activity, sufficient to modify the weather on local or regional scales.
weather satellite: any of a class of Earth satellites designed to monitor meteorological conditions (see Earth satellite).
weatherfish: any of certain fishes of the loach (q.v.) group.
Weatherford: city, seat of Parker county, north-central Texas, U.S. It lies some 30 miles (50 km) west of Fort Worth. It originated in 1855 as the county seat and was named ...
weathering: disintegration or alteration of rock in its natural or original position at or near the Earth's surface through physical, chemical, and biological processes induced or modified by wind, water, and ...
weaver: any of a number of small finchlike birds of the Old World, or any of several related birds that are noted for their nest-building techniques using grass stems and other ...
Weaver, James B: American politician who leaned toward agrarian radicalism; he twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. presidency, as the Greenback-Labor candidate (1880) and as the Populist candidate (1892).
Weaver, John: dancer, ballet master, choreographer, and theorist known as the father of English pantomime.
Weaver, River: river rising on the boundary between the counties of Shropshire and Cheshire, England, and then flowing 45 miles (72 km) north to reach the Irish Sea estuary of the River ...
Weaver, Robert C.: noted economist who was the first African American to serve in the U.S. cabinet.
weaver-finch: any of numerous songbirds belonging to the family Estrildidae (order Passeriformes), individually called grass finch, mannikin, and waxbill (qq.v.). They are finchlike Old World birds. Most of the 107 species ...
Weavers, the: seminal American folksinging group of the late 1940s and '50s. The original members were Lee Hays (b. 1914, Little Rock, Ark., U.S., -d. Aug. 26, 1981, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., ), Ronnie ...
weaving: production of fabric by interlacing two sets of yarns so that they cross each other, normally at right angles, usually accomplished with a hand- or power-operated loom.
Webb, Chick: black American jazz drummer who led one of the dominant big bands of the swing era. Its swing, precision, and popularity made it the standard of excellence to which other ...
Webb, Clement Charles Julian: English scholar and philosopher remembered for his contribution to the study of the societal aspects of religion.
Webb, Mary: English novelist best known for her book Precious Bane (1924). Her lyrical style conveys a rich and intense impression of the Shropshire countryside and its people. Her love of nature ...
Webb, Philip Speakman: architect and designer especially known for his unconventional country houses, who was a pioneer figure in the English domestic revival movement.
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice: English Socialist economists (husband and wife), early members of the Fabian Society, and co-founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Sidney Webb also helped reorganize the University ...
Webb, William Henry: American naval architect, one of the most versatile and successful shipbuilders of his day, who in 1889 established and endowed the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture at Glen Cove, N.Y. ...
weber: unit of magnetic flux in the International System of Units (SI), defined as the amount of flux that, linking an electrical circuit of one turn (one loop of wire), produces ...
Weber State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Ogden, Utah, U.S. It is part of the Utah System of Higher Education. Its 400-acre (162-hectare) campus overlooks Ogden and the Great Salt ...
Weber's law: historically important psychological law quantifying the perception of change in a given stimulus. The law states that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ...
Weber's Line: hypothetical boundary between the Oriental and Australasian faunal regions, representing the apparent midline in the mixing of the two faunas. First proposed in 1902 as a replacement for Wallace's Line ...
Weber, Carl Maria von: German composer and opera director during the transition from Classical to Romantic music, noted especially for his operas Der Freischutz (1821; "The Freeshooter"), Euryanthe ...
Weber, Ernst: Austrian-born American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of microwave communications equipment and who oversaw the growth of the Polytechnic Institute in New York City.
Weber, Ernst Heinrich: German anatomist and physiologist whose fundamental studies of the sense of touch introduced a concept-that of the just-noticeable difference, the smallest difference perceivable between two similar stimuli-that is important to ...
Weber, Joe; and Fields, Lew: American comedy team that was popular at the turn of the 20th century. They were known for broad slapstick sketches in "Dutch" dialect that had undertones of sharp satire.
Weber, Lois: American actress, producer, and director who is best remembered for her crusading films of social concern in the early days of the motion picture industry.
Weber, Max: Russian-born American painter, printmaker, and sculptor who, through his early abstract works, helped to introduce such avant-garde European art movements as Fauvism and Cubism to the United States.
Weber, Max: German sociologist and political economist best known for his thesis of the "Protestant ethic," relating Protestantism to capitalism, and for his ideas on bureaucracy. Weber's profound influence on sociological theory ...
Weber, Wilhelm Eduard: German physicist who, with his friend Carl Friedrich Gauss, investigated terrestrial magnetism and in 1833 devised an electromagnetic telegraph. The magnetic unit, termed a weber, formerly the coulomb, is named ...
Weberian apparatus: distinctive chain of small bones characteristic of fish of the superorder Ostariophysi (carps, characins, minnows, suckers, loaches, catfish, and others). The Weberian apparatus consists of four pairs of bones, called ...
Webern, Anton von: Austrian composer of the 12-tone Viennese school (see atonality). He is known especially for his passacaglia for orchestra, his chamber music, and various songs (Lieder).
webspinner: any insect of the mainly tropical order Embioptera of about 150 species. The fragile, yellow- or brown-coloured webspinner has biting mouthparts, feeds on dead plant material, and is from 4 ...
Webster: town (township), Worcester county, south-central Massachusetts, U.S., on the French River, 18 miles (29 km) south of Worcester city. Within the town limits is Lake Chaubunagungamaug (now also called Lake ...
Webster City: city, seat (1856) of Hamilton county, central Iowa, U.S., on the Boone River, 17 miles (27 km) east of Fort Dodge. It was settled in 1850 by Wilson Brewer and ...
Webster, Ben: American jazz musician noted for the beauty of his tenor saxophone tone and for his melodic inventiveness.
Webster, Daniel: American orator and politician who practiced prominently as a lawyer before the U.S. Supreme Court and served as a U.S. congressman (1813-17, 1823-27), a U.S. senator (1827-41, 1845-50), and U.S. ...
Webster, Jean: American writer who is best remembered for her fiction best-seller Daddy-Long-Legs, which was also successful in stage and motion picture adaptations.
Webster, John: English dramatist whose The White Devil (c. 1609-c. 1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1612/13, published 1623) are generally regarded as the paramount 17th-century English tragedies apart from those ...
Webster, Marie: American quilt designer and historian, author of the first book entirely devoted to American quilts.
Webster, Noah: American lexicographer known for his American Spelling Book (1783) and his American Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vol. (1828; 2nd ed., 1840). Webster ...
Webster-Ashburton Treaty: (1842), treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain establishing the northeastern boundary of the U.S. and providing for Anglo-U.S. cooperation in the suppression of the slave trade. The treaty established ...
Wechsler, David: American psychologist and inventor of several widely used intelligence tests for adults and children.
Weddell Sea: deep embayment of the Antarctic coastline that forms the southernmost tip of the Atlantic Ocean. Centring at about 73° S, 45° W, the Weddell Sea is bounded on the west ...