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Zollverein ... Zuozhuan
Zollverein
German customs union established in 1834 under Prussian leadership. It created a free-trade area throughout much of Germany and is often seen as an important step in German reunification.
Zomba
city, southern Malawi. It lies on the lower slopes of Zomba Mountain in the Shire Highlands, 37 miles (60 km) northeast of Blantyre. Established in 1885 as a planters' settlement, ...
Zomba Massif
isolated mass of syenite (igneous rock composed chiefly of feldspar) rising from the Shire Highlands, southern Malawi. Occupying an area of about 50 square miles (130 square km), it reaches ...
Zonaras, Joannes
Byzantine historian whose world history, Historical Epitome, extending from the creation to 1118, provides valuable information on the 11th century.
Zond
any of a series of eight unmanned Soviet lunar and interplanetary probes. Zond 1 (launched April 1964) and Zond 2 (November 1964) were aimed at Venus and Mars respectively, but ...
zonda
winter foehn (q.v.; a warm, dry wind blowing down the side of a mountain) in Argentina, where it blows from the west across the Andes Mountains.
zone melting
any of a group of techniques used to purify an element or a compound or control its composition by melting a short region (i.e., zone) and causing this liquid zone ...
Zonguldak
city, capital of Zonguldak il (province), northwestern Turkey, on the Black Sea coast. The well-equipped port is the main outlet for coal extracted from the basin between ...
Zonheboto
town, administrative headquarters of Zonheboto district, Nagaland state, northeastern India. Formerly in the Mokokchung subdivision, it is situated 41 mi (66 km) northeast of Kohima town. The town has some ...
zoning
the legislative method of controlling land use by regulating such considerations as the type of buildings (e.g., commercial or residential) that may be erected and the population density. Applied primarily ...
zoo
place where wild animals and, in some instances, domesticated animals are exhibited in captivity. In such an establishment animals can generally be given more intensive care than is possible in ...
zoochlorella
any small green alga (often Chlorella) or, sometimes, flagellate protozoan (e.g., the chlamydomonad Carteria) that lives within the bodies of various freshwater protozoans and invertebrates. Zoochlorellae often colour their hosts ...
zooflagellate
any flagellate protozoan that is traditionally of the protozoan class Zoomastigophorea (sometimes called Zooflagellata), although recent classifications of this group have questioned the taxonomic usefulness of the term because some ...
zoogeography
the branch of the science of biogeography (q.v.) that is concerned with the geographic distribution of animal species. In addition to mapping the present distribution of species, zoogeographers formulate theories ...
zoology
branch of biology concerned with the members of the animal kingdom and with animal life in general. It embraces all conceivable forms of study, not only of the components of ...
zoology
branch of biology that studies the members of the animal kingdom and animal life in general. It includes both the inquiry into individual animals and their constituent parts, even to ...
Zoomastigophorea
protozoan class also known as Zooflagellata. See zooflagellate.
zoonosis
any disease shared by humans and other vertebrate animals. The term was originally defined to describe a group of diseases that humans may acquire from domestic animals. This definition has ...
zoophilia
sexual relations between a human being and an animal. Although the practice is illegal in most countries, occasional zoophilic encounters are fairly common, especially in rural areas, where 17 percent ...
zooplankton
small floating or weakly swimming organisms that drift with water currents and, with phytoplankton, make up the planktonic food supply upon which almost all oceanic organisms are ultimately dependent. Many ...
zooxanthella
any flagellate protozoan, sometimes classified as a yellow-green alga, with yellow or brown pigments contained in chromatophores. Zooxanthellae live in other protozoa (foraminiferans and radiolarians) and in some invertebrates. They ...
Zophar
in the Book of Job (2:11, 11:1, 20:1, 42:9), one of the three comforters of Job, a biblical archetype of the good man whose misfortunes are undeserved. Like the other ...
Zorach, William
U.S. traditionalist sculptor of simple, figurative subjects who was a leading figure in the early 20th-century revival of direct carving, whereby the sculptor seeks his image directly from the material ...
zorapteran
any member of the insect order Zoraptera, consisting of one family and at least 22 described species. They are found on every continent except Europe. They are minute insects, less ...
zorille
(Ictonyx [sometimes Zorilla] striatus), African carnivore of the weasel family (Mustelidae), frequenting diverse habitats. It has a slender body, 29-39 centimetres (12-16 inches) long, and a bushy white tail, 21-31 ...
Zorn's lemma
statement in the language of set theory, equivalent to the axiom of choice, that is often used to prove the existence of a mathematical object when it cannot be explicitly ...
Zorn, Anders
Swedish painter and etcher, internationally famed as one of the best genre and portrait painters in Europe at the end of the 19th century.
Zoroaster
Iranian religious reformer and founder of Zoroastrianism, or Parsiism, as it is known in India. (See Zoroastrianism; Parsi.)
Zoroastrianism
the ancient pre-Islamic religion of Iran that survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parsis, or ...
Zorrilla de San Martin, Juan
Uruguayan poet famous for a long historical verse epic, Tabare (1886; final edition after several revisions, 1926), a poem in six cantos, based upon a legend of the love between ...
Zorrilla y Moral, Jose
poet and dramatist, the major figure of the nationalist wing of the Spanish Romantic movement. His work was enormously popular and is now regarded as quintessentially Spanish in style and ...
Zorzor
town, northwestern Liberia, West Africa. It is situated along the road from Monrovia to Sierra Leone. A local trade centre for agricultural products (rice, cassava, pineapples, and palm oil and ...
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Mikhaylovich
Soviet satirist whose short stories and sketches are among the best comic literature of the Soviet period.
Zosimus, Saint
pope from March 417 to December 418. He was consecrated as Pope St. Innocent I's successor on March 18, 417. His brief but turbulent pontificate was embroiled in conflicts involving ...
Zouche, Richard
English jurist, one of the founders of international law, who became regius professor of civil law at Oxford and later practiced successfully in London.
Zouirat
town, north-central Mauritania. It is the site of iron-mining operations, which account for a sizable portion of Mauritania's export earnings. It is connected by railway to the Atlantic port of ...
Zoysia
genus of creeping grasses of the family Poaceae, containing four or five perennial species native to southeastern Asia and New Zealand. They are excellent cover for flat, sandy, open areas.
Zrate
city, northeastern Buenos Aires provincia (province), eastern Argentina. It is located on the Parana de las Palmas River, a channel of the lower Parana River delta emptying ...
Zrinyi, Miklos
statesman, military leader, and author of the first epic poem in Hungarian literature.
Zsigmondy, Richard
Austrian chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1925 for research on colloids, which consist of submicroscopic particles dispersed throughout another substance. He invented the ultramicroscope in the ...
Zu Chongzhi
Chinese astronomer, mathematician, and engineer who created the Daming calendar and found several close approximations for pi.
Zu Gengzhi
Chinese government official, mathematician, astronomer, and son of Zu Chongzhi (429-500).
Zubatov, Sergey Vasilyevich
tsarist colonel of the Russian gendarmes known for his establishment of a system of surveillance to monitor the activities of revolutionary organizations.
Zubayr, Al-
town, southeastern Iraq. Located just southeast of Lake al-Hammar at the terminus of a railway line to Baghdad, it has long been important in trade with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ...
Zubiri, Xavier
Spanish Christian Existential philosopher who was known for his analysis of reality in terms of the interrelations of philosophy, science, and religion.
Zuccarelli, Francesco
Italian Rococo painter who influenced 18th-century English landscape painting.
Zuccari, Federico
Italian painter and art theorist who became the central figure of the Roman Mannerist school and, after the death of Titian, possibly the best known painter in Europe.
Zuccari, Taddeo
Italian painter, leader (with his brother Federico Zuccari) of the Roman Mannerist school of painting.
zucchetto
small silk skullcap worn by Roman Catholic clergymen. Developed from the pileus (q.v.), a close-fitting, brimless hat commonly worn by the Romans, the zucchetto has probably been worn by ecclesiastics ...
Zucchi, Niccolo
Italian astronomer who, in approximately 1616, designed one of the earliest reflecting telescopes, antedating those of James Gregory and Sir Isaac Newton. A professor at the Jesuit College in Rome, ...
Zuckerman, Yitzhak
hero of Jewish resistance to the Nazis in World War II and one of the few survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Zuckmayer, Carl
German playwright whose works deal critically with many of the problems engendered by two world wars.
Zug
capital of Zug canton, north central Switzerland, on the northeastern shore of Lake Zug (Zugersee), at the foot of the Zugerberg (3,409 ft [1,039 m]), just south of Zurich. First ...
Zug
smallest undivided canton of Switzerland, with an area of 92 sq mi (239 sq km), of which 12 sq mi are occupied by Lakes Zug and Ageri. Bounded by the ...
Zugspitze
mountain, southern Germany, the highest point (9,718 ft [2,962 m]) in the country. Zugspitze is part of the Wettersteingebirge in the Bavarian Alps, lying on the Austrian border. The mountain ...
Zuhayr Rabl!ah ibn Rly)e al-Muzanl)
one of the greatest of the Arab poets of pre-Islamic times, best known for his long ode in the Mu'allaqat collection.
zuhd
(Arabic: "detachment"), in Islam, asceticism. Even though a Muslim is permitted to enjoy fully whatever unforbidden pleasure God bestows on him, Islam nevertheless encourages and praises those who shun luxury ...
Zuid-Holland
provincie, western Netherlands, bordering the North Sea and adjoining the provincies of Noord-Holland (north), Utrecht and Gelderland (east), and Noord-Brabant and Zeeland (south). Drained by the ramifications of the Lek, ...
Zuiderzee
former inlet of the North Sea. From the 13th to the 20th century, the Zuiderzee penetrated The Netherlands and occupied some 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km); it was separated ...
Zukerman, Pinchas
Israeli-American violinist, violist, and conductor.
Zukofsky, Louis
American poet, the founder of Objectivist poetry and author of the massive poem "A."
Zukor, Adolph
American entrepreneur who built the powerful Famous Players-Paramount motion-picture studio.
Zulia
estado ("state"), northwestern Venezuela. Zulia is bounded north by the Gulf of Venezuela and west by Colombia. Except for two narrow corridors on the southeastern shore, the largest one lying ...
Zuloaga y Zabaleta, Ignacio
Spanish genre and portrait painter noted for his theatrical paintings of figures from Spanish culture and folklore.
Zulu
a nation of Nguni-speaking people in KwaZulu/Natal province, South Africa. They are a branch of the southern Bantu and have close ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ties with the Swazi and ...
Zulu language
a Bantu language spoken by more than nine million people mainly in South Africa, especially in the Zululand area of KwaZulu/Natal province. The Zulu language is a member of the ...
Zulu War
(1879), decisive six-month war in eastern South Africa, resulting in British victory over the Zulus. Before the war the Tugela River formed the boundary between Zululand and the British colony ...
Zululand
historical region in the northeast section of present KwaZulu/Natal (formerly Natal) province, South Africa, and the home of the Zulu (q.v.) people.
Zumalacarregui y de Imaz, Tomas de
Spanish military tactician and the most brilliant soldier to fight for Don Carlos, a Bourbon traditionalist contender for the Spanish throne, in the First Carlist War (1833-39).
Zumpe, Johann Christoph
German pianoforte maker and builder of the earliest known British piano (1766).
Zumthor, Peter
Swiss architect known for his pure, austere structures.
zun
any of a wide range of ancient Chinese wine vessels. These forms are characterized by an ample interior volume for containing wine and a wide opening for drinking.
Zuni
North American Indian pueblo in west-central New Mexico, on the Arizona border (see Pueblo Indians). The Zuni speak a language related to Penutian. Their origin and early history are unknown; ...
Zunz, Leopold
German historian of Jewish literature who is often considered the greatest Jewish scholar of the 19th century. He began (1819) the movement called Wissenschaft des Judentums ("Science of Judaism"), which ...
Zunzunegui, Juan Antonio de
Spanish novelist and short-story writer whose straightforward narrative technique was rooted in the 19th century. His subject was chiefly social criticism of modern life in Bilbao and Madrid. A member ...
Zuozhuan
ancient commentary on the Chunqiu ("Spring and Autumn [Annals]") and the first sustained narrative work in Chinese literature.