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  • Aethelbald (king of Wessex)
    king of Wessex (from 855/856), the son of Aethelwulf, with whom he led the West Saxons to victory against the Danes at Aclea (851). He reportedly rebelled against his father either before (855) or on the latter’s return from Rome in 856 and deprived him of Wessex, which he ruled until his death. On his father’s death in 858 he married his stepmother, Judith....
  • Aethelberg (queen of Northumbria)
    ...his father’s widow. After his subsequent conversion by Laurentius, archbishop of Canterbury, he built a church in Canterbury dedicated to the Virgin Mary. He arranged a marriage between his sister Aethelberg and Edwin of Northumbria, on whose defeat and death in 633 he received his sister in the company of Paulinus and offered the latter the bishopric of Rochester....
  • Aethelberht (king of Wessex)
    king of the West Saxons, or Wessex, who succeeded to the subkingdom of Kent during the lifetime of his father Aethelwulf and retained it until the death of his elder brother Aethelbald in 860, when he became sole king of Wessex and Kent, the younger brothers Aethelred and Alfred renouncing their claim. He ruled these kingdoms for five years. His reign was marked by two serious attacks from the Dan...
  • Aethelberht I (king of Kent)
    king of Kent (560–616) who issued the first extant code of Anglo-Saxon laws. Reflecting some continental influence, the code established the legal position of the clergy and instituted many secular regulations. Aethelberht’s marriage to Bertha (or Berhta), daughter of Charibert, king of Paris, and a Christian, may account for the tolerant reception that he accorded Augustine and othe...
  • Aethelflaed (Anglo-Saxon ruler)
    Anglo-Saxon ruler of Mercia in England and founder of Gloucester Abbey....
  • Aethelfrith (king of Bernicia and Deira)
    king of Bernicia (from 592/593) and of Deira, which together formed Northumbria....
  • Aethelfrith the Destroyer (king of Bernicia and Deira)
    king of Bernicia (from 592/593) and of Deira, which together formed Northumbria....
  • Aetheling (Anglo-Saxon aristocrat)
    in Anglo-Saxon England, generally any person of noble birth. Use of the term was usually restricted to members of a royal family, and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is used almost exclusively for members of the royal house of Wessex. It was occasionally used after the Norman Conquest to designate members of the royal family—e.g., William the Aetheling, son and heir of King Henry I....
  • Aethelred (king of Mercia)
    king of Mercia, who was a benefactor of many churches in his several provinces and at last retired to a monastery....
  • Aethelred (king of England)
    king of the English from 978 to 1013 and from 1014 to 1016. He was an ineffectual ruler who failed to prevent the Danes from overrunning England. The epithet “unready” is derived from unraed, meaning “bad counsel” or “no counsel,” and puns on his name, which means “noble counsel.”...
  • Aethelred I (king of Wessex and Kent)
    king of Wessex and of Kent (865/866–871), son of Aethelwulf of Wessex....
  • Aethelred of Rievaulx, Saint (Cistercian monk)
    writer, historian, and outstanding Cistercian abbot who influenced monasticism in medieval England, Scotland, and France....
  • Aethelred Unraed (king of England)
    king of the English from 978 to 1013 and from 1014 to 1016. He was an ineffectual ruler who failed to prevent the Danes from overrunning England. The epithet “unready” is derived from unraed, meaning “bad counsel” or “no counsel,” and puns on his name, which means “noble counsel.”...
  • Aethelstan (king of Denmark)
    leader of a major Danish invasion of Anglo-Saxon England who waged war against the West Saxon king Alfred the Great (reigned 871–899) and later made himself king of East Anglia (reigned 880–890)....
  • Aethelstan (king of England)
    first West Saxon king to have effective rule over the whole of England....
  • Aethelweard (English chronicler)
    English chronicler and likely ealderman of the western provinces (probably the whole of Wessex), a descendant of King Alfred’s brother Aethelred. He wrote, in elaborate and peculiar Latin, a chronicle for his continental kinswoman, Matilda, abbess of Essen. In the printed version of the text, the chronicle stops in 975, but fragments of the burned manuscript show that it continued into the ...
  • Aethelwold (Anglo-Saxon bishop)
    ...of the mid- to late 10th century is associated with the Benedictine Reform, a movement that sought to impose order and discipline on a monastic establishment that was thought to have grown lax. Aethelwold, bishop of Winchester and one of the leaders of the reform, translated the Rule of St. Benedict. But the greatest and most prolific writer of this period was his pupil Aelfric, a monk at......
  • Aethelwulf (Anglo-Saxon king)
    Anglo-Saxon king in England, the father of King Alfred the Great. As ruler of the West Saxons from 839 to 856, he allied his kingdom of Wessex with Mercia and thereby withstood invasions by Danish Vikings....
  • aether (theoretical substance)
    in physics, a theoretical, universal substance believed during the 19th century to act as the medium for transmission of electromagnetic waves (e.g., light and X rays) much as sound waves are transmitted by elastic media such as air. The ether was assumed to be weightless, transparent, frictionless, undetectable chemically or physically, and literally permeating all matte...
  • Aether (Greek mythology)
    ...of Hesiod. First there was Chaos in Hesiod’s system, then Gaea and Eros (Earth and Desire). Chaos, however, did not generate Gaea; the offspring of Chaos were Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx. Nyx begat Aether, the bright upper air, and Day. Nyx later begat the dark and dreadful aspects of the universe (e.g., Dreams, Death, War, and Famine). This concept tied in with the other early noti...
  • Aetherius Society (international organization)
    ...be a contactee), argued that UFOs carried beings who had come to Earth to promote world peace and personal development. The Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, led by Gabriel Green, and the Aetherius Society, organized by George King, maintained that space aliens held the key to the salvation both of the planet as a whole and of every individual on Earth....
  • Aethia pusilla (bird)
    The smallest member of the family is the least auklet (Aethia pusilla), about 15 cm (6 inches) long. It winters far north in rough waters. The plainest and grayest species is Cassin’s auklet (Ptychoramphus aleuticus), a common resident from the Aleutians to Baja California....
  • Aethionema (plant)
    (genus Aethionema), any of about 70 species of mostly sprawling, low herbs of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to chalky, dry soil areas of the Mediterranean region, with a few species in eastern Asia. Stonecresses are grown as rock garden or border plants for their narrow leaves and four-petaled pink, lilac, or white flowers. Persian stonecress (A. grandiflorum), a perennia...
  • Aethionema cordifolium (plant)
    ...plants for their narrow leaves and four-petaled pink, lilac, or white flowers. Persian stonecress (A. grandiflorum), a perennial with rosy-lavender flowers, grows to over 30 cm (1 foot). Lebanon stonecress (A. cordifolium) has rose-pink flowers on 10- to 25-cm (4- to 10-inch) plants....
  • Aethionema grandiflorum (plant)
    ...areas of the Mediterranean region, with a few species in eastern Asia. Stonecresses are grown as rock garden or border plants for their narrow leaves and four-petaled pink, lilac, or white flowers. Persian stonecress (A. grandiflorum), a perennial with rosy-lavender flowers, grows to over 30 cm (1 foot). Lebanon stonecress (A. cordifolium) has rose-pink flowers on 10- to 25-cm (4-...
  • Aethiopica (novel by Heliodorus of Emesa)
    Greek writer, author of the Aethiopica, the longest and most readable of the extant ancient Greek novels....
  • Aethiopis (work by Arctinus)
    ...entreaty. The Iliad concludes with the funeral rites of Hector. It makes no mention of the death of Achilles, though the Odyssey mentions his funeral. The poet Arctinus in his Aethiopis took up the story of the Iliad and related that Achilles, having slain the Ethiopian king Memnon and the Amazon Penthesilea, was himself slain in battle by Priam’s son Paris,.....
  • Aethra (Greek mythology)
    in Greek mythology, daughter of King Pittheus of Troezen and mother of Theseus. Thinking to help fulfill the prophecy of the Oracle at Delphi regarding how the childlessness of King Aegeus of Athens would end, Pittheus (whose prospects for a son-in-law had recently vanished) plied Aegeus with wine and lured him into Aethra’s bed. When Aegeus awoke and saw where he was, he...
  • aetiology (pathology)
    The etiologic classification of disease is based on the cause, when known. This classification is particularly important and useful in the consideration of biotic disease. On this basis disease might be classified as staphylococcal or rickettsial or fungal, to cite only a few instances. It is important to know, for example, what kinds of disease staphylococci produce in human beings. It is well......
  • Aëtius (Syrian bishop)
    Syrian bishop and heretic who, during the theological controversies over the Christian Trinity, founded the extreme Arian sect of the Anomoeans. His name became a byword for radical heresy....
  • Aetius, Flavius (Roman general)
    Roman general and statesman who was the dominating influence over Valentinian III (emperor 425–455)....
  • Aetna (volcano, Italy)
    active volcano on the east coast of Sicily. The name comes from the Greek Aitne, from aithō, “I burn.” Mount Etna is the highest active volcano in Europe, its topmost elevation being more than 10,000 ft (3,200 m). Like other active volcanoes, its height varies: in 1865, for example, the volcanic summit was 170 ft higher than it was in the late 20th century. Etna covers ...
  • Aetobatus narinari (fish)
    ...temperate coastal waters. They have very long, slim tails and, unlike other rays, have heads that project beyond the body disk. Notable members of this family include the spotted duckbilled ray (Aetobatus narinari), a large Atlantic and Pacific species that can cause deep wounds with its tail spines, and the bat stingray (Myliobatis californicus), a Pacific form noted for its......
  • Aetolia (district, Greece)
    district of ancient Greece, located directly north of the Gulf of Corinth and bounded by Epirus (north), Locris (east), and Acarnania (west). In modern Greece, Aetolia is linked with Acarnania in the department of Aitolía kai Akarnanía. Aetolia, particularly its cities Pleuron and Calydon, figures prominently in early legend. During the great migrations (1200–1000 bc...
  • Aetolian League (state, ancient Greece)
    federal state or “sympolity” of Aetolia, in ancient Greece. Probably based on a looser tribal community, it was well-enough organized to conduct negotiations with Athens in 367 bc. It became by c. 340 one of the leading military powers in Greece. Having successfully resisted invasions by Macedonia in 322 and 314–311, the league rapidly grew in strength du...
  • AEU (British union)
    the leading trade union in the manufacturing sector of the United Kingdom, created in 1992 through the merger of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) with the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication and Plumbing Union (EETPU)....
  • Aextoxicaceae (plant family)
    small order of woody evergreen dicotyledonous plants, made up of two families (Berberidopsidaceae and Aextoxicaceae) containing a total of four species, found only in Chile and Australia. It is one of the basal orders among the core eudicots (a major clade, or plants with a common genetic lineage)....
  • Aextoxicum punctatum (plant)
    Aextoxicaceae contains only one genus with one species, Aextoxicum punctatum, a rare evergreen tree from Chile. The plant is covered by scales, and the leaves are more or less opposite. The flowers are rather inconspicuous but quite distinctive. Male and female flowers are borne on different plants. The bud is enclosed by bracteoles, or small leafy structures on the pedicel, which fall......
  • Af climate (meteorology)
    Within about 12° latitude of the Equator lies a region of consistently high temperatures (around 30 °C [86 °F]), with plentiful precipitation (150–1,000 cm [59–394 inches]), heavy cloud cover, and high humidity, with very little annual temperature variation. Such regions lie within the influence of the ITCZ in all months; the converging, ascending air spawns conv...
  • AF of L (labour organization)
    American federation of autonomous labour unions formed in 1955 by the merger of the AFL (founded 1886), which originally organized workers in craft unions, and the CIO (founded 1935), which organized workers by industries....
  • AFA (arts organization)
    American federation of autonomous labour unions formed in 1955 by the merger of the AFL (founded 1886), which originally organized workers in craft unions, and the CIO (founded 1935), which organized workers by industries.......
  • Afakani language
    ...smallest branch of the Niger-Congo language family. It consists of a language cluster, Ijo (Ijaw), comprising seven other language clusters with a total of approximately two million speakers, and Defaka (Afakani), a solitary language spoken by very few. All these languages are found in the relatively narrow coastal Niger River delta region of Nigeria. The Ijo language cluster includes the......
  • Afanasev, Aleksandr Nikolayevich (Russian historian and scholar)
    historian and scholar of Russian folklore known for his compilation of Russian folktales....
  • Afanasyev, Viktor Grigoryevich (Russian journalist)
    Russian journalist (b. Nov. 18, 1922, Aktamysh, Tatar A.S.S.R., Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic--d. April 10, 1994, Moscow, Russia), as deputy editor (1968-74) and editor in chief (1976-89) of the daily newspaper Pravda and editor in chief (1974-76) of the journal Kommunist, was the official voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) for more than two decade...
  • Afanasyevskaya culture
    ...of the Yenisey River, especially in the Minusinsk Basin, where metallurgy developed early. They testify to the existence of three main, basically successive, yet often overlapping cultures: the Afanasyevskaya, Andronovo, and Karasuk, so called after the villages near which each culture was identified....
  • āfāqī (people)
    ...the invitation of Sultan Muḥammad I, and there they had a strong influence on the development of Muslim culture during subsequent generations. The new settlers (āfāqīs) also had a political effect, as they soon began competing successfully for important positions within the political hierarchy. The original rebels from the Delh...
  • Afar (people)
    a people of the Horn of Africa who speak Saho, a language of the Eastern Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) family. They live in northeastern Ethiopia and in Djibouti, where, with the Issas, they are the dominant people. It is thought that the Afars were the first of the present inhabitants of Ethiopia to elaborate their pastoral life into full-scale n...
  • Afar language
    The most important Cushitic languages are Oromo, Somali, and Afar. Oromo, together with Amharic, is one of the two most-spoken languages in Ethiopia; it is native to the western, southwestern, southern, and eastern areas of the country. Somali is dominant among inhabitants of the Ogaden and Hawd, while Afar is most common in the Denakil Plain....
  • Afar Triangle (area, Red Sea)
    ...of climatic regimes. The Kamchatka Peninsula in the far eastern part of Siberia is said to have more than 100 active volcanoes. Not surprisingly its terrain is dominated by volcanic landforms. The Afar Triangle at the foot of the Red Sea is shaped by newly formed faults that cut unweathered basaltic lava flows on a newly emergent seafloor in an almost totally tectonic landscape. In the......
  • Afars and Issas, French Territory of the
    strategically located nation on the northeast coast of the Horn of Africa. It is situated on the Strait of Mandeb, which lies to the east and separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden. Small in size, Djibouti is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Ethiopia to the west and southwest, and Somalia to the south. The Gulf of Tadjoura, which ope...
  • AFC (geology)
    ...Because assimilation is accompanied by crystallization, it is likely that both fractional crystallization and assimilation will take place simultaneously. This combined process, referred to as AFC for assimilation–fractional crystallization, has been proposed as the mechanism by which andesites are produced from basalts....
  • AFC (Australian government organization)
    ...Stork (1971) gave birth to a rash of “ocker” comedies, a genre that centred on boorish male characters and their antisocial behaviours. The AFDC was replaced by the Australian Film Commission (AFC) in 1975, and a more culturally refined Australian film style emerged. Period films such as Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975),......
  • AFC (mining)
    ...the intermediate haulage system. In some semimechanized or manual longwall operations, chain haulage is used, while the face haulage equipment of choice in modern mechanized longwall systems is an armoured face conveyor (AFC). In addition to carrying coal from the face, the AFC serves as the guide for the longwall shearer, which rides on it (see above, Mining methods: Longwall mining)....
  • Afḍal, al- (Fāṭimid caliph)
    ...and worldly weapons. In Syria, however, the armies of the Fāṭimids suffered repeated defeats; in Arabia their following was reduced to insignificance. Badr’s son and successor al-Afḍal in effect renounced the claims of the Egyptian Fāṭimid dynasty to the universal caliphate....
  • AFDC (Australian government organization)
    Formed in 1970, the Australian Film Development Corporation (AFDC) was a government-funded agency charged with helping the film industry create commercial films for audiences at home and abroad. The success of Stork (1971) gave birth to a rash of “ocker” comedies, a genre that centred on boorish male characters and their antisocial behaviours. The AFDC was......
  • Afemai (people)
    The type of mask influences the style of the masquerade dance. The Ikpelweme ancestral masqueraders of the Afemai people of Bendel State, Nigeria, wear richly coloured, close-fitting costumes with face masks and elaborate headpieces of embroidered cloth, which allow for a dance that accelerates into a climax of rapid, abrupt movement. The Nago and Akakayi ancestral masqueraders of the Gwari......
  • Afer, Publius Terentius (Roman dramatist)
    after Plautus the greatest Roman comic dramatist, the author of six verse comedies that were long regarded as models of pure Latin. Terence’s plays form the basis of the modern comedy of manners....
  • Afewerki, Isaias (president of Eritrea)
    Eritrean independence leader and president of Eritrea from 1993....
  • “Affaire Dreyfus, L’ ” (film by Méliès)
    ...producers in England and the United States. Soon, however, Méliès began to experiment with brief multiscene films, such as L’Affaire Dreyfus (The Dreyfus Affair; his first, 1899), which followed the logic of linear temporality to establish causal sequences and tell simple stories. By 1902 he had produced the influential 30-s...
  • Affaire Lemoine, L’  (work by Proust)
    ...in October 1908. This had itself been interrupted by a series of brilliant parodies—of Balzac, Flaubert, Renan, Saint-Simon, and others of Proust’s favourite French authors—called “L’Affaire Lemoine” (published in Le Figaro), through which he endeavoured to purge his style of extraneous influences. Then, realizing the need ...
  • Affandi (Javanese artist)
    ...of old crafts—silverwork, for example. A number of artists adapted Westernized figure drawing to their own decorative compositions. The best known painter of Indonesia is the Javanese Affandi. He used oil paint to execute pictures of Indonesian subjects in a vividly coloured Expressionist impasto (thick application of pigment to the canvas). This European brushwork technique,......
  • Affected Young Ladies, The (work by Molière)
    Molière’s first Paris play, Les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Young Ladies), prefigured what was to come. It centres on two provincial girls who are exposed by valets masquerading as masters in scenes that contrast, on the one hand, the girls’ desire for elegance coupled with a lack of common sense and, on the other, the valets’ plain speech se...
  • affections, doctrine of the (music)
    theory of musical aesthetics, widely accepted by late Baroque theorists and composers, that embraced the proposition that music is capable of arousing a variety of specific emotions within the listener. At the centre of the doctrine was the belief that, by making use of the proper standard musical procedure or device, the composer could create a piece of music capable of produci...
  • affective disorder (psychology)
    mental disorder characterized by dramatic changes or extremes of mood. Affective disorders may include manic (elevated, expansive, or irritable mood with hyperactivity, pressured speech, and inflated self-esteem) or depressive (dejected mood with disinterest in life, sleep disturbance, agitation, and feelings of worthlessness or guilt) episodes, and often combinations of the tw...
  • affective faculty (psychology)
    Man has not only the capacity to know but also the capacity to respond emotionally to what he knows. A man may not only believe that some event will occur, but he may also dread it or welcome it. Concerning the things that a person knows, he may approve or disapprove, love or hate, pity or envy, enjoy or abhor. Here, although the subjective experience often plays an important role, it clearly......
  • affective fallacy (literary criticism)
    according to the followers of New Criticism, the misconception that arises from judging a poem by the emotional effect that it produces in the reader. The concept of affective fallacy is a direct attack on impressionistic criticism, which argues that the reader’s response to a poem is the ultimate indication of its value....
  • affective memory (psychology)
    ...psychology. His published works on the subject, in addition to Diseases of Memory, included studies of diseases of will, personality, and attention. In later years Ribot became interested in affective and emotional factors in psychology....
  • affector (nerve cell)
    ...responses such as the immediate withdrawal of the hand on touching a hot surface. The basic components of the reflex arc are the receptor, or sensory-nerve cell, which senses the stimulus, and the affector, the nerve cell that directly activates the muscle. These are a theoretical minimum rather than an observed functional arrangement of cells in the body of an animal (see instinct: Varieties.....
  • affects, doctrine of (music)
    theory of musical aesthetics, widely accepted by late Baroque theorists and composers, that embraced the proposition that music is capable of arousing a variety of specific emotions within the listener. At the centre of the doctrine was the belief that, by making use of the proper standard musical procedure or device, the composer could create a piece of music capable of produci...
  • Affektenlehre (music)
    theory of musical aesthetics, widely accepted by late Baroque theorists and composers, that embraced the proposition that music is capable of arousing a variety of specific emotions within the listener. At the centre of the doctrine was the belief that, by making use of the proper standard musical procedure or device, the composer could create a piece of music capable of produci...
  • Affenkapelle ware (porcelain)
    (German: “Monkey Orchestra”), a series of figures created by the Meissen porcelain factory in Saxony (now in Germany) about 1747 and imitated later. Believed to be a parody of the Dresden Court Orchestra, the set was modeled by the German sculptors Johann Joachim Kändler and Peter Reinicke after fanciful singerie (monke...
  • affenpinscher (breed of dog)
    breed of toy dog known since the 17th century. It is thought to have originated in Germany, where it was bred to be a ratter—to kill rats, mice, and other small vermin. Like other terriers, it is lively and playful. The affenpinscher stands 9.5 to 11.5 inches (24 to 29 cm) and weighs 7 to 8 pounds (3 to 3.5 kg). A sturdily built dog, it has small, erect ears that are usua...
  • Affentheurliche und ungeheurliche Geschichtsschrift (work by Fischart)
    Fischart’s principal work is the Affentheurliche und ungeheurliche Geschichtsschrift (1575)—renamed Geschichtklitterung in later editions (1582, 1590)—a greatly expanded prose version of François Rabelais’s Gargantua. Also noteworthy is his Das glückhafft Schiff von Zürich (1576; “The Ship of Good Fortune from Zuri...
  • afferent arteriole (blood vessel)
    ...branch off from the arcuate arteries and radiate out through the cortex to end in networks of capillaries in the region just inside the capsule. En route they give off short branches called the afferent arterioles, which carry blood to the glomeruli where they divide into four to eight loops of capillaries in each glomerulus....
  • afferent impulse (biology)
    ...cell of the inner ear or a taste cell, which stimulates adjacent neurons.) The stimulus is modified, or transduced, into an electrical impulse in the receptor neuron. This incoming excitation, or afferent impulse, then passes along an extension, or axon, of the receptor to an adjustor, called an interneuron. (All neurons are capable of conducting an impulse, which is a brief change in the......
  • afferent nerve (anatomy)
    ...system and the peripheral nervous system. The brain and spinal cord constitute the central system, while the peripheral system is composed of (1) the cerebrospinal nerves that go to the spinal cord (afferent nerves), transmitting sensory stimuli and those that come from the cord (efferent nerves) transmitting impulses to activate muscles, and (2) the autonomic system, the primary function of......
  • afferent nerve fibre (anatomy)
    The pleurae, the airways, and the vessels are innervated by afferent and efferent fibres of the autonomic nervous system. Parasympathetic nerve fibres from the vagus nerve (10th cranial nerve) and sympathetic branches of the sympathetic nerve trunk meet around the stem bronchi to form the pulmonary autonomic nerve plexus, which penetrates into the lung along the bronchial and vascular walls.......
  • affidavit (law)
    a written statement of fact made voluntarily, confirmed by the oath or affirmation of the party making it, and signed before a notary or other officer empowered to administer such oaths. Affidavits generally name the place of execution and certify that the person making it states certain facts and appeared before the officer on a certain date and “subscribed and swore” to the stateme...
  • affination (food processing)
    Affination is the mingling of raw sugar with a warm, heavy syrup, which removes the molasses coating from the sugar crystal. The syrup and crystals are separated in a spinning centrifugal basket, and the crystals are further “washed” by a water spray. Washed raw sugar is fed by screw conveyor to a melter, where it is dissolved at 65° C (150° F) in hot, sweet water with ...
  • affination (metallurgy)
    ...alloys of less than 30 percent gold by boiling with 30-percent-strength nitric acid in a process referred to as parting. Boiling with concentrated sulfuric acid to separate silver and gold is called affination. Both these processes are used on a commercial scale for separating silver and gold....
  • affine (kinship)
    ...flouting of kinship conventions brought censure, since it threatened the social structure. Children were not bound by such rules and did not normally begin to observe them until early adolescence. Affines (relatives by marriage) were often classified with consanguineal (blood) relatives, and certain terms indicated potential spouses or affines. Relationships between actual brothers and sisters....
  • affinity (dyes)
    ...fibres. These include polar or ionic attractions, hydrogen bonding, Van der Waals forces, and solubilities. The affinity of a dye for a given substrate through such interactions is termed its substantivity. Dyes can be classified by their substantivity, which depends, in part, on the nature of the substituents in the dye molecule....
  • affinity (chemistry)
    ...Receptor-mediated drug effects involve two distinct processes: binding, which is the formation of the drug-receptor complex, and receptor activation, which moderates the effect. The term affinity describes the tendency of a drug to bind to a receptor; efficacy (sometimes called intrinsic activity) describes the ability of the drug-receptor complex to produce a......
  • affinity (kinship)
    ...flouting of kinship conventions brought censure, since it threatened the social structure. Children were not bound by such rules and did not normally begin to observe them until early adolescence. Affines (relatives by marriage) were often classified with consanguineal (blood) relatives, and certain terms indicated potential spouses or affines. Relationships between actual brothers and sisters....
  • affinity chromatography (chemistry)
    A technique exhibiting great selectivity, affinity chromatography, was first described by Pedro Cuatrecasas and his coworkers in 1968. In these separations, a biomolecule such as an enzyme binds to a substrate attached to the solid phase while other components are eluted. The retained molecule can subsequently be eluted by changing the chemical conditions of the separation....
  • affinity number (chemistry)
    ...elements in the order of their chemical reactivities. Mathematically dividing an element’s affinity for heat by that of his selected standard, oxygen, resulted in what he termed the element’s “affinity number.” Between 1843 and his retirement in 1850, Avogadro wrote four memoirs on atomic volumes and designated affinity numbers for the elements using atomic volumes a...
  • affirmation (law)
    in law, a promise by a witness concerning testimony allowed in place of an oath to those who cannot, because of conscience, swear an oath. For example, members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other persons who have objections against taking an oath are allowed to make affirmation in any manner they may de...
  • affirmation (logic)
    ...Many arguments are composed of premises and conclusions that are stated or could be restated as categorical propositions. Categorical propositions may be distinguished first by their quality, either affirmative or negative. An affirmative categorical proposition asserts that all or some of a class of objects are included in another class of objects (e.g., “All whales are......
  • affirmation of the consequent (logic)
    ...“If George is a man of good faith, he can be entrusted with this office; but George is not a man of good faith; therefore, George cannot be entrusted with this office”), and (2) affirmation of the consequent, in which one mistakenly argues from the premises “If p1, then p2” and “ p2” to the......
  • affirmative action
    in the United States, an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and for women. Affirmative action began as a government remedy to the effects of long-standing discrimination against such groups and has consisted of policies, programs, and procedures that give prefere...
  • affirmative covenant (property law)
    Covenants are used in contemporary land development for a wide variety of purposes. They include affirmative covenants, which require the landowner to make payments, provide services, or render some other performance, and negative covenants, which require the landowner to refrain from doing something. Negative covenants that restrict the uses of a parcel of the land are called restrictive......
  • affirmative defense (law)
    ...of proof, therefore, rests upon the prosecution. On the Continent, this is true even in cases involving insanity, drunkenness, self-defense, or necessity. Anglo-American law regards these as “affirmative defenses” and requires the defendant to provide at least some evidence that they were a factor....
  • affirmative easement (law)
    An easement in Anglo-American law is a privilege to do something on the land of another or to do something on one’s own land that would otherwise be actionable by one’s neighbours (known as an affirmative easement). Exceptionally, it is the right to prevent a landowner from doing something on his land that he would otherwise be privileged to do (known as a negative easement). Example...
  • affirmative proposition (logic)
    ...Many arguments are composed of premises and conclusions that are stated or could be restated as categorical propositions. Categorical propositions may be distinguished first by their quality, either affirmative or negative. An affirmative categorical proposition asserts that all or some of a class of objects are included in another class of objects (e.g., “All whales are......
  • affirming the consequent (logic)
    Two other kinds of inference that are sometimes drawn from conditional propositions are not logically justified. In one such fallacy, “affirming the consequent,” the categorical proposition affirms the consequent of the conditional, and the conclusion affirms the antecedent, as in the example:If John is a bachelor, then he is male. John is male. Therefore, John is a......
  • affix (grammar)
    a grammatical element that is combined with a word, stem, or phrase to produce derived and inflected forms. There are three types of affixes: prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. A prefix occurs at the beginning of a word or stem (sub-mit, pre-determine, un-willing); a suffix at the end (wonder-ful, depend-ent, act-ion); ...
  • affixation (grammar)
    a grammatical element that is combined with a word, stem, or phrase to produce derived and inflected forms. There are three types of affixes: prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. A prefix occurs at the beginning of a word or stem (sub-mit, pre-determine, un-willing); a suffix at the end (wonder-ful, depend-ent, act-ion); ...
  • Affleck, Ben (American actor)
    As Damon’s acting career met with success, he also pursued screenwriting. With longtime friend Ben Affleck, he developed the script for Good Will Hunting (1997). The film—based on a one-act play Damon had submitted for a course at Harvard—centres on a troubled but brilliant high-school dropout from Boston. The coauthors convinced Miramax to let them st...
  • Affleck, Thomas (American cabinetmaker)
    American cabinetmaker considered to be outstanding among the Philadelphia craftsmen working in the Chippendale style during the 18th century. Affleck is especially noted for the elaborately carved forms produced by his shop....
  • affliction (religion)
    The starting point for the Christian understanding of suffering is the messianic self-understanding of Jesus himself. A temptation to power and self-exaltation lay in the late Jewish promise of the coming of the Messiah–Son of man. The Gospel According to Matthew described the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness as a temptation to worldly power. Jesus himself deeply......
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