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  • African violet (plant)
    flowering plant of the genus Saintpaulia (family Gesneriaceae), especially S. ionantha. The genus consists of about 20 species native to higher elevations in tropical eastern Africa. The plants are small, hairy, usually stemless herbs with crowded, long-stalked leaves....
  • African violet family (plant family)
    one of 23 families in the flowering plant order Lamiales, consisting of 147 genera and about 3,200 species of mostly tropical and subtropical herbaceous or slightly woody plants. Many are of economic importance as horticultural ornamentals. Among these are the African violets (Saintpaulia) and gloxinias (Sinningia speciosa)....
  • African water rat (rodent)
    ...also eat crustaceans and occasionally small fish. All water rats locate prey underwater by touch with their sensitive whiskers. Most are adept swimmers and aggressive underwater predators, but the African water rat (Colomys goslingi) wades through shallow water or sits at the water’s edge with its muzzle submerged; it is reported to eat some terrestrial insects and snails....
  • African weaverbird (species)
    (species Quelea quelea), small brownish bird of Africa, belonging to the songbird family Ploceidae (order Passeriformes). It occurs in such enormous numbers that it often destroys grain crops and, by roosting, breaks branches. Efforts to control quelea populations with poisons, napalm, pathogens, and electronic devices have had poor success; but dynamiting the dense colonies, which may con...
  • African whitewood (plant)
    ...and fishing rods. Guatteria boyacana (solera, or Colombian lancewood) has most of the same properties and uses, though it is not as well known in the timber trade. Enantia chlorantha (African whitewood), a yellowwood from Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon, produces a sulfurous yellow dye; the wood also is used locally to make unpainted furniture and veneers. Cleistopholis......
  • African wild ass (mammal)
    ...Only the races of E. caballus (including the myriad domestic strains) are called horses; three species (E. zebra, E. burchelli, and E. grevyi) are called zebras; and two (E. asinus and E. hemionus) are usually called wild asses....
  • African wild dog (mammal)
    (Lycaon pictus), wild African carnivore that differs from the rest of the members of the dog family (Canidae) in having only four toes on each foot. Its coat is short, sparse, and irregularly blotched with yellow, black, and white. The African hunting dog is about 76–102 cm (30–41 inches) long, exclusive of its 31–41-centimetre tail, stands about 60 cm (24 inches) at t...
  • African wildcat (mammal)
    small, tabbylike cat (family Felidae) found in open and forested regions of Africa, Asia, and southern Europe. Possibly the first cat to be domesticated, the Egyptian wildcat is somewhat larger and stockier than the modern house cat, with which it interbreeds readily. Its coat, paler in the female, is light or orange brown with narrow, dark stripes. The length of the animal is a...
  • African wood stork (bird)
    The African wood stork (Ibis ibis), or yellow-billed stork, is about 100 cm (3 ft) tall, with a yellowish bill and red facial skin....
  • African-American Students Foundation (African organization)
    ...and the People’s Convention Party in Nairobi. In the critical preindependence decade he also spent a year at the University of Oxford and twice visited the United States. In 1959 he helped found the African–American Students Foundation to raise money to send East African (originally only Kenyan) university students to the United States on charter flights, thus making it possible f...
  • Africanized honeybee (insect)
    The so-called killer bee is a hybrid between an African subspecies and European subspecies of honeybee. The Africanized honeybee subspecies was accidentally released in Brazil in 1957 during an attempt to create a hybrid that would adapt to tropical climates and produce large amounts of honey. Moving northward some 200 to 300 miles (320 to 480 km) per year, the bees had reached Mexico in the......
  • Africanus, Scipio (Roman general)
    Roman general famed both for his exploits during the Third Punic War (149–146 bc) and for his subjugation of Spain (134–133 bc). He received the name Africanus and celebrated a triumph in Rome after his destruction of Carthage (146 bc). He acquired the (unofficial) name Numantinus for his reduction of Spanish Numantia (133 ...
  • Africanus, Scipio (Roman general)
    Roman general noted for his victory over the Carthaginian leader Hannibal in the great Battle of Zama (202 bc), ending the Second Punic War. For his victory he won the surname Africanus (201 bc)....
  • Africanus, Sextus Julius (Christian historian)
    first Christian historian known to produce a universal chronology....
  • Africentrism (cultural and political movement)
    cultural and political movement whose mainly African American adherents regard themselves and all other blacks as syncretic Africans and believe that their worldview should positively reflect traditional African values. The terms Afrocentrism, Afrocology, and Afrocentricity were coined in the 1980s by the African American scholar and activist Molefi Asante....
  • Afrīdī (people)
    Pashtun tribe inhabiting the hill country from the eastern spurs of the Safīd Range to northern Pakistan. The Afrīdīs, whose territory straddles the Khyber Pass, are of uncertain origin....
  • Afrika Korps (German army)
    ...World War II virtually eliminated local supply and intermediate bases and depots, in effect replacing staged resupply by a simple single-shuttle base-to-troops operation. In 1941–42 the German Afrika Korps in Libya was supplied across the Mediterranean through the small port of Tripoli and eastward over a single coastal road that had no bases or magazines and was exposed to enemy air......
  • Afrikaans language
    West Germanic language of South Africa, developed from 17th-century Netherlandic (Dutch) by the descendants of European (Dutch, German, and French) colonists, indigenous Khoisan peoples, and African and Asian slaves in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Afrikaans and English are the only Indo-European languages among the many official languages of South Africa. Although Afrikaans is very s...
  • Afrikaans literature
    Although Afrikaans had diverged sufficiently from its parent Dutch by about 1750 to be considered a language on its own, the first Afrikaans texts were not published until more than a century later. In 1875 a group of nationally conscious men established the Association of True Afrikaners, which eventually published the first newspaper, the first magazine, and the first literary texts in......
  • Afrikaans Nasionale Party van Suid-Afrika (political party, South Africa)
    South African political party, founded in 1914, which ruled the country from 1948 to 1994. Its following included most of the Dutch-descended Afrikaners and many English-speaking whites. The National Party was long dedicated to policies of apartheid and white supremacy, but by the early 1990s it had moved toward sharing power with South Africa’s black majority....
  • Afrikaner (people)
    a South African of European descent whose native language is Afrikaans. They are descendants of the Boers. See Boer....
  • Afrikaner Bond (political party, South Africa)
    (Afrikaans: “Afrikaner League”), the first political party of Cape Colony, southern Africa, founded by S.J. du Toit in 1880. In 1883 it amalgamated with J.H. Hofmeyr’s Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging (“Farmer’s Protection Association”). Du Toit attempted to create a pan-Afrikaner nationalist Bond with affiliated branc...
  • Afrikaner Brotherhood (organization, South Africa)
    South African secret society composed of Afrikaans-speaking, Protestant, white men over the age of 25. Although its political power is evident throughout South African society, its rituals and membership—by invitation only—remain secret....
  • Afrikaner, Jonker (South African leader)
    ...sparse water and grazing land. At first they settled peacefully on land granted them by the local populace, some of them establishing mission communities. The advent in the 1830s of the Oorlam chief Jonker Afrikaner and his well-armed followers significantly altered the regional balance of power. Responding to an appeal from the Nama, who were being driven from their grazing lands by Herero......
  • Afrikaner Party (political party, South Africa)
    ...or People’s Party (Herenigde Nasionale Party, or Volksparty). The new party was weakened by wartime factionalism; and Hertzog and others with Nazi sympathies eventually walked out and formed the Afrikaner Party (1941)....
  • Afrikaner Rebellion (British-South African history)
    When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, South Africa’s dominion status meant that it was automatically at war, and its troops mobilized to invade German South West Africa. This sparked a rebellion led by former Boer generals, who held high-ranking positions as officers in the Union Defence Force. Some 10,000 soldiers, mainly poverty-stricken rural Afrikaners, joined the rising. The......
  • Afrikaner-Broederbond (organization, South Africa)
    South African secret society composed of Afrikaans-speaking, Protestant, white men over the age of 25. Although its political power is evident throughout South African society, its rituals and membership—by invitation only—remain secret....
  • “afrikanse farm, Den” (work by Dinesen)
    ...preexisting oral traditions. Many accounts have been given of the dramatic impact on an oral culture of the encounter with written text. Isak Dinesen, in her autobiographical Out of Africa (1937), reported on the response of Kikuyu tribesmen to their first exposures to written texts:I learned that the effect of a piece of news was many times magnified......
  • Āfringān (Parsiism)
    Parsis observe the Gahanbar festivals in two stages. Four liturgical rites are first celebrated: the Āfringān, being prayers of love or praise; the Bāj, prayers honouring yazatas (angels) or fravashis (guardian spirits); the Yasna, the central Zoroastrian rite, which includes the sacrifice of the sacred liquor, haoma; and the Pavi, prayers honouring God......
  • Afrique Équatoriale Française (French territory, Africa)
    collectively, four French territories in central Africa from 1910 to 1959. In 1960 the former territory of Ubangi-Shari (Oubangui-Chari), to which Chad (Tchad) had been attached in 1920, became the Central African Republic and the Republic of Chad; the Middle Congo (Moyen-Congo) became the Congo Republic, now the Republic of the Congo; and G...
  • Afrique Occidentale Française (historical territory, West Africa)
    administrative grouping under French rule from 1895 until 1958 of the former French territories of West Africa: Senegal, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and the French Sudan, to which Dahomey was added in 1899. Certain territories of the Sudan were grouped together under the name Senegambia and Niger (Sénégambie-Niger; 1903), which was transformed into Upper Senegal and Niger (Haut-S...
  • afrit (Islamic mythology)
    in Islāmic mythology, a class of infernal jinn (spirits below the level of angels and devils) noted for their strength and cunning. An ifrit is an enormous winged creature of smoke, either male or female, who lives underground and frequents ruins. Ifrits live in a society structured along ancient Arab tribal lines, complete with kings, tribes, and clans. They generally marry one another, bu...
  • afrite (Islamic mythology)
    in Islāmic mythology, a class of infernal jinn (spirits below the level of angels and devils) noted for their strength and cunning. An ifrit is an enormous winged creature of smoke, either male or female, who lives underground and frequents ruins. Ifrits live in a society structured along ancient Arab tribal lines, complete with kings, tribes, and clans. They generally marry one another, bu...
  • Afro-Alpine zone (region, East Africa)
    The succession of soils is from the raw mineral type of the summit area, through the dark peaty loams of the Afro-Alpine zone and the strong brown loams of high organic content in the forest belt, to the ferruginous (iron-bearing) soils of the lower slopes. Volcanic material presents a range from the unaltered rock of the most recent eruptions to the well-developed fertile soils on surfaces......
  • Afro-American (people)
    ...New (Burlesque) Theater. After a few years it was purchased by a competitor and renamed the 125th Street Apollo Theater. The district surrounding the building was opened up during the 1910s to African Americans making the Great Migration out of the South, and in the 1920s Harlem was transformed into a black residential and commercial area....
  • Afro-American Symphony (work by Still)
    ...and the first black to conduct a professional symphony orchestra in the United States. Though a prolific composer of operas, ballets, symphonies, and other works, he was best known for his Afro-American Symphony (1931)....
  • Afro-American Unity, Organization of (American organization)
    ...of African Unity (known as the African Union since 2002), an intergovernmental group established to promote African unity, international cooperation, and economic development. In 1965 he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity as a secular vehicle to internationalize the plight of black Americans and to make common cause with the people of the developing world—to move from civil....
  • Afro-Arabian Rift Valley (geological feature, Africa-Asia)
    one of the most extensive rifts on the Earth’s surface, extending from Jordan in southwestern Asia southward through eastern Africa to Mozambique. The system is some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) long and averages 30–40 miles (48–64 km) wide....
  • Afro-Arabian Shield (geology)
    ...of younger, folded rocks. Shield areas are not recognized in central Europe, but farther south nearly one-half of the continent of Africa exhibits Precambrian rocks in outcrop (at the surface). The African Shield, sometimes called the Ethiopian Shield, extends eastward to include western Saudi Arabia and the eastern half of Madagascar....
  • Afro-Asiatic languages
    languages of common origin found in the northern part of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and some islands and adjacent areas in Western Asia. About 250 Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken today by a total of approximately 250 million people. Numbers of speakers per language range from about 150 million, as in the case of Arabic, to only a few hundred, as in the case of some ...
  • Afro-Brazilian (people)
    ...in many less developed countries, the same malign influence is cited to explain (at least in part) failure in examinations, elections, or difficulties in finding employment. Members of certain Afro-Brazilian cults, for example, believe that job loss is due not to economic conditions or poor performance but to witchcraft, and they participate in a ritual, the “consultation,” to......
  • Afro-Caribbean dance
    The many Afro-Caribbean dance forms are usually considered to constitute a distinct ethnic form because they share certain characteristic movements. As in Indian dance, the legs are frequently bent, with the feet stamping out rhythms against the ground. The torso and back are also very mobile, executing sinuous rippling actions or more jerky, rhythmic movements. The body is frequently bent......
  • Afro-Cuban (people)
    ...they were primarily interested in importing U.S. economic, cultural, and educational systems to the island. In addition, the U.S.-supervised electoral system was effectively racist and eliminated Afro-Cubans from politics. The Platt Amendment (1901) gave the United States the right to oversee Cuba’s international commitments, economy, and internal affairs and to establish a naval station...
  • Afro-Cuban music
    Western African idiophones introduced into the Americas with the slave trade are still flourishing. Clappers that originated among the Yoruba of Nigeria are played in Cuba; the claves, a pair of cylindrical percussion sticks of Haiti and Cuba, are standard equipment in Western rhythm bands. The xylophone may already have entered the Western Hemisphere in pre-Columbian times. Known chiefly as......
  • Afro-religions (Western hemisphere)
    ...
  • Afro-Shirazi Party (Tanzanian political organization)
    ...state until 1992, when the constitution was amended to establish a multiparty political process. In 1977 the Tanganyika African Nationalist Union, which had led the colony to independence, and the Afro-Shirazi Party of Zanzibar, which had taken power after a coup in 1964, were amalgamated into the Revolutionary Party (Chama cha Mapinduzi; CCM). Prior to the 1992 amendment, the CCM dominated......
  • Afroasiatic languages
    languages of common origin found in the northern part of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and some islands and adjacent areas in Western Asia. About 250 Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken today by a total of approximately 250 million people. Numbers of speakers per language range from about 150 million, as in the case of Arabic, to only a few hundred, as in the case of some ...
  • Afrocentrism (cultural and political movement)
    cultural and political movement whose mainly African American adherents regard themselves and all other blacks as syncretic Africans and believe that their worldview should positively reflect traditional African values. The terms Afrocentrism, Afrocology, and Afrocentricity were coined in the 1980s by the African American scholar and activist Molefi Asante....
  • Afropavo congensis (bird)
    ...(25-acre) site in the centre of the city and is administered by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp. During the 1920s the zoo gained prominence for breeding the then newly discovered okapi and Congo peafowl. In 1936 the zoo acquired 36 hectares (90 acres) in Planckendael on which it later developed a breeding station for endangered species such as the bongo antelope and Indian rhinoceros....
  • Afropithecus (primate)
    ...from each other, and this led him to classify it in a separate family, Proconsulidae. Since the 1980s a number of other genera (Limnopithecus, Dendropithecus, Afropithecus, Kamoypithecus, and others) have been added to the family. The location of the actual ancestors of living hominoids remained mysterious until previously known......
  • Afrotarsius chatrathi (primate species)
    The Eocene Tarsiidae, represented by the European species Necrolemur antiquus, found in the Quercy deposits of France, and Afrotarsius chatrathi, from the Fayum of Egypt, are likely to contain the ancestor of the modern genus Tarsius. The tarsier is indeed a “living fossil” (in the best sense of that overworked term), and teeth referred......
  • Afrotropical region (faunal region)
    one of the major land areas of the world defined on the basis of its characteristic animal life. Part of the Paleotropical, or Afro-Tethyan, realm, it encompasses Africa south of the Sahara and the southwestern tip of Arabia. The island of Madagascar is part of the separate Madagascan region. The Ethiopian region has the world’s largest concentration of antelopes, giraffes, gorillas, and r...
  • AFSC (religious organization)
    organization to promote peace and reconciliation through programs of social service and public information, founded by American and Canadian Friends (Quakers) in 1917. In World War I, the AFSC helped conscientious objectors to find work in relief projects and ambulance units as an alternative to military service. In World War II it broadened the scope of alternative-service possibilities to includ...
  • AFSCME (American organization)
    American union representing a wide variety of public- and private-sector employees including local and state government workers, hospital workers, university employees, teachers, and other public school workers. Almost all levels of blue- and white-collar jobs are represented by AFSCME bargaining units....
  • Afshārid Turkmen (people)
    ...and partly to forestall Russian aspirations in the Caucasus, took advantage of the disintegration of the Ṣafavid realm and invaded from the west, ravaging western Persia. Nādr, an Afshārid Turkmen from northern Khorāsān, was eventually able to reunite Iran, a process he began on behalf of the Ṣafavid prince Ṭahmāsp II (reigned......
  • Afsluitdijk (dam, The Netherlands)
    shallow freshwater lake, northern and central Netherlands. It was formed from the southern part of the former Zuiderzee by the building of a dam (Afsluitdijk; completed 1932) separating the IJsselmeer from both the Waddenzee (the northern part of the former Zuiderzee) and the North Sea....
  • “Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift” (work by Kierkegaard)
    ...of the diffusion of Hegelianism outside of Germany. In all of his works—but above all in his Philosophiske Smuler (1844; Eng. trans., Philosophical Fragments, 1936) and his Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift (1846; Eng. trans., Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 1941)—Kierkegaard waged a continuous polemic against the philosophy of Hegel. He......
  • AFT (labour organization)
    ...1870 that it began to grow and prosper. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., the NEA conducts its enormous enterprise through a brigade of commissions and councils. A youngster by comparison, the American Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was formed in 1916. Through collective bargaining and teachers’ strikes, it has successfully obtained for teachers better wages,.....
  • Afṭasid dynasty (Berber dynasty)
    Muslim Berber dynasty that ruled one of the party kingdoms (ṭāʾifahs) at Badajoz in western Spain (1022–94) in the period of disunity after the demise of the Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba. The Lower Frontier (modern central Portugal) had enjoyed a measure of autonomy after the death of the Umayyad caliph al...
  • Aftenposten (Norwegian newspaper)
    (Norwegian: “Evening Post”), morning and evening daily newspaper published in Oslo. It is one of the leading newspapers in Norway and in all Scandinavia....
  • After Apple-Picking (poem by Frost)
    ...set him aside from the radical experimentalism of the advocates of vers libre in the early 20th century. On occasion Frost did employ free verse to advantage, one outstanding example being “After Apple-Picking,” with its random pattern of long and short lines and its nontraditional use of rhyme. Here he shows his power to stand as a transitional figure between the old and......
  • After Dark (software)
    series of interactive screensaver software created by the American software company Berkeley Systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The series later developed into a collection of games and gained a large cult following....
  • After Dark, My Sweet (work by Thompson)
    ...mind; its narrator, a small-town deputy, pretends to be an agreeable hick but is actually a calculating madman who, like most Thompson narrators, speaks directly and colloquially to the reader. After Dark, My Sweet (1955), considered one of Thompson’s best works, presents a mentally imbalanced narrator who becomes embroiled in a kidnapping scheme with his lover but kills himself r...
  • After Everest (work by Tenzing Norgay)
    ...Nepal (Nepal Tara). Man of Everest (1955; also published as Tiger of the Snows), written in collaboration with James Ramsey Ullman, is an autobiography. After Everest (1978), as told to Malcolm Barnes, tells of his travels after the Everest ascent and his directorship of the Field Training Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling,......
  • After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (work by Huxley)
    ...such works. Los Angeles has often been lampooned, as in Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One (1948), a biting social satire about a cemetery, and Aldous Huxley’s After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (1939). Another variety of Los Angeles fiction was the hard-boiled detective novel. James Cain, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, and Walter Mosle...
  • After the Guns Fall Silent: The Enduring Legacy of Landmines (work by Williams)
    ...widely on the dangers of land mines, publicizing the presence of tens of millions of unexploded land mines in more than 70 countries. She was coauthor, with Shawn Roberts, of After the Guns Fall Silent: The Enduring Legacy of Landmines (1995), which examined the socioeconomic impact of land mine contamination in four countries. In 2007 she was appointed to lead a......
  • After the Hunt (painting by Harnett)
    ...influence of the Philadelphia still-life artists Raphaelle and James Peale. In 1880 he went to Europe, visiting London, Frankfurt, Munich, and finally Paris, where he painted his best known work, “After the Hunt” (1885; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco). He returned to the United States in 1886 and, except for another European trip in 1889, lived in New York...
  • After War (work by Renn)
    ...of which he was also secretary. He also taught war history during that period at the Marxist Workers’ School in Berlin. His Nachkrieg (1930; After War), a novel about the postwar Weimar Republic, mirrors Renn’s political beliefs. For his teaching at the Marxist school, he suffered two months’ detention. He was arrested by th...
  • afterbirth (biology)
    ...wall. Villi are embedded in the lining of the uterus. The resulting complex of embryonic and maternal tissues is a true placenta. The uterine lining may be shed with the fetal membranes as “afterbirth” (a condition called deciduate) or may be resorbed by the female (nondeciduate). Placentas have been classified on the basis of the relationship between maternal and embryonic......
  • afterbrain (anatomy)
    ...movements initiated at cortical levels. In mammals a great mass of fibres connects the brain stem to the cerebellum; this region forms the pons, which, together with the cerebellum, constitutes the metencephalon. The caudal part of the hindbrain remains as the medulla oblongata (myelencephalon)....
  • afterburner (mechanical engineering)
    second combustion chamber in a turbojet or turbofan engine, immediately in front of the engine’s exhaust nozzle. The injection and combustion of extra fuel in this chamber provide additional thrust for takeoff or supersonic flight. In most cases the afterburner can nearly double the thrust of a turbojet engine. Since the jet nozzle must be larger when using the afterburne...
  • aftercastle (naval architecture)
    in ship construction, structure or area raised above the main deck for combat or work purposes. The name was derived from early similarities to fortress turrets. The forecastle and aftercastle (or sterncastle) are at the bow and stern of the vessel. A top castle was perched on masts of some ships about the 13th century. The first known castles are shown amidships or astern on Roman ships, to......
  • aftercooler (mechanics)
    Diesel engines are often turbocharged and aftercooled. Addition of a turbocharger and aftercooler can enhance the performance of a diesel engine in terms of both power and efficiency....
  • afterdamp (gas)
    ...an excess of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen in the air. Stinkdamp is the name given by miners to hydrogen sulfide (H2S) because of its characteristic smell of rotten eggs. Afterdamp is the mixture of gases found in a mine after an explosion or fire. ...
  • aftereffect (psychology)
    When a parade is interrupted after some minutes, the pavement may seem to move in the opposite direction to the marchers who have passed. Phenomena similar to this movement aftereffect occur in other senses. For instance, after disembarking, a sailor feels the land to be rolling like a ship as the result of kinesthetic and vestibular aftereffects. The visual movement aftereffect probably arises......
  • afterfeather (anatomy)
    ...are often plumaceous—i.e., lacking in hamuli and remaining free of each other. In many birds each contour feather on the body (but rarely on the wings) is provided with a complex branch, the aftershaft, or afterfeather, that arises at the base of the vane. The aftershaft has the appearance of a second, smaller feather, growing from the base of the first. Down feathers have loose-webbed.....
  • Afterglow (film by Rudolph)
    ...of Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1996). She received her third Academy Award nomination for her role as a world-weary retired screen actress in Afterglow (1997). Her later films include Troy (2004), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), and Finding......
  • afterimage (psychology)
    visual illusion in which retinal impressions persist after the removal of a stimulus, believed to be caused by the continued activation of the visual system. The afterimage may be positive, corresponding in colour or brightness to the original image, or negative, being less bright or of colours complementary to the original. A common afterimage is the spot of light one sees after a camera flash h...
  • afterlife (religion)
    The beliefs of the Aztec concerning the other world and life after death showed the same syncretism. The old paradise of the rain god Tlaloc, depicted in the Teotihuacán frescoes, opened its gardens to those who died by drowning, lightning, or as a result of leprosy, dropsy, gout, or lung diseases. He was supposed to have caused their death and to have sent their souls to paradise....
  • Afternoon Men (work by Powell)
    ...Eton College from 1919 to 1923 and Balliol College, Oxford, from 1923 to 1926. Thereafter he joined the London publishing house of Duckworth, which published his first novel, Afternoon Men (1931). The book was followed by four more novels on prewar society, including Venusburg (1932) and From a View to a Death......
  • Afternoon of a Faun (ballet by Nijinsky)
    ...development of particular chord sequences, rhythmic patterns, melodies, or sections of counterpoint. Nijinsky, on the other hand, in L’Après-midi d’un faune (1912; “Afternoon of a Faun”), used Claude Debussy’s music purely for atmosphere, permitting it to set the mood rather than influence the organization of movements....
  • afterpiece (theatre)
    supplementary entertainment presented after full-length plays in 18th-century England. Afterpieces usually took the form of a short comedy, farce, or pantomime, and were intended to lighten the solemnity of Neoclassical drama and make the bill more attractive to audiences. Long theatre programs that included interludes of music, song, and dance developed in the first 20 years of the 18th century,...
  • afterripening (botany)
    complex enzymatic and biochemical process that certain plant embryos must undergo before they will germinate. It results at least in part from rapid and extensive water loss because of the conversion of soluble nutrients to their stored forms. This interruption of growth, or the lack of it in the seeds of many tropical plants, may be an adaptation to seasonal and climatic changes. Afterripening pr...
  • aftershaft (anatomy)
    ...are often plumaceous—i.e., lacking in hamuli and remaining free of each other. In many birds each contour feather on the body (but rarely on the wings) is provided with a complex branch, the aftershaft, or afterfeather, that arises at the base of the vane. The aftershaft has the appearance of a second, smaller feather, growing from the base of the first. Down feathers have loose-webbed.....
  • aftershock (geology)
    Usually, a major or even moderate earthquake of shallow focus is followed by many lesser-size earthquakes close to the original source region. This is to be expected if the fault rupture producing a major earthquake does not relieve all the accumulated strain energy at once. In fact, this dislocation is liable to cause an increase in the stress and strain at a number of places in the vicinity......
  • Aftonbladet (Swedish newspaper)
    ...increased its demands for reforms, and 1830 was the year in which liberal opinion made a breakthrough. In Sweden this was indicated by the establishing of a newspaper, Aftonbladet, which, with Lars Johan Hierta as editor, became the leading journal of the liberal opposition. Simultaneously, the king’s one-man rule, which was exercised through his powerful......
  • Aftonian Interglacial Stage (geology)
    major division of Pleistocene deposits and time (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago) in North America. The Aftonian Interglacial, a time of relatively moderate climatic conditions, followed the Nebraskan Glacial Stage and preceded the Kansan Glacial Stage, both times of widespread continental glaciation and relative cold. The Aftonian was named for deposits studied near Afton, Iowa. In some places, th...
  • aftosa (animal disease)
    a highly contagious viral disease affecting practically all cloven-footed domesticated mammals, including cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. Wild herbivores such as bison, deer, antelopes, reindeer, giraffes, and llamas are also susceptible. The horse is resistant to the infection. FMD is characterized by the formation of painful, fluid-filled vesicles (blisters) on the tongue, lips, and other tissue...
  • AFTS (Australian school)
    ...established the Australian Film Development Corporation (after 1975, the Australian Film Commission) to subsidize the growth of an authentic national cinema, founded a national film school (the Australian Film and Television School, or AFTS) to train directors and other creative personnel, and initiated a system of lucrative tax incentives to attract foreign investment capital to the new......
  • ʿAfula (Israel)
    largest city of the Plain of Esdraelon, or Valley of Jezreel (Hebrew: ʿEmeq Yizreʿel), northern Israel. Named for the Arab village of Al-ʿAffūla formerly at that site, it is sometimes called ʿIr Yizreʿel (“City of Jezreel”). It was founded in 1925 on lands acquired by the American Zion Commonwealth, a land-development organization, and was th...
  • Afwerki, Isaias (president of Eritrea)
    Eritrean independence leader and president of Eritrea from 1993....
  • Afyon (Turkey)
    city, western Turkey. It lies along the Akar River at an elevation of 3,392 feet (1,034 metres). In ancient times the town was known as Acroënus. It fell to the Seljuq Turks in the 13th century and was renamed Karahisar (“Black Fortress”) after the ancient fortress situated atop a cone of volcanic rock some 660 feet (200 metres) above the town. The word a...
  • Afyon Karahisar (Turkey)
    city, western Turkey. It lies along the Akar River at an elevation of 3,392 feet (1,034 metres). In ancient times the town was known as Acroënus. It fell to the Seljuq Turks in the 13th century and was renamed Karahisar (“Black Fortress”) after the ancient fortress situated atop a cone of volcanic rock some 660 feet (200 metres) above the town. The word a...
  • Afyonkarahisar (Turkey)
    city, western Turkey. It lies along the Akar River at an elevation of 3,392 feet (1,034 metres). In ancient times the town was known as Acroënus. It fell to the Seljuq Turks in the 13th century and was renamed Karahisar (“Black Fortress”) after the ancient fortress situated atop a cone of volcanic rock some 660 feet (200 metres) above the town. The word a...
  • Afẓal al-Dīn Bādil Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī Khāqānī Shīrvānī (Persian poet)
    Persian poet, whose importance rests mainly on his brilliant court poems, satires, and epigrams....
  • Afẕal Khān (Bijāpur general)
    When the sultan of Bijāpur, in 1659, sent against him an army of 20,000 under Afẕal Khān, Śivājī, pretending to be intimidated, enticed the force deep into difficult mountain terrain and then killed Afẕal Khān at a meeting to which he had lured him by submissive appeals. Meanwhile, handpicked troops that had been previously positioned......
  • Afzwering, Akte van (The Netherlands [1581])
    ...head and heart of the rebellion was recognized by Philip II in 1580, when he put him under the ban of outlawry. William’s Apology in defense of his conduct was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration (Akte van Afzwering), by which the States General declared that Philip had forfeited his sovereignty over the provinces by his persistent tyranny. This was a declaration of......
  • AG (political party, Nigeria)
    ...of the Baptist Teachers’ Union and the Nigerian Youth Movement. He left teaching to study public administration and law in England and returned to Nigeria in 1950. He became a legal adviser to the Action Group, the dominant Western Region party, and by 1954 was deputy leader under Oba Femi Awolowo. He was simultaneously active in the federal government; he became minister of labour in 19...
  • Ag (chemical element)
    chemical element, a white, lustrous metal valued for its decorative beauty and electrical conductivity. Silver is located in Group Ib Period 5 of the periodic table, between copper (Period 4) and gold (Period 6), and its physical and chemical properties are intermediate between those two metals....
  • AG catalog (astronomy)
    (AGK; “Astronomical Society Catalog”), compilation of the positions of all stars brighter than the ninth magnitude, compiled by the Astronomische Gesellschaft of Germany. Friedrich W.A. Argelander, founder of the society, proposed the star catalog in 1867, after completing the Bonner Durchmusterung (“Bonn Survey”). The massive project gave each participating obs...
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