Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Koffka, Kurt kŏfˈkə, Ger. ko͝ort kôfˈkä [key], 1886–1941, American psychologist, b. Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1908. Before settling permanently in the United States in 1928 as a profess...

(Encyclopedia) Sei Shonagon sĕē shōˈnäˈgōn [key], c.966?-?, Japanese poet and essayist of the mid-Heian period. She is best known for her Makura no sôshi [pillow book], a collection of anecdotes, reflections...

(Encyclopedia) Grasse, town, Alpes-Maritime dept., SE France. Probably founded in Roman times, Grasse was a commercial center during the Middle Ages. Destroyed many ti...

(Encyclopedia) Kennedy, Nigel, 1956–, British violinist. He studied with Dorothy DeLay at Juilliard and debuted as a soloist with the London Philharmonic in 1977. Adept at the classical repertoire, he developed an...

(Encyclopedia) Holland, city (2020 pop. 34,378), Allegan and Ottawa counties, SW Mich., near Lake Michigan, on Lake Macatawa, in a dairy and poultry area; founded 1847...

(Encyclopedia) Danvers, town (2020 pop. 28,087), Essex co., NE Mass.; settled in the 1630s, set off from Salem 1752, inc. as a town 1757. Danvers has light manufacturi...

(Encyclopedia) specific gravity, ratio of the weight of a given volume of a substance to the weight of an equal volume of some reference substance, or, equivalently, the ratio of the masses of equal volumes of the t...

(Encyclopedia) Crane, Walter, 1845–1915, English designer, illustrator, and painter. As a painter he is grouped with the later Pre-Raphaelites, but he is better known for his illustrations of the works of Spenser ...

(Encyclopedia) fetishism, in psychiatry, a paraphilia (see perversion, sexual) in which erotic interest and satisfaction are centered on an inanimate object or a specific, nongenital part of the anatomy. Generally o...

(Encyclopedia) Bartlesville bärˈtəlzvĭl [key], city (2020 pop. 37,290), seat of Washington co., NE Okla., on the ...