Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) international language, sometimes called universal language, a language intended to be used by people of different linguistic backgrounds to facilitate communication among them and to reduce the misun...

(Encyclopedia) balloon, lighter-than-air craft without a propulsion system, lifted by inflation of one or more containers with a gas lighter than air or with heated air. During flight, altitude may be gained by disc...

(Encyclopedia) euthanasia yo͞oˌthənāˈzhə [key], either painlessly putting to death or failing to prevent death from natural causes in cases of terminal illness or irreversible coma. The term comes from the Gre...

(Encyclopedia) Druze or Druse dro͞oz [key], religious community of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, with important overseas branches in the Americas and Australia. The religious leadership prefers the name Muwah...

(Encyclopedia) Borges, Jorge Luis hôrˈhā lo͞oēsˈ bôrˈhās [key], 1899–1986, Argentine poet, critic, and short-story writer, b. Buenos Aires. Borges has been widely hailed as the foremost contemporary Spani...

(Encyclopedia) Faust yōˈhän [key], fl. 16th cent., learned German doctor who traveled widely, performed magical feats, and died under mysterious circumstances. According to legend he had sold his soul to the devi...

(Encyclopedia) Oxford movement, religious movement begun in 1833 by Anglican clergymen at the Univ. of Oxford to renew the Church of England (see England, Church of) by reviving certain Roman Catholic doctrines and ...

(Encyclopedia) Episcopal Church, Anglican church of the United States. Its separate existence as an American ecclesiastical body with its own episcopate began in 1789. During the American Revolution the personal l...

(Encyclopedia) Stanley, Sir Henry Morton, 1841–1904, Anglo-American journalist, explorer, and empire builder, b. Denbigh, Wales. He grew up in poverty and came to America as a worker on a ship, which he jumped (18...

(Encyclopedia) Drusus dro͞oˈsəs [key], Roman family of the gens Livius. An early distinguished member was Marcus Livius Drusus, d. 109? b.c., tribune of the people (122) with Caius Sempronius Gracchus (see under ...