Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Morecambe and Heysham môrˈkəm, hēˈshəm, hēˈsəm [key], town (1991 pop. 41,432), Lancashire, NW England, on Morecambe Bay. Morecambe, a seaside resort, and Heysham, a port with service to Belfa...

(Encyclopedia) Lepidodendron sĭjĭlârˈēə [key], two principal genera of an extinct group of primitive vascular trees. They dominated the forests of the early Carboniferous period until the ferns gained ascendan...

(Encyclopedia) Barlaam and Josaphat bärˈläəm, jōˈsəfăt [key], legend popular in medieval times. It corresponds in part to the legend of Buddha. Versions of the story have been found in nearly every language....

(Encyclopedia) minority, in international law, population group with a characteristic culture and sense of identity occupying a subordinate political status. Religious minorities were known from ancient times, but e...

(Encyclopedia) Gaelic literature, literature in the native tongue of Ireland and Scotland. Since Scots Gaelic became separate from Irish Gaelic only in the 17th cent., the literature is conventionally divided into O...

(Encyclopedia) Lagerfeld, Karl, 1938–2019, German fashion designer, b. Hamburg as Karl Otto Lagerfeldt, immigrated with his family to Paris in 1952. He won a fashion award at 16, designed for couturiers Pierre Bal...

(Encyclopedia) demand and supply: see supply and demand. ...

(Encyclopedia) adhesion and cohesion, attractive forces between material bodies. A distinction is usually made between an adhesive force, which acts to hold two separate bodies together (or to stick one body to anot...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 CE5 Serbia and Montenegro mŏnˌtənēˈgrō [key], Serbian Srbija i Crna Gora, former country of SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula, a short-lived union (2003–6) of the republics of Serbia...

(Encyclopedia) puts and calls, in securities trading. A call is a contract that gives the holder the right to purchase a given stock at a specific price within a designated period of time. It is the opposite of a pu...