Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) sharecropping, an agricultural system in which a landowner allows a tenant to use their land in return for a share of the crop produced. In the United S...

(Encyclopedia) spice, aromatic vegetable product used as a flavoring or condiment. The term was formerly applied also to pungent or aromatic foods (e.g., gingerbread and currants), to ingredients of incense or perfu...

(Encyclopedia) collective farm, an agricultural production unit including a number of farm households or villages working together under state control. The description of the collective farm has varied with time and...

(Encyclopedia) pepper, name for the fruits of several unrelated Old and New World plants used as spices or vegetables or in medicine. True pepper is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida,...

(Encyclopedia) Perón, Juan Domingo hwän dōmēngˈgō pĕrōnˈ [key], 1895–1974, president of Argentina (1946–55; 1973–74). In 1971, President Lanusse, convinced that political order could not be achieve...

(Encyclopedia) Federal Trade Commission (FTC), independent agency of the U.S. government established in 1915 and charged with keeping American business competition free and fair. The FTC has no jurisdiction over ban...

(Encyclopedia) wages, payment received by an employee in exchange for labor. It may be in goods or services but is customarily in money. The term in a broad sense refers to what is received in any way for labor, but...

(Encyclopedia) Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John ēvˈlĭn, sĭnˈjən wô [key], 1903–66, English writer, considered the greatest satirist of his generation. Educated at Oxford, he was briefly an art student and a te...

(Encyclopedia) pension, periodic payments to one who has retired from work because of age or disability. Pensions, originally thought of as charity, are now viewed as an essential part of the social responsibility o...

(Encyclopedia) reparations, payments or other compensation offered as an indemnity for loss or damage. Although the term is used to cover payments made to Holocaust survivors and to Japanese Americans interned durin...