Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Wilde, Oscar (Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde), 1854–1900, Irish author and wit, b. Dublin. He is most famous for his sophisticated, brilliantly witty plays, which were the first since the come...

(Encyclopedia) Oscar I, 1799–1859, king of Sweden and Norway (1844–59), son and successor of Charles XIV. His reign was one of social and economic advance. His book on the reform of criminal law and prisons had ...

(Encyclopedia) Queensberry, John Sholto Douglas, 8th marquess of, 1844–1900, British nobleman, originator of the code of rules that governs modern boxing. He served in the British army and navy and later was a mem...

(Encyclopedia) Oscar II, 1829–1907, king of Sweden (1872–1907) and Norway (1872–1905), younger son of Oscar I. He succeeded his brother, Charles XV. He refused to concede to Norway its own consular representat...

(Encyclopedia) paradox, statement that appears self-contradictory but actually has a basis in truth, e.g., Oscar Wilde's “Ignorance is like a delicate fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.” Many New Critics mai...

(Encyclopedia) Hertwig, Oscar ôsˈkär hĕrtˈvĭkh [key], 1849–1922, German embryologist. He studied medicine with Haeckel and Gegenbaur. In 1875 he established the fact that fertilization consists of the union ...

(Encyclopedia) Osorio, Oscar ōskärˈ ōsōˈryō [key], 1910–69, president of El Salvador (1950–56). A peasant farmer, he joined the army and rose to the rank of major. As a member of the junta that seized pow...

(Encyclopedia) Hammerstein, Oscar hămˈərstīn [key], 1846–1919, German-American operatic impresario. In 1888 he built the Harlem Opera House, and in 1906 the Manhattan Opera House, where he gave noteworthy prod...

(Encyclopedia) Straus, Oscar ôsˈkär shtrous [key], 1870–1954, Austrian composer; studied in Vienna and with Max Bruch in Berlin. After a brief career as conductor he turned entirely to composition. His operas a...

(Encyclopedia) Roty, Louis Oscar lwē ôskärˈ rôtēˈ [key], 1846–1911, French medalist and engraver, one of the greatest medalists of the 19th cent. His best-known commemorative medals include those for the de...