Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) flextime, system of assigning hours for work that permits employees to choose, within specified limits, the hours that they will be at their place of employment. In many companies, there is a “core ...

(Encyclopedia) wolverine or glutton, largest member of the weasel family, Gulo gulo, found in the northern parts of North America and Eurasia, usually in high mountains near the timberline or in tundra. It is a heav...

(Encyclopedia) Ptolemy XII (Ptolemy Auletes) ôlēˈtēz [key], d. 51 b.c., king of ancient Egypt (80–58 b.c., 55–51 b.c.), of the Macedonian dynasty, illegitimate son of Ptolemy IX. He is also called Ptolemy Ne...

(Encyclopedia) Trafalgar, battle of trəfălˈgər [key], naval engagement fought off Cape Trafalgar on the SW coast of Spain on Oct. 21, 1805, in which the British fleet under Horatio Nelson won a famous victory ov...

(Encyclopedia) Rich, Adrienne, 1929–2012, American poet, b. Baltimore, grad. Radcliffe, 1951. From the 1970s her exquisitely wrought verse became looser and more personal as her works increasingly reflected femini...

(Encyclopedia) Scott-Heron, Gil, 1949–2011, American poet, musician, and songwriter, b. Chicago. Often considered “the godfather of rap music,” he rejected that ...

(Encyclopedia) taboo or tabu both: tăbo͞oˈ, tə– [key], prohibition of an act or the use of an object or word under pain of punishment. Originally a Polynesian word, taboo can apply to the sacred or consecrated...

(Encyclopedia) tachinid fly tăkˈənĭd [key], common name for any of the flies of the family Tachinidae, which parasitize caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers, and other insects. Tachinid flies are generally small ...

(Encyclopedia) testis tĕsˈtĭkəl [key], one of a pair of glands that produce the male reproductive cells, or sperm. In fetal life the testes develop in the abdomen, then descend into an external sac, the scrotum....

(Encyclopedia) thermionic emission thûrmˌīŏnˈĭk [key], emission of electrons or ions by substances that are highly heated, the charged particles being called thermions. The number of thermions emitted increase...