Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Achilles əkĭlˈēz [key], in Greek mythology, foremost Greek hero of the Trojan War, son of Peleus and Thetis. He was a formidable warrior, possessing fierce and uncontrollable anger. Thetis, knowin...

(Encyclopedia) paranoia prˌənoiˈə [key], in psychology, a term denoting persistent, unalterable, systematized, logically reasoned delusions, or false beliefs, usually of persecution or grandeur. In the former ca...

(Encyclopedia) Meade, George Gordon, 1815–72, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Cádiz, Spain. Graduated from West Point in 1835, he resigned from the army the next year and became a civil engineer. In 1...

(Encyclopedia) Perrot, Nicolas pĕrōˈ [key], 1644–c.1718, French explorer in Canada and the Old Northwest. He came to New France as a child and, in service of the Jesuit missionaries, became acquainted with the...

(Encyclopedia) pewter, any of a number of ductile, silver-white alloys consisting principally of tin. The properties vary with the percentage of tin and the nature of the added materials. Lead, when added, imparts a...

(Encyclopedia) drought, abnormally long period of insufficient rainfall. Drought cannot be defined in terms of inches of rainfall or number of days without rain, since it is determined by such variable factors as th...

(Encyclopedia) Duke, James Buchanan, 1856–1925, American industrialist, processor of tobacco products, b. near Durham, N.C. The Civil War left the Duke family poor, but James and his brother, Benjamin, helped thei...

(Encyclopedia) Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio äntôˈnyō käˈnōväs dĕl kästēˈlyō [key], 1828–97, Spanish conservative politician, historian, and man of letters. During Spain's recurrent political crises ...

(Encyclopedia) Cantabria käntäˈbrēä [key], autonomous community and coextensive prov., 2,057 sq mi (5,328 sq ...

(Encyclopedia) Carinthia kərĭnˈthēə [key], Ger. Kärnten, province, c.3,680 sq mi (9,531 sq km), S Aust...