Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) caravel kärˈvəl [key], three-masted sailing vessel, generally square-rigged with the aftermast lateen-rigged. It had a roundish hull with a high bow and stern. The term “carvel-built” (see boat...

(Encyclopedia) catchment area or drainage basin, area drained by a stream or other body of water. The limits of a given catchment area are the heights of land—often called drainage divides, or watersheds—separat...

(Encyclopedia) Cochin kōˌchĭnˈ [key], former princely state, 1,493 sq mi (3,867 sq km), SW India, on the ...

(Encyclopedia) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), officially the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, independent U.S. government agency responsible for most of the federal oversight and enforcement of...

(Encyclopedia) wake, watch kept over a dead body, usually during the night preceding burial. Ancient peoples in various parts of the world observed the custom. As an ancient ritual, it was rooted in a concern that n...

(Encyclopedia) White Plains, city (1990 pop. 48,718), seat of Westchester co., SE N.Y., N of New York City; settled by Puritans from Connecticut in 1683; inc. as a village 1866, as a city 1916. The primary employmen...

(Encyclopedia) Buisson, Ferdinand Édouard fĕrdēnäNˈ ādwärˈ büēsôNˈ [key], 1841–1932, French educator and Nobel Peace Prize winner. He studied at the Sorbonne and later taught (1866–70) in Switzerland...

(Encyclopedia) Erasistratus ĕrəsĭsˈtrətəs [key], fl. 3d cent. b.c., Greek physician, b. Chios. He was the leader of a school of medicine in Alexandria, and his works were influential until the 4th cent. a.d. H...

(Encyclopedia) Granit, Ragnar, 1900–1991, Swedish physiologist, M.D., Univ. of Helsinki, 1927. A professor at the Univ. of Helsinki from 1927, he joined the faculty of the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, in 1940. Gr...

(Encyclopedia) Alföld ôlˈföld [key], Hun. Nagy-Alföld [Great Alföld], great central plain of Hungary extending into Serbia and W Romania. The level region is drained by the Tisza and Danube rivers. Formerly wo...