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chiaroscuro

(Encyclopedia)chiaroscuro kyärōsko͞oˈrō [key] [Ital.,=light and dark], term once applied to an early method of printing woodcuts from several blocks and also to works in black and white or monotone. Today it i...

Hampshire sheep

(Encyclopedia)Hampshire sheep, large sheep bred originally in Hampshire, England, by crossing Southdowns, Cotswolds, and other breeds. Hampshires are large in size and hornless, have black faces and legs, and are c...

Bontemps, Arna

(Encyclopedia)Bontemps, Arna, 1902–73, African-American writer, b. Alexandria, La. He is best remembered as the author of the novel God Sends Sunday (1931), the basis of the play St. Louis Woman (1946); and of Bl...

Turpin, Dick

(Encyclopedia)Turpin, Dick, 1706–39, English robber. After a short and brutal career of horse stealing and general crime he was hanged at York. The fame—or notoriety—that he later achieved derives mainly from...

Rainey, Gertrude "Ma"

(Encyclopedia)Rainey, Gertrude "Ma," 1886–1939, African-American blues singer and songwriter, b. Columbus, Ga., as Gertrude Melissa Nix Pridgett. Rainey's place and...

bass, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)bass băs [key], common name applied to various fishes of Centrarchidae (black basses and sunfishes), Serranidae (sea basses and groupers), Moronidae (temperate basses), and other families. All basses...

raccoon

(Encyclopedia)raccoon, nocturnal New World mammal of the genus Procyon. The common raccoon of North America, Procyon lotor, also called coon, is found from S Canada to South America, except in parts of the Rocky Mt...

cherry

(Encyclopedia)cherry, name for several species of trees or shrubs of the genus Prunus (a few are sometimes classed as Padus) of the family Rosaceae (rose family) and for their fruits. The small, round red to black ...

Sakarya

(Encyclopedia)Sakarya säkäryäˈ [key], anc. Sangarius, river, c.490 mi (790 km) long, rising on the Anatolian plateau, NW Turkey. It flows generally north in a series of huge bends past Adapazari to the Black Se...

Sewell, Anna

(Encyclopedia)Sewell, Anna so͞oˈəl [key], 1820–78, English author. Her only work, Black Beauty (1877), the story of a horse, became a children's classic and has gone into many reprints. Her mother, Mary Wright...
 

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