Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Flattery, Cape

(Encyclopedia)Flattery, Cape, NW Wash., at the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait; discovered in 1778 by Capt. James Cook. A lighthouse and the reservation of the Makah people are on the cape, where cliffs rise 120 ft...

Ashurites

(Encyclopedia)Ashurites ăshˈərīts [key], unidentified people mentioned in the Bible. There are two possible interpretations: (1) the Geshurites, as the Vulgate indicates, or (2) the house of Asher. ...

Friuli

(Encyclopedia)Friuli frēo͞oˈlē [key], historic region, now divided between Friuli–Venezia Giulia, NE Italy, and Slovenia. It extends from the E Alps to the Adriatic and includes, in the east, a fertile plain ...

genocide

(Encyclopedia)genocide, in international law, the intentional and systematic destruction, wholly or in part, by a government of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group. Although the term genocide was first c...

multiculturalism

(Encyclopedia)multiculturalism or cultural pluralism, a term describing the coexistence of many cultures in a locality, without any one culture dominating the region. By making the broadest range of human differenc...

psycholinguistics

(Encyclopedia)psycholinguistics, the study of psychological states and mental activity associated with the use of language. An important focus of psycholinguistics is the largely unconscious application of grammati...

Nujoma, Sam

(Encyclopedia)Nujoma, Sam (Samuel Daniel Shafiishuna Nujoma) no͞oyōˈmä [key], 1929–, Namibian political leader. A railway worker in what was then the South African mandate of South West Africa, Nujoma became ...

Philistines

(Encyclopedia)Philistines fĭlˈĭstēnz, fĭlĭsˈ– [key], inhabitants of Philistia, a non-Semitic people who came to Palestine from a region in the Mediterranean in the 12th cent. b.c. Genetic studies in the 21...

parable

(Encyclopedia)parable, the term translates the Hebrew word “mashal”—a term denoting a metaphor, or an enigmatic saying or an analogy. In the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition, however, “parables” were illu...

Tutsi

(Encyclopedia)Tutsi wä– [key], cattle-raising people of central Africa, particularly in Burundi and Rwanda; they are also known as Watusi or Batusi. The original Tutsi homeland was probably in Ethiopia, and c.40...
 

Browse by Subject