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  • Idris ibn Raja Iskandar, Sultan (sultan of Perak)
    sultan of Perak, 1887–1916....
  • Idrīs II (king of northern Morocco)
    ...Fakhkh, in which many of the ʿAlids were slain by the ʿAbbāsids. He fled west and succeeded in conquering Berber tribes in northern Morocco and a part of the Atlantic plains. His son, Idrīs II (reigned 803–828), resumed his work without, however, succeeding in subduing the whole country. Nevertheless, in 808, Idrīs II founded as a capital for his little...
  • Idrīs, Suhayl (Lebanese writer)
    ...one of the most prominent literary journals founded in the Arabic-speaking region in the latter half of the 20th century, was established by the Lebanese writer Suhayl Idrīs specifically to forward such an approach. Beginning in the 1950s, a great deal of committed literature was penned by Arab writers; topics such as the Palestinian people provided a......
  • Idrīs, Yūsuf (Egyptian writer)
    Egyptian playwright and novelist who broke with traditional Arabic literature by mixing colloquial dialect with conventional classical Arabic narration in the writing of realistic stories about ordinary villagers....
  • Idrīsī, ash-Sharīf al- (Arab geographer)
    Arab geographer, an adviser to Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily. He wrote one of the greatest works of medieval geography, Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (“The Pleasure Excursion of One Who Is Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World”)....
  • Idrīsid dynasty (Islamic dynasty)
    Arab Muslim dynasty that ruled in the Berber areas of Morocco from 789 until 921....
  • idu (Korean writing)
    By the 7th century a system, called idu, had been devised that allowed Koreans to make rough transliterations of Chinese texts. Eventually, certain Chinese characters were used for their phonetic value to represent Korean particles of speech and inflectional endings. A more extended system of transcription, called hyangch’al, followed shortly thereafter, in which entire senten...
  • Idua Oron (Nigeria)
    town, Akwa Ibom state, southeastern Nigeria. It lies at the mouth of the Cross River and is the terminus of roads from Uyo and Opobo. Oron is a coastal trade centre for the yams, cassava, fish, and palm oil and kernels produced by the Ibibio people of the hinterland. The town is the site of a hospital, a teacher-training college, the Federal Nautical College of Nigeria, and several secondary schoo...
  • Idukki (India)
    town, southeastern Kerala state, southwestern India. It lies 81 miles (130 km) southeast of Cochin and 79 miles (127 km) northeast of Kottayam. It is known for its large hydroelectric project. The Idukki arch dam, 554 feet (169 m) high, on the Periyār River, was completed in 1974. It connects two huge rocks, Kurathi, 3,035 feet (925 m) high, and Kuravan, 2,753 feet (839 m) high. Together w...
  • Idukki dam (dam, Idukki, India)
    town, southeastern Kerala state, southwestern India. It lies 81 miles (130 km) southeast of Cochin and 79 miles (127 km) northeast of Kottayam. It is known for its large hydroelectric project. The Idukki arch dam, 554 feet (169 m) high, on the Periyār River, was completed in 1974. It connects two huge rocks, Kurathi, 3,035 feet (925 m) high, and Kuravan, 2,753 feet (839 m) high. Together.....
  • Iduma (ancient country, Middle East)
    ancient land bordering ancient Israel, in what is now southwestern Jordan, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The Edomites probably occupied the area about the 13th century bc. Though closely related to the Israelites (according to the Bible, they were descendants of Esau), they had frequent conflicts with them and were probably subject to them at the tim...
  • Idumaean (ancient people)
    ancient land bordering ancient Israel, in what is now southwestern Jordan, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The Edomites probably occupied the area about the 13th century bc. Though closely related to the Israelites (according to the Bible, they were descendants of Esau), they had frequent conflicts with them and were probably subject to them at the time of the Israelite ...
  • Idun (Norse goddess)
    in Norse mythology, the goddess of spring or rejuvenation and the wife of Bragi, the god of poetry. She was the keeper of the magic apples of immortality, which the gods must eat to preserve their youth. When, through the cunning of Loki, the trickster god, she and her apples were seized by the giant Thiassi and taken to the realm of the giants, the gods quic...
  • Iduna (Norse goddess)
    in Norse mythology, the goddess of spring or rejuvenation and the wife of Bragi, the god of poetry. She was the keeper of the magic apples of immortality, which the gods must eat to preserve their youth. When, through the cunning of Loki, the trickster god, she and her apples were seized by the giant Thiassi and taken to the realm of the giants, the gods quic...
  • Idunn (Norse goddess)
    in Norse mythology, the goddess of spring or rejuvenation and the wife of Bragi, the god of poetry. She was the keeper of the magic apples of immortality, which the gods must eat to preserve their youth. When, through the cunning of Loki, the trickster god, she and her apples were seized by the giant Thiassi and taken to the realm of the giants, the gods quic...
  • Idus idus (fish)
    common sport and food fish of the carp family, Cyprinidae, widely distributed in rivers and lakes of Europe and western Siberia. An elongated, rather stout fish, the ide is blue-gray or blackish with silvery sides and belly, and is usually about 30–50 cm (12–20 inches) long. It eats fish and insects and other invertebrates. The golden ide is a hardy, reddish gold variety of the speci...
  • idyl (literature)
    also spelled Idyl (from Greek eidyllion, “little picture”), a short poem of a pastoral or rural character in which something of the element of landscape is depicted or suggested. The term was used in Greco-Roman antiquity to designate a variety of brief poems on simple subjects in which the description of natural objects was introduced. The conventions of the pas...
  • idyll (literature)
    also spelled Idyl (from Greek eidyllion, “little picture”), a short poem of a pastoral or rural character in which something of the element of landscape is depicted or suggested. The term was used in Greco-Roman antiquity to designate a variety of brief poems on simple subjects in which the description of natural objects was introduced. The conventions of the pas...
  • Idyllen (work by Gessner)
    Gessner was a town councillor and a forestry superintendent who also ran an important publishing house, from which he published his books with his own excellent etchings. His pastoral prose Idyllen (1756–72) and his epic poem Der Tod Abels (1758; “The Death of Abel”) were his most renowned works, making him the most successful and typical representative of a......
  • Idyllen, Volkssagen, Legenden und Erzählungen aus der Schweiz (work by Wyss)
    Wyss became professor of philosophy at the academy at Bern in 1805 and later chief librarian of the municipal library. He was a collector of Swiss tales and folklore, published in Idyllen, Volkssagen, Legenden und Erzählungen aus der Schweiz (1815). He also edited the Alpenrosen almanac (1811–30), with the collaboration of the best Swiss writers of his time. He wrote......
  • Idylls of the King (work by Tennyson)
    A project that Tennyson had long considered at last issued in Idylls of the King (1859), a series of 12 connected poems broadly surveying the legend of King Arthur from his falling in love with Guinevere to the ultimate ruin of his kingdom. The poems concentrate on the introduction of evil to Camelot because of the adulterous love of Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, and on the consequent......
  • “Ie” (work by Shimazaki Tōson)
    ...representative of the naturalist school, then the vogue in Japan, although it more clearly reflects the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau than of Émile Zola. Ie (1910–11; The Family) depicts the stresses Japan’s modernization brought to his own family. Shinsei (1918–19; “New Life”) narrates the unsavoury affair of a writer with his...
  • IEC (chemistry)
    Once dissolved, the sample is ready for the chemical separation of the dating elements. This is generally achieved by using the methods of ion-exchange chromatography. In this process, ions are variously adsorbed from solution onto materials with ionic charges on their surface and separated from the rest of the sample. After the dating elements have been isolated, they are loaded into a mass......
  • IEEE (international organization)
    international organization of engineers and scientists in electrical engineering, electronics, and allied fields, formed in 1963 by merger of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (founded 1884) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (founded 1912). It publishes the monthly Journal of Quantum Electronics and other journals. Headquarters are in New York City....
  • IEF (chemistry)
    In addition to being separated by size, proteins can also be separated according to their specific charge residues. A particularly useful method based on this principle is isoelectric focusing (IEF). At a given pH of a solution, a specific protein will have equal positive and negative charges and will therefore not migrate in an electric field. This pH value is called the isoelectric point. A......
  • Iemanjá, Festival of (holiday)
    ...The latter is celebrated with bonfires, fireworks, and the launching of small paper hot-air balloons. Along the coast on New Year’s Day (a national holiday), fishers pay homage to the African deity Iemanjá, goddess of the oceans (also St. Barbara, patron of artillerymen), by sailing out to sea with offerings that are thought to determine the success or failure of the coming year...
  • iemoto (tea ceremony)
    ...art of the tea ceremony came to be monopolized by the house heads of the various schools, fostering the development of the “profession” of tea master. This “house head” (iemoto) system also spread to flower arrangement and to other arts and became a distinguishing feature of the Edo period. One result of this segmentation into tradition-conscious schools was t...
  • Iéna, Pont d’ (bridge, Paris, France)
    ...park, the centre of which is alive with fountains, cascades, and pools. The Trocadéro Aquarium (Cinéaqua) is a few steps away in the park. From the bottom of the slope the five-arched Jena Bridge (Pont d’Iéna) leads across the river. It was built for Napoleon I in 1813 to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Jena in 1806....
  • Ienaga Saburo (Japanese historian)
    Japanese historian (b. Sept. 3, 1913, Nagoya, Japan—d. Nov. 29, 2002, Tokyo, Japan), waged a long-running battle with the Japanese Ministry of Education over his depiction in history textbooks of wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese. After having fought government censorship for more than three decades, Ienaga triumphed in a high-profile court case in 1997 when the Japanese Supreme ...
  • Ieng Sary (Khmer political leader)
    ...a series of military defeats and grew weaker from year to year. In 1995 many of their cadres accepted an offer of amnesty from the Cambodian government, and in 1996 one of their leading figures, Ieng Sary, defected along with several thousand guerrillas under his command and signed a peace agreement with the government. The disarray within the organization intensified in 1997, when Pol Pot......
  • IEO asteroid (astronomy)
    Asteroids that can come close to Earth are called near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), although only some NEAs actually cross Earth’s orbit. NEAs are divided into several classes. Asteroids belonging to the class most distant from Earth—those asteroids that can cross the orbit of Mars but that have perihelion distances greater than 1.3 AU—are dubbed Mars crossers. This class is furthe...
  • Ieper (Belgium)
    municipality, West Flanders province (province), western Belgium. It lies along the Yperlee (Ieperlee) River, south of Ostend. Ypres became a major cloth-weaving city in the Middle Ages, and together with Brugge and Ghent it virtually controlled Flanders in the 13th century. At that time it was reputed to have a population of 80,000. An unsuccessful but devas...
  • “Ieri, oggi, domani” (film by De Sica [1964])
    Other Nominees...
  • Iesi (Italy)
    town and episcopal see, Marche regione, east-central Italy. Jesi lies along the Esino River, just southwest of Ancona. The Roman colony of Aesis from 247 bc, it was destroyed by the Goths and Lombards and formed part of the Frankish king Pippin III’s gift to the church in 756. In the early medieval conflicts between the Holy Roman emperors and the pap...
  • Ieuan Brydydd Hir (Welsh poet)
    Welsh poet and antiquary, one of the principal figures in the mid-18th-century revival of Welsh classical poetry....
  • Ieuan Fardd (Welsh poet)
    Welsh poet and antiquary, one of the principal figures in the mid-18th-century revival of Welsh classical poetry....
  • IF (sports organization)
    For each Olympic sport there must be an international federation (IF), to which a requisite number of applicable national governing bodies must belong. The IFs promote and regulate their sport on an international level. Since 1986 they have been responsible for determining all questions of Olympic eligibility and competition in their sport. The International Federation of Rowing Associations......
  • If (island, France)
    small Mediterranean island 2 miles (3.2 km) outside the port of Marseille, Fr. Its castle, built by the French king Francis I in 1524, was later used as a state prison. The castle was made famous when Alexandre Dumas père, the 19th-century French writer, used it as one of the settings in his novel The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–45)....
  • If… (film by Anderson)
    ...but who fails in love. The film is a classic of the British social realist cinema of the 1960s. Anderson directed productions at the Royal Court and other theatres before making his next film, If . . . (1968), in which three English students violently rebel against the conformity and social hypocrisy of their boarding school. Anderson then directed the premieres of Storey’s plays....
  • IF (protein)
    a glycoprotein (i.e., a complex compound containing both polysaccharide and protein components) with which vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) must combine to be absorbed by the gut. Intrinsic factor is secreted by parietal cells of the gastric glands in the stomach, where it binds with the vitamin. Thus bound, intrinsic factor protects vitamin B1...
  • IF (electronics)
    ...with a low-frequency current produced in the receiver, giving a beat (or heterodyne) frequency that is the difference between the original combining frequencies. This different frequency, called the intermediate frequency (IF), is beyond the audible range (hence the original term, supersonic heterodyne reception); it can be amplified with higher gain and selectivity than can the initial higher....
  • If Christ Came to Chicago: A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer (work by Stead)
    ...to attend the World’s Fair. He was horrified by the conditions he observed behind the glamour of the Fair and made a thorough investigation of the city’s underworld. His findings, published in If Christ Came to Chicago: A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer (1894), are recognized as a model of journalistic research. In 1904 Stead tried to fou...
  • If I Did It (book by Simpson)
    ...he was found liable for the deaths of his ex-wife and Goldman and was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages to the families. Simpson later collaborated (with Pablo F. Fenjves) on If I Did It, in which he hypothesized about how he would have committed the murders. Public outrage prevented its initial publication in 2006, but a bankruptcy court subsequently awarded the....
  • If I Didn’t Have You (song by Newman)
    ...Catherine Martin (art direction) and Brigitte Broch (set decoration) for Moulin RougeOriginal Score: Howard Shore for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Original Song: “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters, Inc.; music and lyrics by Randy NewmanAnimated Feature Film: Shrek, directed by Andrew Adamson and......
  • If It Die… (work by Gide)
    ...to achieve his own ethic, and by casting off his sense of guilt to become his true self. Now, in a desire to liquidate the past, he began his autobiography, Si le grain ne meurt (1926; If It Die . . .), an account of his life from birth to marriage that is among the great works of confessional literature. In 1918 his friendship for the young Marc Allégret caused a......
  • If It Had Happened Otherwise (work by Squires)
    ...posed by uchronias. In 1907 G.M. Trevelyan wrote an essay speculating on the consequences of a Napoleonic victory at Waterloo. Trevelyan’s work inspired J.C. Squires’s anthology If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931), in which such period worthies as Winston Churchill, André Maurois, and G.K. Chesterton speculated on counterfactual historical turning p...
  • If Morning Ever Comes (novel by Tyler)
    Tyler’s first novel, If Morning Ever Comes, was published in 1964. Though it received little critical attention, it revealed the polished prose and understated examination of personal isolation and the difficulty of interpersonal communication that would also characterize her later work. Publication of The Tin Can Tree (1965) and The Clock Winder (1972) followed, but it...
  • If This is a Man (work by Levi)
    Levi’s first book, Se questo è un uomo (1947; If This Is a Man, or Survival in Auschwitz), demonstrated extraordinary qualities of humanity and detachment in its analysis of the atrocities he had witnessed. His later autobiographical works, La tregua (1963; The Truce, or The Reawakening) and I sommersi e i salvati (1986; The...
  • if-thenism (philosophy)
    ...paraphrase nominalists think that these sentences do not make straightforward claims about objects. There are several different versions of paraphrase nominalism, of which the best known is “if-thenism,” or deductivism. According to this view, the sentence “4 is even” can be paraphrased by the sentence “If there were such things as numbers, then 4 would be......
  • IFA (American athletic organization)
    As an undergraduate and then as a medical student at Yale (1876–81), Camp played halfback, served as team captain (at that time equivalent to head coach), and became a member of the Intercollegiate Football Association. From 1880 this ruling body accepted various innovations proposed by Camp: the 11-man team, the quarterback position, the scrimmage line, offensive signal calling, and the......
  • Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa (work by Bascom)
    ...(1950–51). In 1957 he was made professor and director of the Robert H. Lowie Museum at the University of California, Berkeley. A specialist in African folklore, Bascom, in his treatise on Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa (1969), clarified the Yoruba divination system, which is orally transmitted by Ifa priests to apprentices. Other writings include...
  • IFAD
    United Nations (UN) specialized agency that supports increased food production in poor communities. Partly in response to severe famines in the southern Sahara in the early 1970s, the 1974 World Food Conference adopted a resolution that established IFAD in November 1977. The organization is headquartered in Rome, Italy....
  • Ifalik (island, Micronesia, Pacific Ocean)
    ...was not to illustrate a story but to decorate it. Instead of acknowledging a chief’s deed or genealogy, the Yapese dancers demonstrated the overlordship of Yap to the other islands. Even in Ifalik, where texts were in their own language, the movements did not interpret poetry but were apparently abstractly decorative. The same is true for the Kiribati. Thus, Polynesian dance could be......
  • Ifat (historical state, Ethiopia)
    Muslim state that flourished in central Ethiopia from 1285 to 1415 in the fertile uplands of eastern Shewa. Toward the end of the 13th century a ruler whose dynastic title was Walashma gained an ascendancy over the Muslim kingdoms of eastern Shewa. By gradually winning over the newly formed states of Fatajar, Dawaro, and Bale and by subduing various Shewan and Afar regions, inc...
  • IFC (UN)
    United Nations (UN) specialized agency affiliated with but legally separate from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank). Founded in 1956 to stimulate the economic development of its members by providing capital for private enterprises, the IFC has targeted its aid toward less-developed countries and has been their largest multil...
  • IFCTU
    labour confederation founded as the International Federation of Christian Trade Unions in 1920 to represent the interests of Christian labour unions in western Europe and Latin America. It was reconstituted under its present name in 1968. Although the confederation seeks national, regional, and international economic integration, its influence is primarily limited to domestic policies and local af...
  • Ife (Nigeria)
    town, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. The town lies at the intersection of roads from Ibadan (40 miles [64 km] west), Ilesha, and Ondo. It is one of the larger centres and probably the oldest town of the Yoruba people. Considered by the Yoruba to be a holy city and the legendary birthplace of mankind, it was held to have been founded by a son of the deity Od...
  • “Ife Owo” (play by Ogunmola)
    ...Ogunmola’s folk operas, like Ogunde’s, utilized biblical themes and Yoruba folklore, but Ogunmola developed these materials in a more overtly Christian and moralizing context. A typical play is Ife Owo (performed c. 1950 and widely played under its English title, Love of Money, published 1965), which depicts the sufferings of a polygamous husband who tries to ...
  • Ife, University of (university, Ile-Ife, Nigeria)
    Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly the University of Ife) was founded in 1961. One of Nigeria’s major universities, it is located north of the town; it operates a teaching hospital and has a major library. The affiliated Institute of Agricultural Research and Training operates the Moor Plantation for agricultural research and has the country’s largest specialized agricultural libra...
  • Ife-lodun (Nigeria)
    town, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. The town lies at the intersection of roads from Ibadan (40 miles [64 km] west), Ilesha, and Ondo. It is one of the larger centres and probably the oldest town of the Yoruba people. Considered by the Yoruba to be a holy city and the legendary birthplace of mankind, it was held to have been founded by a son of the deity Od...
  • Iferten (Switzerland)
    From 1800 to 1804 he directed an educational establishment in Burgdorf and from 1805 until 1825 a boarding school at Yverdon, near Neuchâtel. Both schools relied for funds on fee-paying pupils, though some poor children were taken in, and these institutes served as experimental bases for proving his method in its three branches—intellectual, moral, and physical, the latter including....
  • IFF (Zionist extremist organization)
    Zionist extremist organization in Palestine, founded in 1940 by Avraham Stern (1907–42) after a split in the right-wing underground movement, Irgun Zvai Leumi....
  • IFF (warning system)
    Radar and identification friend or foe (IFF) equipment constitute the forward elements of complex systems that have appeared throughout the world. Examples include the semiautomatic ground environment (SAGE), augmented by a mobile backup intercept control system called BUIC in the United States, NATO air defense ground environment (NADGE) in Europe, a similar system in Japan, and various......
  • Iffland, August Wilhelm (German theatrical manager)
    German actor, dramatist, and manager, a major influence on German theatre....
  • IFLA (international organization)
    ...institute has many international committees, and some, especially those concerned with classification research and the constant revision of the Universal Decimal Classification, are very active. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA; Fédération Internationale des Associations de Bibliothécaires et des Bibliothèques, or FIAB) was....
  • IFMA
    ...bodies made their financial needs known to a wide constituency. Their chief aim has been to proclaim the Gospel and eschew the provision of social services. These societies joined together in the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA; 1917). Since the 1960s they have cooperated with the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA; 1945), the missionary arm of the National......
  • Ifni (Morocco)
    former north African enclave of Spain and now part of the southwestern region of Morocco, along the Atlantic coast. An arid semidesert region of mountains and coastal plain, Ifni was first settled in 1476 by Diego García de Herrera, lord of the Canaries, as a fortified Spanish fishing, slaving, and trading locality. Abandoned in 1524 because of disease and Moorish hostility, it was reclaim...
  • Iforas Massif (plateau, Mali)
    Northern and central Mali are made up of the plains of the Niger River basin and of the Sahara. The only marked relief feature in the north is the Iforas Massif. An extension of the mountainous Hoggar region of the Sahara, this heavily eroded sandstone plateau rises to elevations of more than 2,000 feet....
  • IFP (political party, South Africa)
    black political movement in South Africa that derives its main support from the Zulu people. Inkatha was founded in 1975 in the black homeland of KwaZulu by Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, chief of the Zulu people and the chief minister of the homeland. Its purpose was to work against apartheid (the official South African policy of racial segre...
  • IFP (French organization)
    Chauvin graduated in 1954 from the Lyon School of Chemistry, Physics, and Electronics. From 1960 he spent most of his career conducting research at the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP), where he was named research director in 1991 and honorary research director upon his retirement in 1995. Chauvin held several patents and developed valuable petrochemical industrial processes, notably in......
  • IFR (aviation)
    ...of flight control is called the visual flight rule, in which pilots fly with visual ground reference and a “see and be seen” flight rule. In congested airspace all pilots must obey the instrument flight rule; that is, they must depend principally on the information provided by the plane’s instruments for their safety. In poor visibility and at night, instrument flight rules...
  • Ifrane (Morocco)
    town, north-central Morocco. Ifrane was founded in 1929 and is situated in the Middle Atlas (Moyen Atlas) mountains; it includes in its immediate environs Morocco’s premier winter and summer resort areas. Located at an elevation of about 5,400 feet (1,650 metres) above sea level, this modern town caters to international tourists. Nearby cedar-covered ex...
  • Ifrīqiyyah (historical region, North Africa)
    Arab Muslim dynasty that ruled Ifrīqīyah (Tunisia and eastern Algeria) from ad 800 to 909. The Aghlabids were nominally subject to the ʿAbbāsid caliphs of Baghdad but were in fact independent. Their capital city was Kairouan (al-Qayrawān), in Tunisia. The most interesting of the 11 Aghlabid emirs were the energetic and cultured Ibrāhīm...
  • ʿifrīt (Islamic mythology)
    in Islāmic mythology, a class of infernal jinn (spirits below the level of angels and devils) noted for their strength and cunning. An ifrit is an enormous winged creature of smoke, either male or female, who lives underground and frequents ruins. Ifrits live in a society structured along ancient Arab tribal lines, complete with kings, tribes, and clans. They generally marry one another, bu...
  • ifrit (Islamic mythology)
    in Islāmic mythology, a class of infernal jinn (spirits below the level of angels and devils) noted for their strength and cunning. An ifrit is an enormous winged creature of smoke, either male or female, who lives underground and frequents ruins. Ifrits live in a society structured along ancient Arab tribal lines, complete with kings, tribes, and clans. They generally marry one another, bu...
  • ʿifrītah (Islamic mythology)
    in Islāmic mythology, a class of infernal jinn (spirits below the level of angels and devils) noted for their strength and cunning. An ifrit is an enormous winged creature of smoke, either male or female, who lives underground and frequents ruins. Ifrits live in a society structured along ancient Arab tribal lines, complete with kings, tribes, and clans. They generally marry one another, bu...
  • Ifugao (people)
    group of wet-rice agriculturalists occupying the mountainous area of northern Luzon, Philippines. They are of Malay stock and their language is Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian), as is that of their neighbours, but they have developed a number of cultural characteristics that set them apart. They numbered nearly 70,000 in 1939, but World War II reduced their p...
  • Ifukube Akira (Japanese composer)
    Japanese composer (b. May 31, 1914, Kushiro, Japan—d. Feb. 8, 2006, Tokyo, Japan), created the tribal theme music for the film Godzilla (1954), as well as the sounds that were the monster’s roar and footsteps. Ifukube grew up on the northern island of Hokkaido, and his music was greatly influenced by the region’s Ainu culture. Though trained in forestry, he was a self-t...
  • IFV (military technology)
    ...bullets, shells, or other projectiles. Armoured vehicles for military use can move either on wheels or on two endless metal chains called tracks. The tank (q.v.) is the principal fighting armoured vehicle. Other military types include armoured personnel carriers, armoured cars, self-propelled guns, tank destroyers, and mobile antiaircraft systems. The classification also includes......
  • Ig (biochemistry)
    a protective protein produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance, called an antigen. Antibodies recognize and latch onto antigens in order to remove them from the body. A wide range of substances are regarded by the body as antigens, including disease-causing organisms and toxic materials such as insect venom....
  • IG Farben (German cartel)
    (German: “Syndicate of Dyestuff-Industry Corporations”), world’s largest chemical concern, or cartel, from its founding in Germany in 1925 until its dissolution by the Allies after World War II. The IG (Interessengemeinschaft, “syndicate” or, literally, “community of interests”), partly patterned after earlier U.S. trust...
  • IG Farben process (metallurgy)
    ...industrial complex IG Farbenindustrie, which, during the 1920s and ’30s, developed a process for producing large quantities of molten and essentially water-free magnesium chloride (now known as the IG Farben process) as well as the technology for electrolyzing this product to magnesium metal and chlorine. Other contributions by IG Farben were the development of numerous cast and malleabl...
  • IgA (biochemistry)
    Antibodies are grouped into five classes according to their constant region. Each class is designated by a letter attached to an abbreviation of the word immunoglobulin: IgG, IgM, IgA, IgD, and IgE. The classes of antibody differ not only in their constant region but also in activity. For example, IgG, the most common antibody, is present mostly in the blood and tissue fluids,......
  • IgA deficiency (pathology)
    Antibodies are grouped into five classes according to their constant region. Each class is designated by a letter attached to an abbreviation of the word immunoglobulin: IgG, IgM, IgA, IgD, and IgE. The classes of antibody differ not only in their constant region but also in activity. For example, IgG, the most common antibody, is present mostly in the blood and tissue fluids,........
  • IGADD (African organization)
    Djibouti belongs to the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, the Arab League, and the nonaligned movement. In 1986 Djibouti city became the headquarters of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD), which comprises six eastern African nations....
  • Igala (people)
    a largely Muslim people of Nigeria, living on the left bank of the Niger River below its junction with the Benue River. Their language belongs to the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family. Their ruler, the ata, traditionally also governed two other groups, the Bassa Nge and the Bass Nkome, who live between the Igala and the Benue River....
  • Igala language
    The Defoid languages comprise two groups: the Akokoid cluster of four languages and the very much larger Yoruboid cluster whose principal members are Yoruba (20,000,000 speakers), Igala (1,000,000), and Itsekiri (Itsεkiri; 600,000). Yoruba is the Niger-Congo language with the largest number of mother-tongue speakers. Though Swahili has a greater total number of speakers—some......
  • igapó (forest)
    ...rainforests of the terra firme, there are two types of inundated rainforests, várzea and igapó, which constitute about 3 percent of the total Amazon Rainforest. Várzea forests can be found in the silt- and nutrient-rich......
  • Igara (people)
    a largely Muslim people of Nigeria, living on the left bank of the Niger River below its junction with the Benue River. Their language belongs to the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family. Their ruler, the ata, traditionally also governed two other groups, the Bassa Nge and the Bass Nkome, who live between the Igala and the Benue River....
  • Igarape Ipixuna (river, Brazil)
    ...and the Pirahá until they made peace in 1922, when their numbers were estimated at 250. Many subsequently died of diseases introduced from Europe. The few remaining Parintintin live on the Igarapé Ipixuna, a tributary of Lake Uruapiára, or have become rubber workers on the Madeira River....
  • Igarashi family (Japanese artists)
    Japanese lacquerware artists who specialized in the maki-e technique, wherein a design is made by sprinkling minute gold, silver, or copper flakes over a lacquer ground. The founder of the Igarashi family, Shinsai, contributed to the art by perfecting two techniques of lacquer design. The taka-maki-e technique employs a mixture of lacquer putty, white lead, lampb...
  • Igarashi Takenobu (Japanese graphic designer)
    Such a disruption of expected forms and grids was also apparent in the work of Japanese designer Igarashi Takenobu. After studying design fundamentals in Los Angeles, Igarashi began his independent design practice in Tokyo and used basic design elements—point, line, plane, grids, and isometric perspectives—as the building blocks of his work. This design vocabulary enabled him to......
  • Igarka (Russia)
    city, Krasnoyarsk kray (region), central Russia. It is 60 miles (100 km) north of the Arctic Circle and lies along the Yenisey River, 418 miles (673 km) from the sea, but is accessible to oceangoing vessels. It was founded in 1929. The city is an important wood-export port both to other parts of Russia and abroad and also serves as a sawmilling centre. A permafrost research station is loca...
  • Igbile (African mythology)
    ...by the warrior age group in ceremonies to purify the village ritually and to maintain health. At Ughoton, to the southwest of Benin, a different type of mask is used, in the cult of the water spirit Igbile. Both the cult and the sculptural style seem to have derived from the Ijo....
  • ig̀bìn drum (musical instrument)
    ...or terra-cotta from Ife, Yorubaland. These representations show considerable agreement with traditional accounts of their origins. From the 10th to the 14th century ad, ig̀bìn drums (a set of footed cylindrical drums) seem to have been used. The dùndún pressure drum, now assoc...
  • Igbira (people)
    inhabitants of the areas northeast and southwest of the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers in central Nigeria. Their language is usually classified as a Nupoid variety within the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family....
  • Igbirra (people)
    inhabitants of the areas northeast and southwest of the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers in central Nigeria. Their language is usually classified as a Nupoid variety within the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family....
  • Igbo (people)
    people living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria who speak Igbo, a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. The Igbo may be grouped into the following main cultural divisions: northern (Onitsha), southern (Owerri), western (Ika), eastern (Cross River), and northeastern (Abakaliki). Before European colonization, the...
  • Igbo Olodumare (work by Fagunwa)
    Fagunwa’s first novel, Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale (1938; The Forest of a Thousand Daemons), was the first full-length novel published in the Yoruba language. His second novel, Igbo Olodumare (“The Forest of God”), was published in 1949. He also wrote Ireke Onibudo (1949; “The Sugarcane of the Guardian”), Irinkerindo Ninu Igbo......
  • Igbo Ukwu (Nigeria)
    ...aristocratic power. Still farther east, in the forest on the other side of the Niger, where there are no traditions of invasion or of developed monarchical government, the archaeological finds at Igbo Ukwu revealed that ancestors of the modern Ibo had, as early as the 9th century, a sophisticated society with surpluses of wealth supporting considerable craft specialization, including a highly.....
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