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  • Maḥmūd of Ghazna (king of Ghazna)
    sultan of the kingdom of Ghazna (998–1030), originally comprising modern Afghanistan and northeastern modern Iran but, through his conquests, eventually including northwestern India and most of Iran. He transformed his capital, Ghazna, into a cultural centre rivalling Baghdad....
  • Maḥmūd Pasha, Muḥammad (prime minister of Egypt)
    ...But the king dismissed him in June and dissolved the parliament in July. In effect, the constitution was suspended, and Egypt was again governed by decree under a Liberal Constitutionalist premier, Muḥammad Maḥmūd Pasha....
  • Mahmud Shah (sultan of Malacca)
    sultan of Malacca from 1488 until capture of the city by the Portuguese in 1511, after which he founded the kingdom of Johore....
  • Maḥmūd Sharqī (Sharqī ruler)
    Meanwhile, the neighbouring kingdom of Jaunpur developed into a power equal to Delhi during the reign (1402–40) of Ibrāhīm Sharqī. Ibrāhīm’s successor, Maḥmūd, conducted expansionist campaigns against Bengal and Orissa and, in 1452, initiated a conflict with the Lodī sultans of Delhi that lasted at least until the defeat and par...
  • Maḥmūd, Shihāb-al-Dīn (Bahmanī ruler)
    ...died in 1482 (of grief over his error in judgment, the chronicles report), the leader of the conspirators, Malik Nāʾib, was able to make himself regent for Muḥammad’s minor son, Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd (reigned 1482–1518)....
  • Mahmudiyah Canal (canal, Egypt)
    ...called Damietta 4 miles (6.4 km) inland on the present site. During both the Mamlūk and the Ottoman periods, the town was used as a place of banishment. After the construction in 1819 of the Mahmudiyah Canal, which diverted much of the Nile’s shipping to Alexandria, Damietta’s importance as a trade centre diminished, although it retained some trade, principally with Syria....
  • Maḥmutek (Mongolian ruler)
    ...feuds, internecine rivalry, and Muscovite expansionism. Thus, in the case of the Kazan khanate, its founder Ulugh Muḥammad (c. 1437–45) bequeathed the throne to his able son Maḥmud (or Maḥmutek), who reigned with conspicuous success between 1445 and 1462. Maḥmud’s brothers, however, fled for sanctuary to Vasily II of Moscow, who set up a puppet.....
  • Mahn-a-waukee Seepe (Wisconsin, United States)
    city, seat (1835) of Milwaukee county, southeastern Wisconsin, U.S. It is a port of entry on Lake Michigan, where the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic rivers join and flow into Milwaukee Bay, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Chicago. Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, forms the core of a five-county metropolitan area that incl...
  • mahogany (wood)
    any of several tropical hardwood timber trees, especially certain species in the family Meliaceae. One such is Swietenia mahagoni, from tropical America. It is a tall evergreen tree with hard wood that turns reddish brown at maturity. The leaflets of each large leaf are arranged like a feather, but there is no terminal leaflet. The small white flowers are borne in clusters, and the fruit i...
  • mahogany (tree)
    Similar cases of overharvested species are found in terrestrial ecosystems. For example, even when forests are not completely cleared, particularly valuable trees such as mahogany may be selectively logged from an area, eliminating both the tree species and all the animals that depend on it. Another example is the coast sandalwood (Santalum ellipticum), a tree endemic to the......
  • mahogany family (plant family)
    the mahogany family of flowering plants, of the order Sapindales, comprising 51 genera and about 575 species of trees and (rarely) shrubs, native to tropical and subtropical regions. Most members of the family have large compound leaves, with the leaflets arranged in the form of a feather, and branched flower clusters. The fruit is fleshy and coloured or a leathery capsule. The China tre...
  • Mahomedan Power in India (work by Firishtah)
    ...whose service he entered in 1589. Written in Persian, this history is called Golshan-e Ebrāhīmī (“The Garden of Ibrāhīm”; Eng. trans., Mahomedan Power in India). It is also known under the title Tārīkh-e Fereshteh (“Firishtah’s Chronicle”). The second of the two versions in which it was writ...
  • Mahomet (play by Voltaire)
    ...gentleman of the king’s chamber, and academician. His tragedy Mérope, about the mythical Greek queen, won public acclaim on the first night (1743). The performance of Mahomet, in which Voltaire presented the founder of Islām as an imposter, was forbidden, however, after its successful production in 1742. He amassed a vast fortune through the......
  • Mahomet et Charlemagne (work by Pirenne)
    ...Medieval Cities (1925), the classic exposition of Pirenne’s analysis of the revival of urban centres and commercial activity during the late Middle Ages. In a work published posthumously, Mahomet et Charlemagne (1937), he set forth the thesis that the Roman Empire and civilization declined not as a result of Germanic invaders, but rather because of Arab primacy in the......
  • Mahón (Spain)
    capital of Minorca Island, Balearic Islands provincia (province) and comunidad autónoma (autonomous community), Spain. It originated as the Mediterranean Portus Magonis, bearing the name of the Carthaginian general Mago. Under the Romans it was a ...
  • Mahon, Derek (Northern Irish poet and translator)
    Northern Irish poet and translator who explored contemporary themes through verse with classical formal structure....
  • Mahon, Viscount Stanhope of (British politician)
    English politician and historian who was chiefly responsible for the founding of Britain’s National Portrait Gallery....
  • Mahon, Viscount Stanhope of (British statesman)
    British soldier and statesman, the dominant minister during the first half (1714–21) of the reign of King George I. His policy of alliance with France secured the peace and minimized foreign support for the Jacobites, who sought to restore the Stuart monarchy in England....
  • Mahone, William (American businessman and Confederate general)
    American railroad magnate and general of the Confederacy who led Virginia’s “Readjuster” reform movement from 1879 to 1882....
  • Mahoney, John Friend (American physician)
    ...Much was learned about the course of the disease from the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study (1932–72). The use of antibiotics developed in 1943 after the discovery by the American physician John Friend Mahoney and others that penicillin was an effective treatment for nonadvanced cases of syphilis. Since that time the number of syphilis cases has declined considerably, particularly in......
  • Mahoney, Mary (American nurse)
    American nurse, the first African-American woman to complete the course of professional study in nursing....
  • Mahonia (plant)
    any of several species of the genus Mahonia, evergreen shrubs of the barberry family (Berberidaceae) grown for their ornamental value. M. aquifolium, the typical Oregon grape, is 90 cm (3 feet) or more tall and is native to the Pacific coast of North America. It is most used for its foliage: the glossy, leathery leaves, with five to nine leaflets, are spiny-edged like a holly. Small ...
  • Mahonia aquifolium (plant)
    any of several species of the genus Mahonia, evergreen shrubs of the barberry family (Berberidaceae) grown for their ornamental value. M. aquifolium, the typical Oregon grape, is 90 cm (3 feet) or more tall and is native to the Pacific coast of North America. It is most used for its foliage: the glossy, leathery leaves, with five to nine leaflets, are spiny-edged like a holly.......
  • Mahoning (painting by Kline)
    ...networks of rough but controlled bars of black paint on white backgrounds, creating positive shapes with the white areas as well as with the black strokes. Paintings such as Mahoning (1956) are characteristically of such large dimensions that the total effect is one of majesty and power. In the late 1950s Kline introduced colour into his paintings. Before his......
  • Mahoré (island and French dependency, Indian Ocean)
    southeasternmost island of the Comoros archipelago and a French dependency, situated in the Mozambique Channel of the Indian Ocean, about 193 miles (310 km) northwest of Madagascar. Pamandzi, an islet lying about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) east of Mayotte, is connected by a 1.2-mile causeway to the rocky outcrop known as Dzaoudzi, site of the capital city and port. Area 144 square miles (373 square km). P...
  • mahori (music)
    ...(bas, or soft, groups). A similar differentiation exists in Indochinese music in the contrast between the percussion-dominated pi phat band of Thailand and the string-dominated mahori bands of Thailand and Cambodia. Gamelan playing, particularly of the softer type, often accompanies solo and unison choral singing of classical poetry (music is connected with most of......
  • mahout (elephant trainer)
    ...date to the Indus civilization of the 3rd millennium bc. At Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, Pakistan, soapstone carvings depict elephants with cloth on their backs, which indicates use by humans. Mahouts and oozies (elephant trainers in India and Myanmar, respectively) are skilled people who remain in direct contact with the animals for many years. The handlers take care of all the elep...
  • Māḥōzē (ancient urban complex, Middle East)
    ...in 63. Vologeses I (c. ad 51–80) founded the city Vologesias, near Seleucia, as his capital, but the whole area (including Ctesiphon and Seleucia) became an urban complex called Māḥōzē in Aramaic and Al-Madāʾin in Arabic; both names mean “The Cities.”...
  • Mahpiua Luta (Sioux chief)
    a principal chief of the Oglala Teton Dakota (Sioux), who successfully resisted (1865–67) the U.S. government’s development of the Bozeman Trail to newly discovered goldfields in Montana Territory....
  • mahr (marriage custom)
    ...practice of marrying someone from within one’s own kin group) is common, the preferred marriage being with a paternal first cousin of the opposite gender. The practice of mahr (bride-price, given by the father of the groom) is a usual part of the marriage ceremony. Divorce is not common, but neither is there a stigma attached to it. Men may have as ...
  • Mahra (people)
    ...emigrants to the gulf in the early 9th century, but the Baloch, whose ancestors immigrated more recently, have formed a sort of warrior tribe there. In the border regions of Oman and Yemen are the Mahra, Ḥarāsīs, Qarā, and others, speaking languages of the South Arabic group, and on the Musandam Peninsula are the Shiḥūḥ....
  • Mahra Sultanate (historical state, Yemen)
    former semi-independent state in the southern Arabian Peninsula, including the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, in what is now eastern Yemen. The mainland portion of the sultanate, on the Arabian Sea coast, had its capital in Qishn, although recent sultans preferred to reside at Tamrida (now Hadīboh) on Socotra. The sultan signed treaties in 1886 and 1888 accepting British protection ...
  • Mahra Sultanate of Qishn and Socotra (historical state, Yemen)
    former semi-independent state in the southern Arabian Peninsula, including the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, in what is now eastern Yemen. The mainland portion of the sultanate, on the Arabian Sea coast, had its capital in Qishn, although recent sultans preferred to reside at Tamrida (now Hadīboh) on Socotra. The sultan signed treaties in 1886 and 1888 accepting British protection ...
  • Mahratha (people)
    a major people of India, famed in history as yeoman warriors and champions of Hinduism. Their homeland is the present state of Mahārāshtra, the Marāṭhī-speaking region that extends from Bombay to Goa along the west coast of India and inland about 100 miles (160 km) east of Nāgpur....
  • Mahrattā (people)
    a major people of India, famed in history as yeoman warriors and champions of Hinduism. Their homeland is the present state of Mahārāshtra, the Marāṭhī-speaking region that extends from Bombay to Goa along the west coast of India and inland about 100 miles (160 km) east of Nāgpur....
  • Mahrattī (people)
    a major people of India, famed in history as yeoman warriors and champions of Hinduism. Their homeland is the present state of Mahārāshtra, the Marāṭhī-speaking region that extends from Bombay to Goa along the west coast of India and inland about 100 miles (160 km) east of Nāgpur....
  • Mahri (language)
    ...group of Semitic languages, along with Geʿez, Amharic, Tigré, Tigrinya, and the other Semitic languages of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and The Sudan. Modern dialects of the language include Mahrī, Shaḥrī (Eḥkalī), Ḥarsūsī, and Baṭḥarī on the Arabian shore of the Indian Ocean and Suquṭrī on Socotra......
  • Mahsatī (poet)
    ...the English writer Edward FitzGerald translated Omar’s poetry as The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859), Omar became to Western readers the greatest Persian poet. Mahsatī, a female poet to whom are attributed robāīyāt of a secular and occasionally bawdy kind, would have lived about the same...
  • mahseer (fish)
    any of several species of edible game fishes of the genus Barbus, in the carp family, Cyprinidae, found in clear rivers and lakes of India and southeastern Asia. Mahseer have large, thick scales, powerful jaws, and protrusible, sometimes very fleshy, lips adapted for taking food from the bottom. Among the largest of Indian river fishes, mahseer attain a maximum size of s...
  • Mahuad Witt, Jamil (president of Ecuador)
    ...of his erratic and controversial behaviour, and in early 1997 Congress removed him from office and replaced him with Fabián Alarcón Rivera. In elections held in 1998, Quito mayor Jamil Mahuad Witt was elected president. Early in his term, Mahuad was confronted with a serious economic crisis that peaked in 1999. His unpopular austerity measures, implemented to address the......
  • mahuang (plant)
    alkaloid used as a decongestant drug. It is obtainable from plants of the genus Ephedra, particularly the Chinese species E. sinica, and it has been used in China for more than 5,000 years to treat asthma and hay fever. It is effective when administered orally, and its effects persist for several hours, in contrast to the shorter-acting norepinephrine. Since the 1920s synthetic......
  • Mahūyeh (Iranian military commander)
    ...in 642 completed the Sāsānids’ vanquishment. Yazdegerd fled to the empire’s northeastern outpost, Merv, whose marzbān, or march lord, Mahūyeh, was soured by Yazdegerd’s imperious and expensive demands. Mahūyeh turned against his emperor and defeated him with the help of Hephthalites from Bādgh...
  • mahzar (Indian history)
    ...of war to Islam and by encouraging Hindus as his principal confidants and policy makers. To legitimize his nonsectarian policies, he issued in 1579 a public edict (maḥẓar) declaring his right to be the supreme arbiter in Muslim religious matters—above the body of Muslim religious scholars and jurists. He had by then also......
  • mahzor (Judaism)
    originally a Jewish prayer book arranged according to liturgical chronology and used throughout the entire year. Though cantors (hazzanim) still use such a book, mahzor has come to mean the festival prayer book, as distinguished from the siddur, the prayer book used on the ordinary sabbath and on weekdays....
  • mahzorim (Judaism)
    originally a Jewish prayer book arranged according to liturgical chronology and used throughout the entire year. Though cantors (hazzanim) still use such a book, mahzor has come to mean the festival prayer book, as distinguished from the siddur, the prayer book used on the ordinary sabbath and on weekdays....
  • mahzors (Judaism)
    originally a Jewish prayer book arranged according to liturgical chronology and used throughout the entire year. Though cantors (hazzanim) still use such a book, mahzor has come to mean the festival prayer book, as distinguished from the siddur, the prayer book used on the ordinary sabbath and on weekdays....
  • Mai-chi-shan (cave, Kansu, China)
    one of three major sites in northern China’s Kansu sheng (province) where rock-cut Buddhist caves and sculpture are found. The more than 190 sculptures now visible are carved in nearly 1,000 caves and recesses on the cliff faces that are more than 400 feet (120 m) high....
  • Mai-Ndombe, Lake (lake, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
    lake in western Congo (Kinshasa), east of the Congo River and south-southeast of Lake Tumba. It covers approximately 890 square miles (2,300 square km) and is about 80 miles (130 km) long and up to 25 miles (40 km) wide. It empties south through the Fimi River into the Kasai. Shallow in depth and irregular in shape, with low, forested shores, it doubles or triples in size in rainy seasons. Inongo ...
  • Maia (Roman goddess)
    ...Greek Hermes, fleet-footed messenger of the gods. His worship was introduced early, and his temple on the Aventine Hill in Rome was dedicated in 495 bc. There he was associated with the goddess Maia, who became identified as his mother through her association with the Greek Maia, mother of Hermes. Both Mercury and Maia were honoured in a festival on May 15, the dedication day of M...
  • Maia (star)
    ...several hundred stars, of which six or seven can be seen by the unaided eye and have figured prominently in the myths and literature of many cultures. In Greek mythology the Seven Sisters (Alcyone, Maia, Electra, Merope, Taygete, Celaeno, and Sterope, names now assigned to individual stars), daughters of Atlas and Pleione, were changed into the stars. The heliacal (near dawn) rising......
  • Maia (Greek mythology)
    in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus)....
  • Maia, Manuel da (Portuguese architect)
    ...reconstruction—a good deal of foreign aid was forthcoming—was achieved by Joseph I’s prime minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho, the virtual ruler of the country. He put Manuel da Maia, engineer in chief of the realm, in charge of five architects and soon had a plan for remaking the totally devastated centre of the Cidade Baixa (“Lower City”). Th...
  • Maia, Sebastião Rodrigues (Brazilian singer and songwriter)
    Brazilian singer-songwriter whose mixture of samba and soul made him a major force in Brazilian pop music for over 30 years (b. Sept. 28, 1942, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.--d. March 15, 1998, Niterói, Braz.)....
  • Maia, Tim (Brazilian singer and songwriter)
    Brazilian singer-songwriter whose mixture of samba and soul made him a major force in Brazilian pop music for over 30 years (b. Sept. 28, 1942, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.--d. March 15, 1998, Niterói, Braz.)....
  • Maiano, Benedetto da (Italian sculptor)
    early Renaissance sculptor, whose work is characterized by its decorative elegance and realistic detail....
  • Maiao (island, French Polynesia)
    ...French Polynesia, in the central South Pacific Ocean. The group is composed of volcanic islands surrounded by coral reefs. The large islands of Tahiti and Moorea lie at the centre of the group. Maiao, covering about 3 square miles (8 square km) and located some 60 miles (95 km) west of Tahiti, is sparsely populated and is cultivated for copra. Tetiaroa, 25 miles (40 km) north of Tahiti,......
  • Maias, The (novel by Eça de Queirós)
    Caustic satire characterizes the novel that is generally considered Eça de Queirós’ masterpiece, Os Maias (1888; The Maias), a detailed depiction of upper middle-class and aristocratic Portuguese society. Its theme is the degeneration of a traditional family whose last offspring are led into a series of tangled sexual relationships by the actions of their parents...
  • Maiasaura (dinosaur genus)
    duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs) found as fossils from the Late Cretaceous Period (99 million to 65 million years old) of North America and whose discovery led to the theory that these bipedal herbivores cared for their young....
  • “Maiastra” (sculpture by Brancusi)
    ...in flight. Brancusi followed this with 28 other versions over the next two decades. After 1919 his birds evolved into a series of polished-bronze sculptures, all entitled Bird in Space. The elliptical, slender lines of these figures put the very essence of rapid flight into concrete form....
  • Maid Freed from the Gallows, The (ballad)
    The outcome of a ballad love affair is not always, though usually, tragic. But even when true love is eventually rewarded, such ballad heroines as “The Maid Freed from the Gallows” and “Fair Annie,” among others, win through to happiness after such bitter trials that the price they pay seems too great. The course of romance runs hardly more smoothly in the many ballads,...
  • Maid Mistress, The (work by Pergolesi)
    Italian composer whose intermezzo La serva padrona (“The Maid Turned Mistress”) was one of the most celebrated stage works of the 18th century....
  • Maid of Honour, The (work by Massinger)
    ...concern for state affairs. The Renegado (1624), a tragicomedy with a heroic Jesuit character, gave rise to the still-disputed theory that he became a Roman Catholic. Another tragicomedy, The Maid of Honour (1621?), combines political realism with the courtly refinement of later Caroline drama. The tendency of his serious plays to conform to Caroline fashion, however, is......
  • Maid of Norway, The (queen of Scotland)
    queen of Scotland from 1286 to 1290, the last of the line of Scottish rulers descended from King Malcolm III Canmore (ruled 1058–93)....
  • Maid of Orléans, The (French heroine)
    national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. Captured a year afterward, Joan was burned by the English and their French collaborators as a heretic. She became the greatest nat...
  • Maid of Orleans, The (play by Schiller)
    ...plays in quick succession: Maria Stuart (first performed in 1800), a psychological drama concerned with the moral rebirth of Mary, Queen of Scots; Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801; The Maid of Orleans), a “romantic tragedy” on the subject of Joan of Arc, in which the heroine dies in a blaze of glory after a victorious battle, rather than at the stake like her......
  • “Maid Silja, The” (work by Sillanpaa)
    ...country servant-girl. After several collections of short stories in the late 1920s, Sillanpää published his best-known, though not his most perfect, work, Nuorena nukkunut (1931; Fallen Asleep While Young, or The Maid Silja), a story of an old peasant family. Realistic and lyric elements are blended in Miehen tie (1932; Way of a Man), which descr...
  • Maidān (park, Calcutta, India)
    More than 200 parks, squares, and open spaces are maintained by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. There is, however, very little open space in the overcrowded parts of the city. The Maidān, about two miles in length and a mile in width, is the best-known open space; the major football (soccer), cricket, and hockey fields are located there. Adjacent to the Maidān is one of the......
  • Maidanek (concentration camp, Poland)
    Nazi German concentration and extermination camp on the southeastern outskirts of the city of Lublin, Poland. In October 1941 it received its first prisoners, mainly Soviet prisoners of war, virtually all of whom died of hunger and exposure. Within a year, however, it was converted into a death camp for Jews, transported f...
  • Maiden Castle (Dorset, England, United Kingdom)
    ...was a sizable Roman British centre, and many remains of the period (including mosaics and ruined villas) have been found. In the south an amphitheatre at Maumbury Rings dates from pre-Roman times; Maiden Castle (2 miles [3 km] southwest), a vast earthwork encircled by entrenchments and ramparts and occupying more than 120 acres (50 hectares), was the site of important settlement from Neolithic....
  • maiden over (sports)
    ...players in the field. If a bowler delivers a complete over without a run being scored from the bat (even though the opponents may have scored extras by means of byes or leg byes), he has achieved a maiden over. In one-day cricket, no bowler is allowed to bowl more than 10 overs in a 50-over match....
  • maidenhair fern (plant genus)
    ...and photosynthetic; sperm motile; between 9,000 and 12,000 species; representative genera include Pteridium, Polypodium, Polystichum, Adiantum, and Cyathea.Division Cycadophyta (cycads)Palmlike, gymnospermous plants with typica...
  • maidenhair fern family (plant family)
    the maidenhair fern family, containing about 50 genera and approximately 950 species, in the division Pteridophyta (the lower vascular plants). Members of Pteridaceae are distributed throughout the world, especially in tropical and warm-temperate regions. The family is characterized by spore-producing structures (sporangia) located in lines ...
  • maidenhair tree (plant)
    (Ginkgo biloba), tree that is the only living representative of the order Ginkgoales (division Ginkgophyta). This order included a group of gymnosperms composed of the family Ginkgoaceae, which comprised approximately 15 genera that date from the Permian Period (about 300 to 250 million years ago) of the Paleozoic Era (about 360 to 250 million years ago). Extinct genera, such as Ginkgoit...
  • Maidenhead (England, United Kingdom)
    town, Windsor and Maidenhead unitary authority, historic county of Berkshire, England, on the River Thames. A stone bridge (1772–77) carries the London-Bath road across the river, and the Brunel railway bridge (1837–38) has two of the widest brick spans in the world. Maidenhead Thicket and Pinkneys Green together cover 535 acres (217 hectares) of...
  • Maidenhead Bridge (bridge, England, United Kingdom)
    ...railway lines in Italy and was an adviser on the construction of the Victorian lines in Australia and the Eastern Bengal Railway in India. His first notable railway works were the Box Tunnel and the Maidenhead Bridge, and his last were the Chepstow and Saltash (Royal Albert) bridges, all in England. The Maidenhead Bridge had the flattest brick arch in the world. His use of a compressed-air......
  • Maiden’s Consent, The (work by Fernández de Moratín)
    ...New Comedy”), in which he satirizes the absurd characters and plots of the popular plays of the time, and attacks on excessive parental authority and marriages of convenience, as seen in El sí de las niñas (1806; The Maiden’s Consent). Because of political and ecclesiastical opposition to his French sympathies, he spent most of his life after 181...
  • Maidens of the Rocks, The (work by D’Annunzio)
    ...had already become famous when his best-known novel, Il trionfo della morte (1894; The Triumph of Death), appeared. It and his next major novel, Le vergini delle rocce (1896; The Maidens of the Rocks), featured viciously self-seeking and wholly amoral Nietzschean heroes....
  • Maides Tragedy, The (play by Beaumont and Fletcher)
    The masterpieces of the Beaumont and Fletcher collaboration—Philaster, The Maides Tragedy, and A King and No King—show, most clearly in the last, the emergence of most of the features that distinguish the Fletcherian mode from that of Shakespeare, George Chapman, or John Webster: the remote, often pseudohistorical, fairy-tale setting; the clear, smooth speech......
  • Maidhyairya (Zoroastrianism)
    ...of Tīr; 75 days later, Paitishhahya (Harvest-time), in the month of Shatvairō; 30 days later, Ayāthrima (possibly Time of Prosperity), in the month of Mitrā; 80 days later, Maidhyāirya (Midwinter), in the month of Dīn; and 75 days later, in the last five intercalary or Gatha days of the year, Hamaspathmaēdaya (Vernal Equinox)....
  • Maidhyaoizaremaya (Zoroastrianism)
    ...the seasons and possibly the six stages in the creation of the world (the heavens, water, the earth, the vegetable world, the animal world, and man). Each lasting five days, the Gahanbars are: Maidhyaōizaremaya (Midspring), occurring in the month of Artavahisht, 41 days after the New Year; 60 days later is Maidhyoishema (Midsummer), in the month of Tīr; 75 days later,......
  • Maidhyoishema (Zoroastrianism)
    ...world, the animal world, and man). Each lasting five days, the Gahanbars are: Maidhyaōizaremaya (Midspring), occurring in the month of Artavahisht, 41 days after the New Year; 60 days later is Maidhyoishema (Midsummer), in the month of Tīr; 75 days later, Paitishhahya (Harvest-time), in the month of Shatvairō; 30 days later, Ayāthrima (possibly Time of Prosperity), i...
  • “Maids of Honour, The” (painting by Velázquez)
    ...background. But in this late work there is no barrier between the world of myth and reality; they are united in an ingenious composition by formal and aerial perspective. In Las Meninas (“The Maids of Honour”; see photograph), also known as The Royal Family, he has created the effect of a momentary glance at a casual scene....
  • Maids, The (work by Genet)
    ...compact, neoclassical, one-act structure, reveal the strong influence of Sartre. Haute Surveillance (1949; Deathwatch) continues his prison-world themes. Les Bonnes (1947; The Maids), however, begins to explore the complex problems of identity that were soon to preoccupy other avant-garde dramatists such as Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco. With this play......
  • Maidstone (England, United Kingdom)
    town and borough (district), administrative and historic county of Kent, southeastern England, astride the River Medway, 38 miles (61 km) southeast of London. The largely rural borough surrounding the town covers a large area of central Kent....
  • Maidstone (district, England, United Kingdom)
    town and borough (district), administrative and historic county of Kent, southeastern England, astride the River Medway, 38 miles (61 km) southeast of London. The largely rural borough surrounding the town covers a large area of central Kent....
  • Maidstone Iguanodon (dinosaur)
    ...too fragmentary to permit a clear image of either animal. In 1834 a partial skeleton was found near Brighton that corresponded with Mantell’s fragments from Tilgate Forest. It became known as the Maidstone Iguanodon, after the village where it was discovered. The Maidstone skeleton provided the first glimpse of what these creatures might have looked like....
  • Maidu (people)
    North American Indians who spoke a language of Penutian stock and originally lived in a territory extending eastward from the Sacramento River to the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountains and centring chiefly in the drainage of the Feather and American rivers in California, U.S....
  • Maiduan languages
    ...(two languages), Miwok-Costanoan (perhaps five Miwokan languages, plus three extinct Costanoan languages), Sahaptin (two languages), Yakonan (two extinct languages), Yokutsan (three languages), and Maiduan (four languages)—plus Klamath-Modoc, Cayuse (extinct), Molale (extinct), Coos, Takelma (extinct), Kalapuya,......
  • Maiduguri (Nigeria)
    capital and largest city of Borno state, northeastern Nigeria. It is located on the north bank of the seasonal Ngadda (Alo) River, the waters of which disappear in the firki (“black cotton”) swamps just southwest of Lake Chad, about 70 miles (113 km) northeast....
  • Maier, Hermann (Austrian skier)
    Just two years after leaving his job as a bricklayer to join the Austrian national ski team, Hermann Maier stormed into the Winter Olympic Games in February 1998 at Nagano, Japan. His astonishing rise to the heights of his sport, along with the power and size that put him there, had earned him the nicknames "Monster," "Beast," and "Herminator." Despite a harrowing spill that had the potential to i...
  • Maier, Johann (German theologian)
    German theologian who was Martin Luther’s principal Roman Catholic opponent....
  • Maier, Michael (German alchemist)
    ...was complicated by the fact that some alchemists were turning from gold making not to medicine but to a quasi-religious alchemy reminiscent of the Greek Synesius. Rudolf II made the German alchemist Michael Maier a count and his private secretary, although Maier’s mystical and allegorical writings were, in the words of a modern authority, “distinguished for the extraordinary obscu...
  • Maigh Eo (county, Ireland)
    county in the province of Connaught, western Ireland. Mayo is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean (north and west) and by Counties Sligo (northeast), Roscommon (east), and Galway (southeast and south). Mayo’s extensive coastline is wild and broken, with many inlets from Killala Bay in the north to Killa...
  • Maigret, Jules (fictional character)
    ...novel to appear under his own name was Pietr-le-Letton (1929; The Strange Case of Peter the Lett), in which he introduced the imperturbable, pipe-smoking Parisian police inspector Jules Maigret to fiction. Simenon went on to write 83 more detective novels featuring Inspector Maigret, as well as 136 psychological novels. His total literary output consisted of about 425 books......
  • Maihofer, Werner (German philosopher)
    It has been tempting for many to seek kinships between natural law and Existentialism, as was attempted by the German legal philosopher Werner Maihofer. Such efforts seem, however, destined to denature either Existentialism or natural law itself. Even in all their varieties, Existentialist positions approach no nearer to natural law than to assert that the traumas, anxieties, and demands of......
  • Maiidae (crustacean)
    any species of the decapod family Majidae (or Maiidae; class Crustacea). Spider crabs, which have thick, rather rounded bodies and long, spindly legs, are generally slow-moving and sluggish. Most are scavengers, especially of dead flesh....
  • Maijishan (cave, Kansu, China)
    one of three major sites in northern China’s Kansu sheng (province) where rock-cut Buddhist caves and sculpture are found. The more than 190 sculptures now visible are carved in nearly 1,000 caves and recesses on the cliff faces that are more than 400 feet (120 m) high....
  • Maikala Range (mountain range, India)
    mountain range in Madhya Pradesh state, central India, running in a north-south direction and forming the eastern base of the triangular Sātpura Range. The Maikala Range consists of laterite-capped, flat-topped plateaus (pāts) with an elevation of from 2,000 feet (600 m) to 3,000 feet (900 m). The Sātpura-Maikala watershed is the second largest in India. The Narmada, S...
  • Maiko National Park (park, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
    reserve in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, about equidistant from Bukavu, in the great Western Rift Valley just south of Lake Kivu, at the Rwandan border, and Kisangani, about 320 miles (515 km) to the northwest, at the great westward bend of the Congo River. The park’s 4,180-square-mile (10,830-square-kilometre) expanse spans the Oso River and extends north to ...
  • Maikop (Russia)
    city and capital of the republic of Adygea, Krasnodar kray (region), Russia, on the right bank of the Belaya River. Maykop (from the Adyghian myequape meaning “valley of apple trees”) was founded in 1857 as a Russian fortress. Food processing is the city’s leading industry; metalworking, machine building, timber working, and tannin extracting are also important. ...
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