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  • Makovsky, Vladimir (Russian artist)
    ...Although their work is not well known outside Russia, the serene landscapes of Isaac Levitan, the expressive portraits of Ivan Kramskoy and Ilya Repin, and the socially oriented genre paintings of Vladimir Makovsky, Vasily Perov, and Repin arguably deserve an international reputation....
  • Makran (region, Asia)
    coastal region of Baluchistan in southeastern Iran and southwestern Pakistan, constituting the Makran Coast, a 600-mi (1,000-km) stretch along the Gulf of Oman from Raʾs (cape) al-Kūh, Iran (west of Jask), to Lasbela District, Pakistan (near Karāchi). The name is applied to a former province of Iran, and the Makran of Pakistan is sometimes known as Kech Makran to distinguish i...
  • Makrān (administrative division, Pakistan)
    division of Balochistān province, Pakistan. Administratively it comprises Turbat, Gwādar, and Panjgūr districts and has an area of 23,460 sq mi (60,761 sq km). It is bounded by the Siāhān range (north), which separates it from Khārān district, by Kalāt and Las Bela districts (east), the Arabian Sea (south), and Iran (west)....
  • Makrani (people)
    ...The population is almost entirely Muslim, but there are also small Christian, Hindu, Parsi, Buddhist, and Jain minorities. Most of the Muslims are of Indian or Pakistani origin, except for “Makranis” and “Shiddies,” who have black African ancestry. They originated during the era of the slave trade in the days before British rule, when Karāchi was an important....
  • Makrani language
    The two main spoken languages of Balochistan are Balochi and Brahui. An important dialect of Balochi, called Makrani or Southern Balochi, is spoken in Makran, the southern region of Balochistan, which borders Iran....
  • Makri rug
    floor covering handwoven in or near the coastal village of Fethiye, southwest Turkey. These are rare, comparatively small rugs with rather simple, bold designs and rich, vibrant colours....
  • Makridi Bey, Theodore (Turkish archaeologist)
    Winckler continued excavating in cooperation with the Turkish archaeologist Theodore Makridi Bey until 1912, revealing the remains of a city whose temples, palaces, fortifications, and gateways left little doubt that this was the site of a mighty capital. From his findings, Winckler was able to draw a preliminary outline of the history of the Hittite empire in the 14th and 13th centuries ...
  • Maksimov, Vladimir Yemelyanovich (Russian writer)
    (LEV ALEKSEYEVICH SAMSONOV), Russian writer (b. Dec. 10, 1930, Moscow, U.S.S.R.--d. March 26, 1995, Paris, France), was a dissident novelist and poet, editor of the Communist literary journal Oktyabr (1967-68), and a senior member of the Soviet Writers’ Union. Lev Samsonov lived on the streets as a boy after his parents were sent to the labour camps; he was often jailed as a juvenile...
  • maktab (Islam)
    (Arabic: “school”), Muslim elementary school. Until the 20th century, boys were instructed in Qurʾān recitation, reading, writing, and grammar in maktabs, which were the only means of mass education. The teacher was not always highly qualified and had other religious duties, and the equipment of a maktab was often simple. During the 20th century, governme...
  • Maktoum, Rāshid ibn Saʿīd, Sheikh Āl (Arab statesman)
    Arab statesman largely responsible for creating the modern emirate of Dubayy and a cofounder (1971) of the United Arab Emirates....
  • Maktūbāt (work by Aḥmad Sirhindī)
    ...successor, Jahāngīr (ruled 1605–27), toward pantheism and Shīʿite Islam (one of that religion’s two major branches). Of his several written works, the most famous is Maktūbāt (“Letters”), a compilation of his letters written in Persian to his friends in India and the region north of the Amu Darya (river). Through these...
  • Maktum dynasty (rulers of Dubayy)
    ...
  • Maktūm, Rāshid ibn Saʿīd, Sheikh Āl (Arab statesman)
    Arab statesman largely responsible for creating the modern emirate of Dubayy and a cofounder (1971) of the United Arab Emirates....
  • Maktūm, Sheikh Maktūm ibn Rashid al- (president of United Arab Emirates)
    Arab royal, government leader, and racehorse owner-breeder (b. 1943, Shindagha, Dubai—d. Jan. 4, 2006, Main Beach, Queen., Australia), was the pragmatic ruler (from 1990) of the emirate of Dubai, as well as vice president and prime minister (1971–79 and 1991–2006) of the United Arab Emirates. Among sports fans Maktum was best known as the owner of Gainsborough Stud Management ...
  • Maktūm, Sheikh Muhammad ibn Rāshid al- (ruler of Dubayy)
    ...and vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates were assumed, successively, by his sons Sheikh Maktūm ibn Rāshid al-Maktūm (1990–2006) and, since 2006, Sheikh Muhammad ibn Rāshid al-Maktūm....
  • Maktum, Sheikh Rashid ibn Said Al (Arab statesman)
    Arab statesman largely responsible for creating the modern emirate of Dubayy and a cofounder (1971) of the United Arab Emirates....
  • Maku (African people)
    ...carry formalized carvings of antelopes and other wild animals, dancing in imitation of their movements to promote the fertility of land and community. The Isinyaso masked dancers of the Yao and Maku peoples of Tanzania carry elaborate bamboo structures covered with cloth and raffia, which sway rhythmically while their Nteepana mask elongates to great heights as the embodiment of a powerful......
  • Makú (South American people)
    any of several South American Indian societies who traditionally hunted, gathered wild plant foods, and fished in the basins of the Río Negro and the Vaupés River in Colombia. The Makú comprised small bands of forest nomads. The present-day Makú are remnants of an aboriginal population who were killed or assimilated by expanding Arawak, Carib, and Tu...
  • Makua (people)
    Makua and Lomwe are spoken by almost half of the population and dominate northeastern Mozambique except in two areas: the coastal strip north of the Lúrio River, where Swahili is typically spoken, and a large pocket on the Tanzanian border that is inhabited predominantly by Makonde speakers. Most of the population speaks......
  • Makua language
    a Bantu language that is closely related to Lomwe and is spoken in northern Mozambique. The Bantu languages form a subgroup of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Makua had about six million speakers in the late 20th century, and Lomwe two million....
  • makura kotoba (Japanese poetic device)
    ...form, the tanka (short poem), consisting of five lines of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables. Various poetic devices employed in these songs, such as the makura kotoba (“pillow word”), a kind of fixed epithet, remained a feature of later poetry....
  • “Makura no sōshi” (work by Sei Shōnagon)
    (c. 1000), title of a book of reminiscences and impressions by the 11th-century Japanese court lady Sei Shōnagon. Whether the title was generic and whether Sei Shōnagon herself used it is not known, but other diaries of the Heian period (794–1185) indicate that such journals may have been kept by both men and women in their sleeping quarters, hence t...
  • makura-e (Japanese art)
    ...notionally designed to provide sex education for medical professionals, courtesans, and married couples—are present from at least the 17th century. Makura-e (pillow pictures) were intended for entertainment as well as for the instruction of married couples. This interest in very frank erotica reached its height during the Tokugawa......
  • Makurdi (Nigeria)
    town, capital of Benue state, east-central Nigeria. It lies on the south bank of the Benue River. Founded about 1927 when the railroad from Port Harcourt (279 miles [449 km] south-southwest) was extended to Jos and Kaduna, Makurdi rapidly developed into a transportation and market centre. In 1976, following the division of Benue-Plateau state into two states, Makurdi was selecte...
  • Makushí (people)
    ...such as the coastal Arawak proper and those of the Greater Antilles, the Achagua, Guahibo, Palicur, and others; the Carib of the Guianas, such as the Barama River Carib, the Taulipang, and the Makushí (Macushí); the Tupians of the coast of Brazil, such as the Tupinambá; and inland groups among whom were the Mundurukú, Kawaíb (Parintintín), and......
  • Makushin (volcano, Alaska, United States)
    ...the Aleutian Islands and one of the top fishing ports in the United States is Unalaska (Dutch Harbor) on the island of Unalaska. The mountainous islands contain several active volcanoes, including Makushin Volcano (6,680 feet [2,036 metres]) on Unalaska Island and Okmok Caldera (3,520 feet [1,073 metres]) on Umnak Island. The chain is sparsely populated, with fishing as the primary economic......
  • Makutu (work by Davis and Henderson)
    The first published novel from Oceania was Makutu (1960) by Thomas Davis, a Cook Islander, and Lydia Henderson, his New Zealand-born wife. Like their earlier autobiography, Doctor to the Islands (1954), it was written in English. The novel, which deals with the cultural conflict between Pacific and Western values in an imaginary land called Fenua Lei, has more in......
  • Makwa language
    a Bantu language that is closely related to Lomwe and is spoken in northern Mozambique. The Bantu languages form a subgroup of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Makua had about six million speakers in the late 20th century, and Lomwe two million....
  • mal casados de Valencia, Los (work by Castro y Bellvís)
    ...Madrid, where his friend the playwright Lope de Vega helped him to find outlets for his work. Castro is considered the first playwright to have dealt with the seamier aspects of marriage, as in Los mal casados de Valencia (“The Unhappy Marriages of Valencia”). Attracted to the culture of Castile, he drew heavily upon the traditional ballads of the region, and three of his.....
  • mal de segno (disease of silkworms)
    In 1807 he began an investigation of the silkworm disease mal de segno (commonly known as muscardine), which was causing serious economic losses in Italy and France. After 25 years of research and experimentation, he was able to demonstrate that the disease was contagious and was caused by a microscopic, parasitic fungus. He concluded that the organism, later named Botrytis......
  • mal du siècle (French literature)
    ...of a very particular time and place, French writers wrote into their work their obsession with the burden of history and their subjection to time and change. The terms mal du siècle and enfant du siècle (literally “child of the century”) capture their distress. Alfred de Musset took the......
  • Mal giocondo (work by Pirandello)
    ...of a business associate, a wealthy sulfur merchant. This marriage gave him financial independence, allowing him to live in Rome and to write. He had already published an early volume of verse, Mal giocondo (1889), which paid tribute to the poetic fashions set by Giosuè Carducci. This was followed by other volumes of verse, including Pasqua di Gea (1891; dedicated to Jenny.....
  • Mala (island, Solomon Islands)
    volcanic island in the country of Solomon Islands, southwestern Pacific Ocean. It lies 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Guadalcanal across Indispensable Strait. The island is about 115 miles (185 km) long and 22 miles (35 km) across at its widest point. It is densely forested and mountainous, rising to an elevation of 4,718 feet (1,438 metres) at Mount Ire (Kolou...
  • Mala Mara (island, Solomon Islands)
    volcanic island in the country of Solomon Islands, southwestern Pacific Ocean. It lies 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Guadalcanal across Indispensable Strait. The island is about 115 miles (185 km) long and 22 miles (35 km) across at its widest point. It is densely forested and mountainous, rising to an elevation of 4,718 feet (1,438 metres) at Mount Ire (Kolou...
  • Malá Strana (district, Prague, Czech Republic)
    ...in 1170. By 1230 the Old Town had been given borough status and was defended by a system of walls and fortifications. On the opposite bank, under the walls of Hradčany, the community known as Malá Strana (literally, “Small Side”) was founded in 1257. Following the eclipse of the Přemyslids, the house of Luxembourg came to power when John of Luxembourg, son of ...
  • Mala tuon citt (novel by Nou Hach)
    ...dared not write, while economic pressures also contributed to a reduction in the number of novels published. One well-known novel that did appear during this period was Nou Hach’s Mala tuon citt (“Garland of the Heart”), published in 1972 but written some 20 years earlier; the novel portrays Cambodian society during World War II and reflects the aut...
  • Mālā-de temple (temple, Gyāraspur, India)
    ...miles from Gwalior proper; dating to the 8th century, the shrines have latina spires and sparsely ornamented walls. In the 9th century a series of magnificent temples was built, including the Mālā-de at Ḍyāraspur, the Śiva temples at Mahḱā and Indore, and a temple dedicated to an unidentified mother goddess at Barwa-Sāgar. The perio...
  • Malabar Christians (Christian groups, India)
    four major Christian groups—Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, Syrian Jacobite, and Mar Thomite—living in the state of Kerala along the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, who claim to have been Christianized by the apostle St. Thomas....
  • Malabar Coast (region, India)
    name long applied to the southern part of India’s western coast, approximately from Goa southward, which is bordered on the east by the Western Ghāts range. The name has sometimes encompassed the entire western coast of peninsular India. It now includes most of Kerala state and the coastal region of Karnātaka state. The coast consists of a continuous belt of sand dunes. Behin...
  • Malabār Hill (hill, Bombay, India)
    ...parallel ridges of low hills. Colāba Point, the headland formed on the extreme south by the longer of these ridges, protects Bombay Harbour from the open sea. The western ridge terminates at Malabār Hill, 180 feet (55 metres) above sea level, which is one of the highest points in Bombay. Between the two ridges lies the shallow expanse of Back Bay. On a slightly raised strip of lan...
  • malabar nightshade (plant)
    ...belladonna), a tall, bushy herb of the same family and the source of several alkaloid drugs. Enchanter’s nightshade is a name applied to plants of the genus Circaea (family Onagraceae). Malabar nightshade refers to twining herbaceous vines of the genus Basella (family Basellaceae). ...
  • malabar spinach (plant)
    ...Madeira-vine, or mignonette-vine (Anredera cordifolia or Boussingaultia baselloides), and Malabar nightshade (several species of Basella) are cultivated as ornamentals. Malabar spinach (Basella alba) is a hot-weather substitute for spinach....
  • Malabar spiny tree mouse (rodent)
    The Malabar spiny tree mouse (Platacanthomys lasiurus) lives only in the old-growth rainforests of southwestern India. Nocturnal and arboreal, it builds nests in tree cavities and eats fruits and nuts. The animal is named for its flat, grooved spines and bristles, which are tipped with white and protrude from a dark brown coat of thin, soft underfur. The underside......
  • Malabarese Catholic Church (church, India)
    a Chaldean rite church of southern India (Kerala) that united with Rome after the Portuguese colonization of Goa at the end of the 15th century. The Portuguese viewed these Christians of St. Thomas, as they called themselves, as Nestorian heretics, despite their traditional alignment with Rome since about the 6th century. Although the Malabarese formally acknowledged the pope at the Synod of Diam...
  • Malabo (Equatorial Guinea)
    capital of Equatorial Guinea. It lies on the northern edge of the island of Bioko (or Fernando Po) on the rim of a sunken volcano. With an average temperature of 77 °F (25 °C) and an annual rainfall of 75 inches (1,900 mm), it has one of the more onerous climates in the Bight of Biafra (Gulf of Guinea). Malabo is the republic’s commercial and financial centre. Its harbour, pro...
  • malabsorption (pathology)
    Malabsorption occurs when the small intestine is unable to transport broken-down products of digestive materials from the lumen of the intestine into the lymphatics or mesenteric veins, where they are distributed to the rest of the body. Defects in transport occur either because the absorptive cells of the intestine lack certain enzymes, whether by congenital defect or by acquired disease, or......
  • malabsorption syndrome (pathology)
    Malabsorption occurs when the small intestine is unable to transport broken-down products of digestive materials from the lumen of the intestine into the lymphatics or mesenteric veins, where they are distributed to the rest of the body. Defects in transport occur either because the absorptive cells of the intestine lack certain enzymes, whether by congenital defect or by acquired disease, or......
  • Malacanthidae (fish)
    any of about 40 species of elongated marine fishes in the family Malacanthidae (order Perciformes), with representatives occurring in tropical and warm temperate seas. Malacanthidae is formally divided into the subfamilies Malacanthinae and Latilinae; however, some taxonomists consider the Latilinae distinct enough to make up their own separate family (Branchiostegidae)....
  • malacate (spindle)
    In South America the name maguey is used for a variety of fibres as well as for the plants from which they are derived. A simple hard spindle known as a malacate is used to spin fairly fine yarn from the maguey and related hard fibres....
  • Malacca (state, Malaysia)
    ...meet ships from the Indian Ocean. By the end of the 14th century, Samudra-Pasai had become a wealthy commercial centre, but it gave way in the early 15th century to the better-protected harbour of Malacca on the southwest coast of the Malay Peninsula. Javanese middlemen, converging on Malacca, ensured the harbour’s importance....
  • Malacca (Malaysia)
    town and port, Peninsular (West) Malaysia, on the Strait of Malacca, at the mouth of the sluggish Melaka River. The city was founded about 1400, when Paramesvara, the ruler of Tumasik (now Singapore), fled from the forces of the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit and found refuge at the site, then a small fishing village. There he founded a Malay kingdom, the kings of which—ai...
  • Malacca, Strait of (strait, Asia)
    waterway connecting the Andaman Sea (Indian Ocean) and the South China Sea (Pacific Ocean). It runs between the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the west and peninsular (West) Malaysia and extreme southern Thailand to the east and has an area of about 25,000 square miles (65,000 square km). The strait is 500 miles (800 km) long and is funnel-...
  • Malacca, sultanate of (Malay dynasty)
    (1403?–1511), Malay dynasty that ruled the great entrepôt of Malacca (Melaka) and its dependencies and provided Malay history with its golden age, still evoked in idiom and institutions. The founder and first ruler of Malacca, Paramesvara (d. 1424, Malacca), a Sumatran prince who had fled his native Palembang under Javanese attack, established himself briefly in Tu...
  • Malachi (Hebrew prophet)
    The Book of Malachi, the last of the Twelve (Minor) Prophets, was written by an anonymous writer called Malachi, or “my messenger.” Perhaps written from about 500–450 bce, the book is concerned with spiritual degradation, religious perversions, social injustices, and unfaithfulness to the Covenant. Priests are condemned for failing to instruct the people on their...
  • Malachi, The Book of (Old Testament)
    the last of 12 Old Testament books that bear the names of the Minor Prophets, grouped together as the Twelve in the Jewish canon. The author is unknown; Malachi is merely a transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning “my messenger.”...
  • malachite (mineral)
    a minor ore but a widespread mineral of copper, basic copper carbonate, Cu2CO3(OH)2. Because of its distinctive bright green colour and its presence in the weathered zone of nearly all copper deposits, malachite serves as a prospecting guide for that metal. Notable occurrences are Nizhne-Tagilsk, Siberia; Chessy, Fr.; Tsumeb, Namibia; and Bisbee, Ariz., U.S. Malac...
  • malachite green (drug and dye)
    triphenylmethane dye used medicinally in dilute solution as a local antiseptic. Malachite green is effective against fungi and gram-positive bacteria. In the fish-breeding industry it has been used to control the fungus Saprolegnia, a water mold that kills the eggs and young fry....
  • malachite green G (drug and dye)
    a triphenylmethane dye of the malachite-green series (see malachite green) used in dilute solution as a topical antiseptic. Brilliant green is effective against gram-positive microorganisms. It has also been used to dye silk and wool. It occurs as small, shiny, golden crystals soluble in water or alcohol....
  • Małachowski, Stanisław (Polish statesman)
    Polish statesman who presided over Poland’s historic Four Years’ Sejm, a constituent Diet that met in 1788–92....
  • Malachy, Saint (Irish archbishop)
    celebrated archbishop and papal legate who is considered to be the dominant figure of church reform in 12th-century Ireland....
  • Malaclemys terrapin (turtle)
    a term formerly used to refer to any aquatic turtle but now restricted largely, though not exclusively, to the diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) of the turtle family Emydidae. Until the last third of the 20th century, the word terrapin was used commonly in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries as well as the United States....
  • Malacochersus tornieri (reptile)
    Most tortoises have high, domed shells, the major exception being the pancake tortoise (Malacochersus tornieri) of southeastern Africa. The pancake tortoise lives among rocky outcroppings, where its flat shell allows it to crawl into crevices to rest. Once in a crevice, the pancake tortoise can inflate its lungs, thus expanding the shell and lodging itself so securely that a......
  • Malaconotinae (bird)
    any of certain African shrike species. See shrike....
  • Malacopsylloidea (flea superfamily)
    ...or 14 pits each side; hind tibia of leg without an apical tooth outside; one family Pulicidae with genera Pulex, Xenopsylla, Tunga, and others.Superfamily MalacopsylloideaAll fleas in this superfamily are found on rodents. Rod of the lateral sclerites of the mesothorax (mesopleural rod) not forked; anterior tentori...
  • Malacoptila panamensis (bird)
    The six or seven species of the genus Malacoptila are medium-sized brownish puffbirds, many with conspicuous patches of white on the face. The white-whiskered puffbird (M. panamensis) has the interesting habit of plugging the entrance to its nest burrow with green leaves at night....
  • Malacorhynchus membranaceus (bird)
    ...lamellae. This is used for sifting particles out of mud or picking up food items from the lake bottom as the bird upends itself. The sieving bill is yet further developed in the shovelers and the pink-eared duck (Malacorhynchus membranaceus), the lamellae becoming extremely fine, enabling particles as small as diatoms to be taken from the surface film. The blue duck......
  • Malacosoma
    any of a group of moths in the family Lasiocampidae (order Lepidoptera) in which the larvae (caterpillars) spin huge, tent-shaped communal webs in trees, are often brightly coloured, and can defoliate forest, fruit, and ornamental trees. The adults are stoutbodied and usually yellowish brown, with a typical wingspan of 25 to 75 mm (1 to 3 inches). Many species have feathery antennae and hairy bodi...
  • Malacosoma americanum (insect)
    The eastern tent caterpillar moth Malacosoma americanum of eastern North America deposits its eggs on a tree in midsummer. The egg mass appears as a shiny, tarlike band on a branch. The following spring the eggs hatch, and the larvae migrate to a fork in the tree and construct a large silken tent that, in most species, serves as a communal web. The larvae leave the nest each day to feed......
  • Malacosoma disstria (insect)
    ...species, serves as a communal web. The larvae leave the nest each day to feed until early summer when they are full grown. Pupation occurs in cocoons of silk mixed with a yellowish-white powder. The forest tent caterpillar moth M. disstria is common in the southern United States....
  • Malacostraca (crustacean)
    any member of the more than 29,000 species of the class Malacostraca (subphylum Crustacea, phylum Arthropoda), a widely distributed group of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial invertebrates. Lobsters, crabs, hermit crabs, shrimp, and isopods are all malacostracan crustaceans....
  • malacostracan (crustacean)
    any member of the more than 29,000 species of the class Malacostraca (subphylum Crustacea, phylum Arthropoda), a widely distributed group of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial invertebrates. Lobsters, crabs, hermit crabs, shrimp, and isopods are all malacostracan crustaceans....
  • Malacothamnus (plant)
    ...poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), a hairy perennial, low-growing, with poppy-like reddish flowers; and Indian mallow, also called velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti), a weedy plant. Chaparral mallows (Malacothamnus species), a group of shrubs and small trees, are native to California and Baja California. The Carolina mallow (Modiola caroliniana) is a weedy,....
  • maladaptive thinking (psychology)
    Cognitive therapy is based on the premise that maladaptive thinking causes and maintains emotional problems. Maladaptive thinking may refer to a belief that is false and rationally unsupported, what Ellis called an “irrational belief.” An example of such a belief is that one must be loved and approved of by everyone in order to be happy or to have a sense of self-worth. This is......
  • “Malade imaginaire, Le” (play by Molière)
    ...some have thought it) a satire on bluestockings, but Molière has imagined a sensible bourgeois who goes in fear of his masterful and learned wife. Le Malade imaginaire (Eng. trans., The Imaginary Invalid), about a hypochondriac who fears death and doctors, was performed in 1673 and was Molière’s last work. It is a powerful play in its delineation of medical ja...
  • “Maladies de la mémoire, Les” (work by Ribot)
    French psychologist whose endeavour to account for memory loss as a symptom of progressive brain disease, iterated in his Les Maladies de la mémoire (1881; Diseases of Memory), constitutes the most influential early attempt to analyze abnormalities of memory in terms of physiology....
  • maladies mentales, considérées sous les rapports médical, hygiénique, et médico-légal, Des (work by Esquirol)
    ...treatment of the mentally ill. Esquirol provided the first accurate description of mental retardation as an entity separate from insanity, and he also coined the term hallucination. His Des maladies mentales, considérées sous les rapports médical, hygiénique, et médico-légal (1838) has been called the first modern treatise on clinical......
  • Málaga (Spain)
    port city, capital of Málaga provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southern Spain. The city lies along a wide bay of the Mediterranean Sea at the mouth of the Guadalmedina River in the centre of the Cos...
  • Málaga (wine)
    sweet, usually red, fortified wine that originated in the southern Spanish Mediterranean coastal province from which it takes its name. The term may also be applied generically to any of a variety of heavy, sweet red wines, including certain kosher wines served at Jewish celebrations. The best Spanish Málaga is made from muscat grapes and from the variety known as Pedro-Ximénez, the...
  • Málaga (province, Spain)
    provincia (province) in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southern Spain, on the Mediterranean coast. Its northern half lies on the Andalusian plain, while its southern half is mountainous and rises steeply from the coast, along which there is a narrow ...
  • Malagarasi River (river, East Africa)
    ...is more than 2,400 feet below sea level. Typical, too, are the flanking escarpments, which often rise sheer from the lake; the only sizable lowland is the lower Ruzizi valley. The drainage of the Malagarasi River system enters Lake Tanganyika about 25 miles south of Kigoma, Tanz.; at its southern end, on the frontier with Zambia, the 700-foot Kalambo Falls occur where the Kalambo River......
  • Malagasy (people)
    The island of Madagascar forms a distinct culture area. The various Malagasy ethnic groups, of which the politically most important is the Merina, are mainly of Indonesian origin, following migrations across the Indian Ocean probably during the 5th and 6th centuries ad. The Malagasy language, spoken by 98 percent of the island’s population, is classified as Austronesian....
  • Malagasy civet (mammal)
    Because of certain structural features, the fossa was formerly classified in the cat family (Felidae). Its common name sometimes leads to its confusion with the Malagasy civet, or fanaloka, Fossa fossa....
  • Malagasy languages
    a cluster of languages spoken on Madagascar and adjacent islands and belonging to the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) family of languages. The various Malagasy dialects are all closely related, having diversified only in the last 2,000 years when Madagascar was settled by an Indonesian people. The languages contain some words of Bantu, Swahili, Arab, English, and French origin. Since 1820 the Me...
  • Malagasy Madagasikara
    country lying off the southeastern coast of Africa. It occupies the fourth largest island in the world, after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo. Located in the southwestern Indian Ocean, it is separated from the African coast by the 250-mile- (400-kilometre-) wide Mozambique Channel....
  • Malagasy mouse (mammal)
    ...rats). Other groups, however, cannot be classified with certainty and may or may not be a hodgepodge of unrelated genera and species (New World rats and mice, dendromurines, and Malagasy rats and mice). Also unresolved are the affinities of subfamilies containing only one genus (mouselike hamsters, the maned rat)....
  • Malagasy rat (mammal)
    ...rats, and bamboo rats). Other groups, however, cannot be classified with certainty and may or may not be a hodgepodge of unrelated genera and species (New World rats and mice, dendromurines, and Malagasy rats and mice). Also unresolved are the affinities of subfamilies containing only one genus (mouselike hamsters, the maned rat)....
  • Malagasy Republic
    country lying off the southeastern coast of Africa. It occupies the fourth largest island in the world, after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo. Located in the southwestern Indian Ocean, it is separated from the African coast by the 250-mile- (400-kilometre-) wide Mozambique Channel....
  • Malāḥin, al- (work by Ibn Durayd)
    ...of the root letters are given together. Among Ibn Durayd’s other works are Kitāb al-ishtiqāq (“Book of Derivation”), on the etymology of Arab names, and al-Malāḥin (“Ambiguities of Speech”), a book of ambivalent words for the use of persons forced to swear. Ibn Durayd was also a gifted poet....
  • Malāʾikah, Nāzik al- (Iraqi poet)
    A major change in the form of the Arabic poem occurred in the late 1940s, when two Iraqi poets, Nāzik al-Malāʾikah and Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb, almost simultaneously decided to abandon the system of prosody that the critical establishment had for centuries imposed as a principal method of identifying the poetic, choosing to adopt in its place a system that used......
  • Malaita (island, Solomon Islands)
    volcanic island in the country of Solomon Islands, southwestern Pacific Ocean. It lies 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Guadalcanal across Indispensable Strait. The island is about 115 miles (185 km) long and 22 miles (35 km) across at its widest point. It is densely forested and mountainous, rising to an elevation of 4,718 feet (1,438 metres) at Mount Ire (Kolou...
  • Malak Ṭāʾūs (Yazīdī deity)
    The chief divine figure of the Yazīdī is Malak Ṭāʾūs (“Peacock Angel”), who is worshiped in the form of a peacock. He rules the universe with six other angels, but all seven are subordinate to the supreme God, who has had no direct interest in the universe since he created it. The seven angels are worshiped by the Yazīdī in the ...
  • Malaka (state, Malaysia)
    ...meet ships from the Indian Ocean. By the end of the 14th century, Samudra-Pasai had become a wealthy commercial centre, but it gave way in the early 15th century to the better-protected harbour of Malacca on the southwest coast of the Malay Peninsula. Javanese middlemen, converging on Malacca, ensured the harbour’s importance....
  • Malakāl (The Sudan)
    town, east-central Sudan. It lies along the right bank of the White Nile just below the latter’s confluence with the Sobat River, 430 miles (690 km) south of Khartoum. The Junqalī project, a joint Sudanese-Egyptian plan aimed at increasing agricultural production, diverts the waters of the White Nile from the As-Sudd swamps by means of a 224-mile...
  • Malakbel (Semitic god)
    West Semitic sun god and messenger god, worshiped primarily in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra; he was variously identified by the Greeks with Zeus and with Hermes and by the Romans with Sol. His name may have been of Babylonian origin, and he was considered the equivalent of the Babylonian sun god Shamash...
  • Malakhov (fortress, Sevastopol, Ukraine)
    ...October 25, and at Inkerman on November 5. On Jan. 26, 1855, Sardinia-Piedmont entered the war and sent 10,000 troops. Finally, on Sept. 11, 1855, three days after a successful French assault on the Malakhov, a major strongpoint in the Russian defenses, the Russians blew up the forts, sank the ships, and evacuated Sevastopol. Secondary operations of the war were conducted in the Caucasus and in...
  • Malakoff (France)
    town, Hauts-de-Seine département, Paris région, north-central France. A southwestern industrial suburb of Paris, it has an electrical-engineering school and manufactures electrical equipment, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and precision instruments. The town was created in 1883 and was named for the fortress of Malakhov at Sevastopol, which was captured...
  • Malakoff, Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pélissier, Duke de (marshal of France)
    French general during the Algerian conquest and the last French commander in chief in the Crimean War....
  • Malakula (island, Vanuatu)
    volcanic island, second largest island (781 square miles [2,023 square km]) of Vanuatu, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It is 58 miles (94 km) long by 27 miles (44 km) wide and lies about 20 miles (32 km) south of Espiritu Santo, across the Bougainville (Malo) Strait. Its central mountain range rises to 2,884 feet (879 metres) at P...
  • Malalas, John (Byzantine chronicler)
    Byzantine chronicler of Syrian origin....
  • Malam Zaki (Fulani leader)
    town and traditional emirate, Bauchi State, northern Nigeria, on the north bank of the Jamaare River (a tributary of the Hadejia). It was the seat of an emirate founded c. 1809 by Ibrahim Zakiyul Kalbi (also known as Malam [Scholar] Zaki), a warrior in the Fulani jihad (holy war) who in 1812 besieged and destroyed Ngazargamu (115 mi [185 km] east-northeast), the capital of the Bornu......
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