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  • Parrington, Vernon Louis (American literary historian)
    American literary historian and teacher noted for his far-reaching appraisal of American literary history....
  • Parris, Alexander (American architect)
    American architect, a principal exponent of the Greek Revival style in early 19th-century Massachusetts....
  • Parris Island (island, South Carolina, United States)
    one of the Sea Islands on the Atlantic coast, in Port Royal Sound, just south of Port Royal Island, in Beaufort county, southern South Carolina, U.S. Spanish Franciscans and Jesuits came there in the 1520s and attempted to establish missions among the Native Americans. In 1562 the French built Charlesfort on the southern tip of the island. I...
  • Parrish, Anne (American philanthropist)
    American philanthropist whose school for indigent girls, founded in the late 18th century, existed well into the 20th....
  • Parrish, Anne (American author and illustrator)
    American philanthropist whose school for indigent girls, founded in the late 18th century, existed well into the 20th.......
  • Parrish, Celestia Susannah (American educator)
    American educator who worked in the South to open higher education to women and to promote progressive education for children....
  • Parrish, Frederick Maxfield (American artist)
    American illustrator and painter who was perhaps the most popular commercial artist in the United States in the first half of the 20th century....
  • Parrish, Maxfield (American artist)
    American illustrator and painter who was perhaps the most popular commercial artist in the United States in the first half of the 20th century....
  • Parrish, Robert (American actor and director)
    U.S. child actor who appeared as a newsboy in Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights and later earned an Academy Award for film editing for Body and Soul and plaudits for his direction of such films as Cry Danger and The Purple Plain (b. Jan. 4, 1916--d. Dec. 4, 1995)....
  • “parrocchie di regalpetra, Le” (work by Sciascia)
    ...(1950; “Fables of the Dictatorship”), a satire on fascism. He also wrote two early collections of poetry. His first significant novel, Le parrocchie de regalpetra (1956; Salt in the Wound), chronicles the history of a small Sicilian town and the effect of politics on the lives of the townspeople. He further examined what he termed sicilitudine......
  • parrolet (bird)
    ...the general name parrot may be applied. All belong to just two families. In the family Psittacidae are parakeets (including the budgerigars, rosellas, and conures), lovebirds, amazons, macaws, and parrotlets (or parrolets), in addition to the lorikeets (including lories) as well as the kea and the kakapo of New Zealand. Members of the cockatoo family, Cacatuidae, live only in the region of......
  • Parrondo, Gil (Spanish-American art director)
    ...Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North for PattonAdapted Screenplay: Ring Lardner, Jr., for M*A*S*HCinematography: Freddie Young for Ryan’s DaughterArt Direction: Urie McCleary and Gil Parrondo for PattonOriginal Score: Francis Lai for Love StoryOriginal Song Score: The Beatles for Let It BeSong Original for the Picture: “For......
  • parrot (bird)
    any member of the group of more than 360 species of generally brightly coloured, noisy birds, to which the general name parrot may be applied. All belong to just two families. In the family Psittacidae are parakeets (including the budgerigars, rosellas, and conures), lovebird...
  • parrot (bird)
    term applied to a large group of gaudy, raucous birds of the family Psittacidae. Parrot also is used in reference to any member of a larger bird group, order Psittaciformes, which includes cockatoos (family Cacatuidae) as well. Parrots have been kept as cage birds since ancient times, and they have always been popular because th...
  • parrot fever (pathology)
    infectious disease of worldwide distribution caused by a bacterial parasite (Chlamydia psittaci) and transmitted to humans from various birds. The infection has been found in about 70 different species of birds; parrots and parakeets (Psittacidae, from which the disease is named), pigeons, turkeys, ducks, and geese are the principal sources of human infection....
  • parrot fish (fish)
    any of about 80 species of fishes of the family Scaridae, a group sometimes regarded as a subfamily of Labridae (order Perciformes), found on tropical reefs. Parrot fishes are elongated, usually rather blunt-headed and deep-bodied, and often very brightly coloured. They have large scales and a characteristic birdlike beak formed by the fused teeth of the jaws. The beak is used to scrape algae and ...
  • parrotbill (bird)
    any of several species of small to medium titmouselike birds, mostly brown and gray with soft, loose plumage and distinctive strongly arched, parrotlike bills. They live in brushy grasslands of Central and Eastern Asia....
  • Parrotia persica (plant)
    Autumn leaf colour, changing from golden yellow to orange and scarlet, is an outstanding trait of ironwood (Parrotia persica), a small tree from northern Iran. Its flowers, produced before the leaves, have drooping stamens, lack petals, and have brown, leaflike bracts. This tree’s close-grained wood is very strong, as are the twigs of the closely related Parrotiopsis......
  • parrotlet (bird)
    ...the general name parrot may be applied. All belong to just two families. In the family Psittacidae are parakeets (including the budgerigars, rosellas, and conures), lovebirds, amazons, macaws, and parrotlets (or parrolets), in addition to the lorikeets (including lories) as well as the kea and the kakapo of New Zealand. Members of the cockatoo family, Cacatuidae, live only in the region of......
  • parrot’s bill (plant)
    genus of flowering shrubs of the pea family (Fabaceae). Its two species, C. puniceus and C. formosus, are native to New Zealand and Australia, respectively. They grow to 1–2 m (3–6 feet) tall and in the spring bear brilliant red flowers (whence the name, from Greek, kleios, “glory,” and anthos, “flower”). The flowers, 7.5...
  • parrot’s head pitcher plant (plant)
    The purple, or common, pitcher plant (S. purpurea) has heavily veined, green to reddish, flaring, juglike leaves that bear downward-pointing bristles. Its flowers are purple-red. The parrot’s head pitcher plant (S. psittacina) has small, fat, red-veined leaves that are topped by beaklike lids. It bears dark red flowers. The sweet pitcher plant (S. rubra) produces dull r...
  • Parrott, Robert Parker (American inventor)
    U.S. inventor who developed the rifled cannon known as the Parrott gun, the most formidable cannon of its time....
  • Parry (computer program)
    Two of the best-known early AI programs, Eliza and Parry, gave an eerie semblance of intelligent conversation. (Details of both were first published in 1966.) Eliza, written by Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT’s AI Laboratory, simulated a human therapist. Parry, written by Stanford University psychiatrist Kenneth Colby, simulated a human paranoiac. Psychiatrists who were asked to decide whether the...
  • Parry Island (island, Cook Islands, Pacific Ocean)
    easternmost of the southern Cook Islands, a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. A raised coral atoll of low formation (100 feet [30 metres] high), it has a volcanic centre encircled by coral limestone. Its fertile red soils support oranges, coconuts, and beef cattle. The island is covered with high-quality hardwoods, palms, and p...
  • Parry, Milman (American scholar)
    ...more specific about his technique and the kind of poet he was. It has been one of the most important discoveries of Homeric scholarship, associated particularly with the name of an American scholar, Milman Parry, that the Homeric tradition was an oral one—that this was a kind of poetry made and passed down by word of mouth and without the intervention of writing. Indeed Homer’s ow...
  • Parry piñon (tree)
    The single-leaf piñon (P. monophylla) occurs sporadically through northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. The Parry piñon (P. quadrifolia) is the four-needle piñon of southern California and northern Baja California. Nut pine (P. edulis) is the most widely distributed tree of this nut group. The seeds of the group are large and tasty and are......
  • Parry, R. Williams (Welsh poet)
    ...use of the old strict metres to express modern thought and W.J. Gruffydd’s lyrical use of the free metres to express his rebellion against society and his love for the countryside of his youth. R. Williams Parry showed a superb gift of poetic observation, while Sir Thomas Parry-Williams combined a mystical love for his native Gwynedd with an almost scientific analysis of his own......
  • Parry, Sir Charles Hubert Hastings, Baronet (British composer)
    composer, writer, and teacher, influential in the revival of English music at the end of the 19th century....
  • Parry, Sir Hubert (British composer)
    composer, writer, and teacher, influential in the revival of English music at the end of the 19th century....
  • Parry, Sir William (British explorer)
    ...of them, under Captain John Ross in 1818, retraced almost exactly Baffin’s journey of two centuries earlier and repeated his error of mistaking the sounds for bays. Second in command to Ross was William (later Sir William) Parry. He was not convinced that no sound existed, and in 1819–20, in HMS Hecla and Griper, he mad...
  • Parry Sound (Ontario, Canada)
    town, seat of Parry Sound district, southeastern Ontario, Canada. It lies on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, at the mouth of the Seguin River, 120 miles (190 km) north of Toronto. Named in honour of the Arctic explorer Sir William Parry, the town was founded in the mid-19th century by W.H. Beatty, a British land surveyor. Its deepwater harbour...
  • Parry-Williams, Thomas (Welsh writer)
    ...lyrical use of the free metres to express his rebellion against society and his love for the countryside of his youth. R. Williams Parry showed a superb gift of poetic observation, while Sir Thomas Parry-Williams combined a mystical love for his native Gwynedd with an almost scientific analysis of his own metaphysical preoccupations. Older poets, such as Cynan (A. Evans-Jones), William......
  • Pārs (ancient region, Iran)
    ancient country in the southwestern part of Iran, roughly coextensive with the modern region of Fārs. Its name was derived from the Iranian tribe of the Parsua (Parsuash; Parsumash; Persians), who settled there in the 7th century bc. Herodotus lists the leading Persian tribes as the Pasargadae, to which the Achaemenians, the royal family of Persia, belonged;...
  • pars compacta (anatomy)
    ...formation (known here as the tegmentum) and the crus cerebri is a large pigmented nucleus called the substantia nigra. The substantia nigra consists of two parts, the pars reticulata and the pars compacta. Cells of the pars compacta contain the dark pigment melanin; these cells synthesize dopamine and project to either the caudate nucleus or the putamen. By inhibiting the action of large......
  • pars distalis (anatomy)
    Direct innervation similar to that of the pars intermedia is also found in the pars distalis of bony fishes. Here neurosecretory fibres arise from a localized region of the hypothalamus, called the nucleus lateralis tuberis, and end in contact either with the various types of secretory cells or with blood capillaries related to them. The other route of chemical communication to the pars......
  • pars ecclesiae (Italian history)
    ...the divisions between the Welf house of Otto IV and the Hohenstaufen (Waiblingen) house of Philip of Swabia and Frederick II—echoed the struggle over rights. The term pars ecclesiae (“party of the church”), which became more common in the second half of the 13th century, has generally been viewed as a reference to support for the papacy...
  • pars flaccida (anatomy)
    ...in an incomplete ring of bone, the tympanic annulus, which almost encircles it and holds it in place. The uppermost small area of the membrane where the ring is open is slack and is called the pars flaccida, but the far greater portion is tightly stretched and is called the pars tensa. The appearance and mobility of the tympanic membrane are important for the diagnosis of middle-ear......
  • pars intercerebralis (anatomy)
    Neurosecretory, neurohemal, and endocrine structures are all found in the insect endocrine system. There are several neurosecretory centres in the brain, the largest being the pars intercerebralis. The paired corpora cardiaca (singular, corpus cardiacum) and the paired corpora allata (singular, corpus allatum) are both neurohemal organs that store brain neurohormones, but each has some......
  • pars intermedia (anatomy)
    ...brain. The gland itself is composed of three distinct lobes: the anterior lobe (also called the adenohypophysis), the posterior lobe (also called the neurohypophysis), and the intermediate lobe (or pars intermedia). The pituitary gland is connected by a bridge, the pituitary stalk, through which it receives its blood supply and many neurohumoral and hormonal signals from the region of the brain...
  • pars legitima (law)
    ...In the late Roman Empire the descendants—and if there were no descendants, the ascendants (e.g., parents)—were given the right to a share in the estate (pars legitima), of which none of them could be deprived except upon serious cause stated in the will. When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, testamentary disposition came to be......
  • pars reticulata (anatomy)
    ...between the midbrain reticular formation (known here as the tegmentum) and the crus cerebri is a large pigmented nucleus called the substantia nigra. The substantia nigra consists of two parts, the pars reticulata and the pars compacta. Cells of the pars compacta contain the dark pigment melanin; these cells synthesize dopamine and project to either the caudate nucleus or the putamen. By......
  • pars tensa (anatomy)
    ...it and holds it in place. The uppermost small area of the membrane where the ring is open is slack and is called the pars flaccida, but the far greater portion is tightly stretched and is called the pars tensa. The appearance and mobility of the tympanic membrane are important for the diagnosis of middle-ear disease, which is especially common in young children. When viewed with the otoscope,.....
  • Parsa (ancient city, Iran)
    an ancient capital of the kings of the Achaemenian dynasty of Iran (Persia), located about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Shīrāz in the Fars region of southwestern Iran. The site lies near the confluence of the Pulvār (Sīvand) and Kor rivers. In 1979 the ruins were designated a UNESCO...
  • Parsa (ancient region, Iran)
    ancient country in the southwestern part of Iran, roughly coextensive with the modern region of Fārs. Its name was derived from the Iranian tribe of the Parsua (Parsuash; Parsumash; Persians), who settled there in the 7th century bc. Herodotus lists the leading Persian tribes as the Pasargadae, to which the Achaemenians, the royal family of Persia, belonged;...
  • parsec (unit of measurement)
    unit for expressing distances to stars and galaxies, used by professional astronomers. It represents the distance at which the radius of the Earth’s orbit subtends an angle of one second of arc; thus a star at a distance of one parsec would have a parallax of one second, and the distance of an object in parsecs is the reciprocal of its parallax in seconds of arc. For exam...
  • Parsee (people)
    member of a group of followers in India of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster. The Parsis, whose name means “Persians,” are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by the Muslims. They live chiefly in Bombay and in a few towns and villages mostly to the north of Bombay, but also at Karachi (Pakistan) and Bangalore (Karna...
  • Parseeism (religion)
    ...survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parsis, or Parsees. In India the religion is called Parsiism....
  • Parshchikov, Aleksey (Russian author)
    Some of the best work published in the 1980s was in poetry, including the work of conceptualists such as Dmitry Prigov and the meta-metaphoric poetry of Aleksey Parshchikov, Olga Sedakova, Ilya Kutik, and others. The turbulent 1990s were a difficult period for most Russian writers and poets. The publishing industry, adversely affected by the economic downturn, struggled to regain its footing in......
  • Parshva (Jaina saint)
    the 23rd Tirthankara (“Ford-maker,” i.e., saviour) of the present age, according to Jainism, a religion of India....
  • Parshvanatha (Jaina saint)
    the 23rd Tirthankara (“Ford-maker,” i.e., saviour) of the present age, according to Jainism, a religion of India....
  • Parsi (people)
    member of a group of followers in India of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster. The Parsis, whose name means “Persians,” are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by the Muslims. They live chiefly in Bombay and in a few towns and villages mostly to the north of Bombay, but also at Karachi (Pakistan) and Bangalore (Karna...
  • Parsifal (opera by Wagner)
    ...was in the main respected, as was the orderly process of modulation as a means for giving structure to large musical forms. With Tristan, and even more markedly with Wagner’s music drama Parsifal, one can discern the beginnings of a gradual but unmistakable dissolution of the diatonic system on which traditional harmony was based. The analysis of Tristan’s har...
  • Parsiism (religion)
    ...survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parsis, or Parsees. In India the religion is called Parsiism....
  • parsimony, law of (philosophy)
    principle stated by William of Ockham (1285–1347/49), a scholastic, that Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate; “Plurality should not be posited without necessity.” The principle gives precedence to simplicity; of two competing theories, the simplest explanation of an entity is to be preferred. The principle is also expressed “Entities ar...
  • parsimony, principle of (animal psychology)
    ...behaviour in objective terms and without anthropomorphisms. He studied animal behaviour for its own sake, without regard to the mental evolution of man, and applied what has come to be called the principle of parsimony: in Morgan’s words (An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, 1894), “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psych...
  • parsing (linguistics)
    ...linguistics: to derive representations of the syntactic and semantic relations between the linguistic elements of sentences and larger parts of the document. Syntactic relations are described by parsing (decomposing) the grammar of sentences (Figure 3). For semantic representation, three related formalisms dominate. In a so-called semantic network, conceptual entities such as objects,......
  • Parsipour, Shahrnoush (Iranian writer)
    The participation of women writers in modern literature increased considerably during the second half of the 20th century. Best known outside Iran is Shahrnoush Parsipour’s novella Zanān bidūn-i mardān (1978; Women Without Men), which recounts the attempts of five women to overcome the limitations put upon their lives by male dominance in a......
  • Parsippany–Troy Hills (New Jersey, United States)
    township, Morris county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. The township extends eastward from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the Passaic River swamps, 23 miles (37 km) west of New York City. Communities within the township include Manor Lakes, Lake Hiawatha, Lake Parsippany, Lake Intervale, Glacier Hills, and Se...
  • parsley (plant)
    (species Petroselinum crispum), hardy biennial herb of the family Apiaceae, or Umbelliferae, native to Mediterranean lands. Parsley leaves were used by the ancient Greeks and Romans as a flavouring and garnish for foods. The compound leaves—deep green, tender, and curled or deeply frilled—that develop in a cluster the first season of growth are used fresh or dried, the mildly...
  • parsley family (plant family)
    the parsley family, in the order Apiales, comprising between 300 and 400 genera of plants distributed throughout a wide variety of habitats, principally in the north temperate regions of the world. Most members are aromatic herbs with alternate, feather-divided leaves that are sheathed at the base. The flowers are often arranged in a conspicuous umbel (a flat-topped cluster of flowers). Each small...
  • parsnip (vegetable)
    (species Pastinaca sativa), member of the parsley family (Apiaceae), cultivated since ancient times for its large, tapering, fleshy white root, which is edible and has a distinctive flavour. The root is found on roadsides and in open places in Great Britain and throughout Europe and temperate Asia. It was introduced in the Americas early in the 17th century and has become extensively natur...
  • Pärson, Anja (Swedish skier)
    Anja Pärson of Sweden made history in 2007 when she became the first skier to have won world championship races in each of the five disciplines of Alpine ski racing. Four other skiers previously had won in four of the five disciplines, but Pärson stood alone with her world championship triumphs in the slalom, giant slalom (GS), supergiant slalom (super G), combined, and downhill. Alo...
  • Parson Jack Russell terrier (breed of dog)
    breed of terrier developed in England in the 19th century for hunting foxes both above and below ground. It was named for the Rev. John Russell, an avid hunter who created a strain of terriers from which are also descended the wire-haired fox terrier and the smooth fox terrier. Though it is not known which dogs he crossbred, it is believed that bull terriers a...
  • Parson Russell terrier (breed of dog)
    breed of terrier developed in England in the 19th century for hunting foxes both above and below ground. It was named for the Rev. John Russell, an avid hunter who created a strain of terriers from which are also descended the wire-haired fox terrier and the smooth fox terrier. Though it is not known which dogs he crossbred, it is believed that bull terriers a...
  • Parson Weems (United States minister and writer)
    American clergyman, itinerant book agent, and fabricator of the story of George Washington’s chopping down the cherry tree. This fiction was inserted into the fifth edition (1806) of Weems’s book The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington (1800)....
  • Parsonfield Academy (college, Lewiston, Maine, United States)
    private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Lewiston, Maine, U.S. It is a liberal arts college that offers bachelor’s degree programs in literature, languages, social sciences, life and physical sciences, philosophy, and other areas. Research facilities include the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area on Maine’s Atlantic coast. Total enrollment is ap...
  • Parsons, Alzina Ann (American labour leader)
    American labour leader and journalist known for her contributions to union organization and child-welfare reform....
  • parson’s bench (furniture)
    ...movements in design during the early part of the 20th century, especially in the United States. A spindled variety resembling an extended Windsor chair was sometimes called a schoolmaster’s, or parson’s, bench....
  • Parsons, Benny (American race–car driver)
    American racecar driver who was named (1988) by the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing among the all-time 50 greatest NASCAR drivers. He captured 21 NASCAR titles during his career (1964 and 1969–88), including two premier races—the Daytona 500 in 1975 and the World 600 in 1980—and was crowned Winston Cup champion in 1973. Parsons, a onetime cab driver, had a folk...
  • Parson’s Cause (American colonial history)
    dispute involving Anglican clergy in colonial Virginia, arising (1755, 1758) when laws commuted clerical salaries, previously paid in tobacco, to currency at the rate of twopence a pound when tobacco was selling at sixpence a pound. A royal veto (1759) encouraged the clergy to sue for back pay. In the most publicized case (1763), Patrick Henry defended a Hanover County parish a...
  • Parsons, Elsie Clews (American anthropologist)
    American sociologist and anthropologist whose studies of the Pueblo and other Native American peoples of the southwestern United States remain standard references....
  • Parsons, Estelle (American actress)
    Other Nominees...
  • Parsons, Gram (American musician)
    ...3, 1944New York, N.Y.—d. Dec. 19, 1993Treasure Island, Fla.), Gram Parsons (original name Ingram Cecil Connor III; b. Nov. 5, 1946Winter Haven, Fla....
  • Parsons, Louella (American newspaper writer)
    American newspaper writer, the first—and, for many years, most powerful—movie columnist in the United States....
  • Parsons, Richard D. (American executive)
    American media executive who became chief executive officer (CEO) of AOL Time Warner (now Time Warner) in 2002. He stepped into the position when it was evident that Internet company America Online (AOL), which had recently acquired media corporation Time Warner, was experiencing a reversal of fortune. As a veteran Time Warner executive, Parsons replaced outgoing CEO Gerald Levi...
  • Parsons, Richard Dean (American executive)
    American media executive who became chief executive officer (CEO) of AOL Time Warner (now Time Warner) in 2002. He stepped into the position when it was evident that Internet company America Online (AOL), which had recently acquired media corporation Time Warner, was experiencing a reversal of fortune. As a veteran Time Warner executive, Parsons replaced outgoing CEO Gerald Levi...
  • Parsons, Robert (English Jesuit)
    Jesuit who, with Cardinal William Allen, organized Roman Catholic resistance in England to the Protestant regime of Queen Elizabeth I. He favoured armed intervention by the continental Catholic powers as a means of restoring Catholicism in England, and he probably encouraged the numerous plots against the Queen’s life....
  • Parsons School of Design (art school, Paris, France)
    ...designer Jean-Michel Frank (1896–1941) and the U.S. industrial and motion-picture interior designer Joseph B. Platt (1895–1968), both of whom were connected with the Paris branch of the Parsons School of Design in the 1920s and early 1930s....
  • Parsons Seminary (college, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States)
    private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S. It is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), though it maintains an ecumenical outlook. Coe offers an undergraduate curriculum in the liberal arts that includes off-campus programs in Washington, D.C., and New York City, in addition to study-abroad oppo...
  • Parsons, Sir Charles Algernon (British engineer)
    British engineer whose invention of a multi-stage steam turbine revolutionized marine propulsion....
  • Parsons table
    simple, sturdy rectangular table having straight lines, overall flush surfaces, and square legs that form the four corners of the top and whose diameter is identical with the thickness of the top. It is not certain who designed the Parsons table, and it may have been the result of a class project, but prototypes exist in the early work of both the French interior designer Jean-Michel Frank (1896...
  • Parsons, Talcott (American sociologist)
    American sociologist and scholar whose theory of social action influenced the intellectual bases of several disciplines of modern sociology. His work is concerned with a general theoretical system for the analysis of society rather than with narrower empirical studies. He is credited with having introduced the work of Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto to American ...
  • Parsons, Timothy (Canadian biologist)
    Capping a career of more than 40 years in which he had established himself among the world’s leading marine biologists, Canadian Timothy Parsons was named a winner of the Japan Prize in 2001. The award recognized Parsons’s pioneering exploration of the complex relationships between fish and the physical, chemical, and biological aspects of their environment and the application of tha...
  • Parsons turbine
    ...to which a nearly equal pressure drop and energy release takes place in both the stationary and moving blade passages. In addition, he subsequently built the first practical large marine steam turbines. During the 1880s Carl G.P. de Laval of Sweden constructed small reaction turbines that turned at about 40,000 revolutions per minute to drive cream separators. Their high speed, however,......
  • Parsons, William, 3rd earl of Rosse (Irish astronomer)
    Irish astronomer and builder of the largest reflecting telescope, the “Leviathan,” of the 19th century....
  • Parsua (Iranian tribe)
    ancient country in the southwestern part of Iran, roughly coextensive with the modern region of Fārs. Its name was derived from the Iranian tribe of the Parsua (Parsuash; Parsumash; Persians), who settled there in the 7th century bc. Herodotus lists the leading Persian tribes as the Pasargadae, to which the Achaemenians, the royal family of Persia, belonged; the Maraphii; and ...
  • Parsuhanda (ancient city, Turkey)
    The destruction of Nesa and its merchant colony marked the end of Assyrian trade not only there but also in other merchant colonies, such as Acemhöyük (probably the ancient Purushkhanda) and Hattusas (site of the later Hittite capital), which, together with a number of other cities in central Anatolia, were also violently destroyed. It is not clear who was responsible for the......
  • Parsumash (ancient region, Iran)
    eponymous ancestor of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty; he was the father of Teispes (Chishpish) and an ancestor of Cyrus II the Great and Darius I the Great. Although Achaemenes probably ruled only Parsumash, a vassal state of the kingdom of Media, many scholars believe that he led armies from Parsumash and Anshan (Anzan, northwest of Susa in Elam) against the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 681....
  • Pärt, Arvo (Estonian composer)
    Dubbed a "Holy Minimalist" by one reviewer and described as neo-Baroque by others, Arvo Pärt in 1995 continued to captivate classical music listeners. In 1995 the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, on their first North American tour, featured Pärt’s works in concert. Their program’s particular draw was Pärt’s Te Deum,...
  • part book (music)
    usual form in which vocal or instrumental polyphonic music was handwritten or printed in the 15th and 16th centuries. Each partbook contained the notation of only one voice, or part. The parts of madrigals, however, were sometimes published crosswise on single sheets, which allowed each of the singers seated around a rectangular table to sing from his particular part. Most commonly there were four...
  • Part of His Story (novel by Corn)
    In Corn’s first novel, Part of His Story (1997), an American playwright moves to London after his lover’s death from AIDS. The Poem’s Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody was published in 1997....
  • part of speech (linguistics)
    ...a word cannot signify the nature of reality directly, it must stand for the thing signified in one of its modes or properties; it is this discrimination of modes that the study of categories and parts of speech is all about. Thus the study of sentences should lead one to the nature of reality by way of the modes of signifying....
  • part-insertion machine (technology)
    Many applications of numerical control have been developed since its initial use to control machine tools. Other machines using numerical control include component-insertion machines used in electronics assembly, drafting machines that prepare engineering drawings, coordinate measuring machines that perform accurate inspections of parts, and flame cutting machines and similar devices. In these......
  • part-whole calculus (logic)
    branch of logic, founded by the 20th-century logician Stanisław Leśniewski, that tries to clarify class expressions and theorizes on the relation between parts and wholes. It attempts to explain Bertrand Russell’s paradox of the class of all those classes that are not elements of themselves. Leśniewski claimed that a distinction sh...
  • Partabgarh (India)
    town, Chittorgarh district, Rājasthān state, northwestern India. The town was founded in 1689 and was the capital of the former princely state of Partābgarh (founded in the 15th century), which became part of the state of Rājasthān in 1948. Historic monuments include a palace and several ancient Jaina and Hindu temples. Partāpgarh is an agricultural market...
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    Although Claudel married a French woman in 1906, this episode of forbidden love became a major myth of his subsequent works beginning with Partage de midi (published 1906). In this searching, autobiographical work, Claudel appears torn between human and divine love. The conflict is resolved in L’Annonce faite à Marie (1912; Tidings brought to Mary, 1916), a medie...
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    Indonesian political party formed in 1973 through the forced merger of five non-Islamic political parties. In the final three decades of the 20th century, it was one of two opposition parties officially recognized by the government, and though it often was supportive of the policies of President Suharto, its antigovernment faction, led by Megawati Sukarnoputri...
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