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W (chemical element)
chemical element, an exceptionally strong refractory metal of Group VIb of the periodic table, used in steels to increase hardness and strength and in lamp filaments....
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W (unit of measurement)
unit of power in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one joule of work performed per second, or to 1746 horsepower. An equivalent is the power dissipated in an electrical conductor carrying one ampere current between points at one volt potential difference. ...
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W boson (subatomic particle)
one of two massive electrically charged subatomic particles that are thought to transmit the weak force—that is, the force that governs radioactive decay in certain kinds of atomic nuclei. According to the Standard Model of particle physics that describes the fundamental particles and their intera...
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W component (astronomy)
...motion. They may be divided into a set of components related to directions in the Galaxy: U, directed away from the galactic centre; V, in the direction of galactic rotation; and W, toward the north galactic pole. For the nearby stars the average values for these galactic components are as follows: U = −8 km/sec, V = −28 km/sec, and W =......
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W fibre (physiology)
...and by acids and mediates behavioral rejection in water-satiated flies; (2) anion receptor, stimulated by negatively charged ions, and mediating rejection under all circumstances; (3) water receptor, once called W fibre; this structure fires when stimulated by water and mediates its acceptance by the animal; and (4) sugar receptor, once called S fibre because of its small......
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W National Park (park, Africa)
...In its place, many oil palms and rônier palms have been planted and food crops are cultivated. North of Abomey the vegetation is an intermixture of forest and savanna (grassy parkland), giving way farther north to savanna. Apart from the oil and rônier palms, trees include coconut palms, kapok, mahogany, and ebony....
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W particle (subatomic particle)
one of two massive electrically charged subatomic particles that are thought to transmit the weak force—that is, the force that governs radioactive decay in certain kinds of atomic nuclei. According to the Standard Model of particle physics that describes the fundamental particles and their intera...
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W Szwajcarii (work by Slowacki)
...in the style of Lord Byron. He was inspired by patriotic themes: Kordian (1834) was a drama of conspiracy and problems of commitment. His subtle poem W Szwajcarii (1839; “In Switzerland”) is probably the finest lyrical work in Polish. Much of Słowacki’s work was in dramatic form, and although written for an imag...
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W Ursae Majoris star (astronomy)
Novas appear to be binary stars that have evolved from contact binaries of the W Ursae Majoris type, which are pairs of stars apparently similar to the Sun in size but revolving around one another while almost touching. One member may have reached the white dwarf stage. Matter fed to it from its distended companion appears to produce instabilities that result in violent explosions or nova......
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W*-algebra (mathematics)
Motivated by a continuing desire to develop mathematical techniques suited to quantum phenomena, von Neumann introduced a theory of rings of operators, now known as von Neumann algebras (1929 through the 1940s). Other achievements include a proof of the quasi-ergodic hypothesis (1932) and important work in lattice theory (1935–37). It was not only the new physics that commanded von......
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W-meson (subatomic particle)
one of two massive electrically charged subatomic particles that are thought to transmit the weak force—that is, the force that governs radioactive decay in certain kinds of atomic nuclei. According to the Standard Model of particle physics that describes the fundamental particles and their intera...
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W-shaped flange (construction)
...a web made of a continuous bent rod. It is used almost exclusively to support roofs and can span up to 45 metres (150 feet). The standard rolled shapes are frequently used as beams and columns, the wide flange, or W shape, being the most common. The widely separated flanges give it the best profile for resisting the bending action of beams or the buckling action of columns. W shapes are made in...
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W-type star (astronomy)
any of a class of extremely hot, white stars having peculiar spectra thought to indicate either great turbulence within the star or a steady, voluminous ejection of material. A typical Wolf-Rayet star is several times the diameter of the Sun and thousands of times more luminous. Only a few hundred are known, located mostly in the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. The type was first distinguish...
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W. G. Low House (building, Bristol, R.I., United States)
...and influential American architectural firm of its time. Until 1887 the firm excelled at informal summer houses built of shingles, and McKim designed one of the most significant of these, the residence at Bristol, R.I., of W.G. Low (1887); other examples of the firm’s work cluster at Newport, R.I., on the New Jersey shore, and on Long Island, N.Y....
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W. H., Mr. (acquaintance of Shakespeare)
person known only by his initials, to whom the first edition of William Shakespeare’s sonnets (1609) was dedicated:To the onlie begetter ofThese insuing sonnetsMr. W.H. all happinesseAnd that eternitiePromisedbyOur ever-living poetWisheth...
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W. M. Keck Observatory (observatory, Mauna Kea, Hawaii, United States)
astronomical observatory located near the 4,200-metre (13,800-foot) summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on north-central Hawaii Island, Hawaii, U.S. Keck’s twin 10-metre (394-inch) telescopes, housed in separate domes, constitute the largest optical telescope system of the burgeoning multi-observatory science reserve located on Mauna Kea....
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W.A. Bechtel Company (American company)
American construction engineer and business executive, president (1936–60) of W.A. Bechtel Company and its successor, Bechtel Corp., one of the world’s largest construction and engineering firms. Projects to which his firm and its affiliated companies have substantially contributed include the Hoover Dam, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, the Alaska oil pipeline, and rapid...
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W.A.C. Bennett Dam (dam, British Columbia, Canada)
...Mackenzie (1792–93). Farming, the valley’s economic mainstay during the early decades of the 20th century, is now supplemented by lumber, coal, petroleum, and natural gas. In 1967 the W.A.C. Bennett Dam (600 feet [190 m] high and 1.25 miles [2 km] long) near Hudson’s Hope, B.C., was completed, creating Williston Lake and providing the valley with hydroelectric power and flo...
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W.C. Austin Reclamation Project (United States history)
...products, especially cotton, stimulated the city’s growth during World War I, but during the Great Depression and drought in the 1930s Altus became part of Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl. The nearby W.C. Austin Reclamation Project (the state’s first large irrigation project, completed in 1948) restored the region’s basic agricultural economy (cotton, cattle, and wheat). Altus ...
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W.J. van Blommestein Lake (lake, Suriname)
The Brokopondo Dam and a hydroelectric power plant on the Suriname River produce electricity for the bauxite-refining operations in Paranam. The dam impounds the 600-square-mile W.J. van Blommestein Lake. The Suriname State Oil Company (Staatsolie) produces a limited amount of oil from wells in the Tambaredjo area....
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W.R. Grace & Co. (American industrial company)
American industrial company, with international interests in specialty chemicals, construction materials, coatings, and sealants. It is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland....
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W3 Consortium (information retrieval standards organization)
From 1991 to 1993 Berners-Lee evangelized the Web. In 1994 in the United States he established the World Wide Web (W3) Consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science. The consortium, in consultation with others, lends oversight to the Web and the development of standards. In 1999 Berners-Lee became the first holder of the 3Com Founders chair at the...
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Wa (people)
peoples of the upland areas of eastern Myanmar (Burma) and southwestern Yunnan province of China. They speak a variety of Austroasiatic languages related to those spoken by upland-dwelling groups in northern Thailand and Laos. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Wa numbered approximately 600,000 in Myanmar and 350,000 in China, where they have been designated an official m...
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Wa (historical region, Asia)
Japan first appears in Chinese chronicles under the name of Wo (in Japanese, Wa). The Han histories relate that “in the seas off Lo-lang lie the people of Wo, who are divided into more than 100 states, and who bring tribute at fixed intervals.” Lo-lang was one of the Han colonies established in the Korean peninsula. A history of the Later (Eastern) Han (ad 25–220...
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Wa language
...The vowels may have, for example, a “breathy” register, a “creaky” register, or a clear one. This feature, which is fairly rare the world over, is found, for example, in Mon, Wa, and Kuay, which distinguish breathy from clear vowels; in some Katuic languages, which distinguish creaky vowels from clear ones; and in the Pearic branch, which cumulates both distinctions....
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Wa-ʿāda…fī kafan (poem by Darwish)
...through the 20th century and into the 21st, so the elegy continued to fulfill its generic purposes as an expression of personal sorrow and broader communal grief and steadfastness. Wa-ʿāda…fī kafan (1964; “And He Came Home…in a Shroud”), by the Palestinian poet Maḥmūd Darwīsh, is a modern example:...
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Wa-fang-tien (China)
city, southern Liaoning sheng (province), northeastern China. It is situated in the south-central part of the Liaodong Peninsula and is an important market centre for an agricultural and fruit-growing area that specializes in apples, pears, and grapes. It has developed industries producing various industrial chemicals as...
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Waadt (canton, Switzerland)
canton, southwestern Switzerland, bordering France and the Jura Mountains to the west and Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) to the south. It has an area of 1,240 sq mi (3,212 sq km). In the west it extends a short way along the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, with a long narrow eastern tongue stretching past Payerne. The Avenches region, a few miles beyond, form...
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Waage, Peter (Norwegian chemist)
...with each mass raised to a power equal to the coefficient that occurs in the chemical equation. This law was formulated over the period 1864–79 by the Norwegian scientists Cato M. Guldberg and Peter Waage but is now of only historical interest. This law was useful for obtaining the correct equilibrium equation for a reaction, but the rate expressions it provides are now known to apply on...
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Waal Interglacial Stage (geology)
division of Pleistocene time and deposits in The Netherlands and northern Europe (the Pleistocene Epoch dates from 1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago). The Waal Interglacial follows the Eburon Glacial Stage and precedes the Menapian Glacial Stage, both times of relatively severe climatic conditions. The Waal is included in the earlier part of the Pleistocene. Studies of the animals and plants preserved...
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Waal River (river, The Netherlands)
The southern division of the province is watered by the Rhine, Waal, and Maas (Meuse) rivers. In the east are some isolated hills and a sandy, wooded stretch south of Nijmegen, the province’s largest town. The fertile marshy area of the Betuwe (“Good Land”), between the Rhine and the Waal, supports orchards (cherries and apples), market gardening, and mixed farming. Pop. (1987...
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Waals, Johannes Diederik van der (Dutch physicist)
Dutch physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on the gaseous and liquid states of matter. His work made the study of temperatures near absolute zero possible....
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Waarheid, De (Dutch newspaper)
...by the Nazis, but it resumed publication in 1945 as Het Vrije Volk. It remained the voice of the Labour Party, retaining a strong political orientation. It and the Communist De Waarheid (“The Truth”) are the only daily newspapers in The Netherlands with permanent party affiliations. The paper does not publish a Sunday edition. Its circulation in the late......
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Wabag (Papua New Guinea)
town on the island of New Guinea, north-central Papua New Guinea, southwestern Pacific Ocean. Situated on the Lai River at an elevation of 6,000 feet (1,830 m), it was first visited by Europeans in 1934. A radio camp and airstrip were set up at Wabag in 1938–39. Wabag developed slowly as a trading centre owing to restrictions on transportation and the relative infertility...
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Wabana (Newfoundland, Canada)
town, southeastern Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, just northwest of St. John’s, on Bell Island in Conception Bay. Located in the centre of one of the world’s richest deposits of red hematite iron ore, the town grew after the beginning of mining operations in 1895 and had a population of more than 8,000 in 1961. But because of ma...
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Wabanaki (people)
Algonquian-speaking North American Indian tribe that united with other tribes in the 17th century to furnish mutual protection against the Iroquois Confederacy. The name refers to their location “toward the dawn.” In its earliest known form, the Abenaki Confederacy consisted of tribes or bands living east and northeast of prese...
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Wabar Craters (meteorite craters, Saudi Arabia)
group of meteorite craters discovered in 1932 in the Rubʿ al-Khalī desert of Saudi Arabia. The largest crater is 330 feet (100 m) in diameter, 40 feet (12 m) deep, partially filled with sand, and thought to be an explosion crater (formed from an explosion on impact). A crater located 0.6 mile (1 km) northwest is about half the size of the main crater and is thought to be two partial...
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Wabash (Indiana, United States)
city, seat (1835) of Wabash county, northeastern Indiana, U.S., on the Wabash River, 45 miles (72 km) west-southwest of Fort Wayne. It was platted in 1834 on land ceded to the U.S. government by the Potawatomi and Miami Indians in the Treaty of Paradise Spring, signed on a local hilltop in 1826. The Wabash and Erie Canal reached the area in the 1830s, stimulating the community’s growth. Wab...
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Wabash and Erie Canal (canal, United States)
The Wabash and Erie Canal was completed in 1853 to Evansville, its southern terminus, and, until its abandonment in the 1860s, connected Lake Erie with the Ohio River. Evansville has a modern river terminal that provides for interchange of barge, rail, and truck traffic, and there is a regional airport. The city contains a museum of arts, history, and science and the Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic......
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Wabash Cannonball, The (song)
Turning his attention to music after an aborted baseball career, Acuff gained immediate popularity with his recordings of “The Great Speckled Bird” and “The Wabash Cannonball.” The latter piece became his theme song. By the early 1940s his sincere singing style, backed by the traditional sound of the Smoky Mountain Boys, was earning him $200,000 per year....
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Wabash College (college, Crawfordsville, Indiana, United States)
In 1833 Mills moved to Indiana and settled in Crawfordsville, where he established a school that later became Wabash College. At first he was the sole instructor as well as principal, but by 1835 Wabash College had a faculty and Mills was professor of languages. He later served variously as principal of the preparatory department and of the normal school, professor of Greek language and......
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Wabash River (river, United States)
largest southward-flowing tributary of the Ohio River, rising in Grand Lake, western Ohio. It flows generally westward across Indiana past the cities of Huntington, Wabash, Logansport, and Lafayette, then southward to Terre Haute. Just south of that city it forms a 200-mile (320-kilometre) boundary between Indiana and Illinois and then enters the Ohio in the southwestern corner of Indiana after a...
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WABC (American radio station)
WABC in New York City was relatively late getting into the game of Top 40 radio. By the time of its entrance in 1960, Alan Freed had come and gone, and his station, WINS, had been joined in the rock radio wars by WMCA (home of B. Mitchel Reed and the “Good Guys”) and WMGM (whose star deejay was Peter Tripp, “the curly-haired kid in the third row”). WINS featured......
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Wabē Shebelē (river, Africa)
river in eastern Africa, rising in the Ethiopian Highlands and flowing southeast through the arid Ogaden Plateau. The Shebeli River crosses into Somalia north of Beledweyne (Beletwene) and continues south to Balcad, about 20 miles (32 km) from the Indian Ocean, turning southwest there. During heavy-rain periods in Ethiopia, the Shebeli River joins the Jubba (Giuba), and the combined waters then fl...
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WABFMS (American organization)
...member. The committee collected, translated, and published magazines for distribution around the world. In 1913 Peabody became vice president for the foreign department of the newly unified Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (WABFMS), and she was instrumental in transforming the Interdenominational Conference into the more effective Federation of Women’s Boards of Fo...
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wabi (philosophy)
...He returned to the utter simplicity practiced by Shukō, a 15th-century monk who founded the Japanese tea ceremony. He firmly established the concepts of wabi (deliberate simplicity in daily living) and sabi (appreciation of the old and faded) as its aesthetic ideals. During his time the teahouse......
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Wabi (people)
Mesoamerican Indian peasants of the Pacific coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The exact relationship of the Huave language to other Mesoamerican languages is a matter of scholarly dispute. Fishing and agriculture are the main subsistence activities, but the Huave also depend on markets in nearby towns to meet their needs for staple foods and manufactured go...
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wabi-cha (tea ceremony)
...Kamakura period, spread among warriors and even common people from the mid-14th century. In the time of the shogun Yoshimasa, Murata Shukō, a man of merchant background from Nara, began the wabi-cha form of tea ceremony by bringing together the chanoyu of the civil aristocracy and the cha-yoriai of the common people. This new form spread among the warriors and great....
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Wabigoon Belt (geological region, Canada)
...occurrences are the Barberton belt in South Africa; the Sebakwian, Belingwean, and Bulawayan-Shamvaian belts of Zimbabwe; the Yellowknife belts in the Slave province of Canada; the Abitibi, Wawa, Wabigoon, and Quetico belts of the Superior province of Canada; the Dharwar belts in India; and the Warrawoona and Yilgarn belts in Australia....
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WAC
U.S. Army unit created during World War II to enable women to serve in noncombat positions. Never before had women, with the exception of nurses, served within the ranks of the U.S. Army. With the establishment of the WACs, more than 150,000 did so....
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WACC
...cultural, and educational purposes. There are also a substantial number of religious broadcasting bodies, some of regional and some of worldwide proportions; among the most important are the World Association for Christian Communications, set up in 1968 and based in London, and the Association Catholique Internationale pour la Radio, la Télévision, et l’Audiovisuel, based.....
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Wacca Pilatka (Florida, United States)
city, seat (1822) of Duval county, northeastern Florida, U.S., the centre of Florida’s “First Coast” region. It lies along the St. Johns River near its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean, about 25 miles (40 km) south of the Georgia border. Jacksonville consolidated (1968) with most of Duval county and thereby became one of the ...
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Waccho (king of the Lombards)
king of the Lombards in the period preceding the invasion of Italy, when they occupied territory roughly coinciding with Austria north of the Danube River....
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Wace (Anglo-Norman author)
Anglo-Norman author of two verse chronicles, the Roman de Brut (1155) and the Roman de Rou (1160–74), named respectively after the reputed founders of the Britons and Normans....
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Wach, Joachim (German-American theologian)
Protestant theologian and one of the foremost scholars in the modern study of religion....
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Wachau (region, Austria)
There were prehistoric settlements in the Danube Gorge (Wachau), in the southeast, and in the Vienna Basin. Later, the area was part of the Roman province of Noricum and of Charlemagne’s empire. The region was granted to the Bavarian Babenberg margraves in 976; the name Ostarichi (Eastern Region) dates from that period. A permanent administrative division between Upper and Lower Austria was...
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Wachenheimer, Ferdinand Friendly (American journalist and executive)
American broadcast journalist, educator, and executive (b. Oct. 30, 1915, New York, N.Y.--d. March 3, 1998, New York), teamed with reporter Edward R. Murrow to formulate television journalism. The two men developed the news documentary and pioneered the use of original footage and unrehearsed interviews. Their partnership began in 1948 when they collaborated on I Can Hear It Now, an album s...
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Wachirayan Warot (prince of Siam)
prince-patriarch of Buddhism in Siam, who institutionalized Thai Buddhism, spread the faith in the countryside, and was his generation’s leading intellectual....
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Wachirayanwarorot (prince of Siam)
prince-patriarch of Buddhism in Siam, who institutionalized Thai Buddhism, spread the faith in the countryside, and was his generation’s leading intellectual....
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Wachmann, Abraham (Israeli architect)
The system developed by the Israeli dance theorist Noa Eshkol and the architect Abraham Wachmann was first published in English as Movement Notation in 1958. It took an anatomical and mathematical view of movement and initially had the aim of exploring the abstract shapes and designs of movement rather than recording existing dance patterns, which had been the primary......
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Wachmann, Arthur Arno (German astronomer)
short-period comet discovered photographically by the German astronomers Friedrich Carl Arnold Schwassmann and Arthur Arno Wachmann in 1927. It has the most nearly circular orbit of any comet known (eccentricity 0.131) and remains always between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, having an orbital period of 16.4 years. It is also remarkable for outbursts in its brightness, which sometimes......
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Wąchock (Poland)
...Przemysłowe, or the Old Poland Industrial Basin, which extends from the city to the Świętokrzyskie (“Holy Cross”) Mountains. Just east of the city at Wąchock, the area’s mining industry began in the 16th century, reaching its peak in the 19th. Mining operations shifted to Skarżysko-Kamienna in the mid-1940s but later fell into decline.......
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Wachovia Corp. (American company)
...Przemysłowe, or the Old Poland Industrial Basin, which extends from the city to the Świętokrzyskie (“Holy Cross”) Mountains. Just east of the city at Wąchock, the area’s mining industry began in the 16th century, reaching its peak in the 19th. Mining operations shifted to Skarżysko-Kamienna in the mid-1940s but later fell into decline........
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Wachsmann, Konrad (American architect)
German-born American architect notable for his contributions to the mass production of building components....
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wacke (sandstone)
sedimentary rock composed of sand-sized grains (0.063–2 mm [0.0025–0.078 inch]) with a fine-grained clay matrix. The sand-sized grains are frequently composed of rock fragments of wide-ranging mineralogies (e.g., those consisting of pyroxenes, amphiboles, feldspars, and quartz). The grains are angular and poorly sorted with many minerals retaining growth forms that resulted fr...
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Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich (German author)
writer and critic who was the originator, with his friend Ludwig Tieck, of some of the most important ideas of German Romanticism....
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Wacker process (chemistry)
...chemical compounds. It has been manufactured by the hydration of acetylene and by the oxidation of ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Today the dominant process for the manufacture of acetaldehyde is the Wacker process, developed between 1957 and 1959, which catalyzes the oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde. The catalyst is a two-component system consisting of palladium chloride, PdCl2,......
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Wackernagel, Jacob (Swiss linguist)
Swiss historical and comparative linguist known primarily for his monumental work on Sanskrit....
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Waclaw III (king of Bohemia and Hungary)
last king of the Přemyslid dynasty of Bohemia, king of Hungary from 1301 to 1304, and claimant to the Polish throne; his brief reign in Bohemia was cut short by his assassination, which also prevented him from asserting his right to Poland....
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Waco (aircraft)
the principal U.S.-built glider of World War II. It was used in airborne operations to deliver assault troops to their objectives in formed groups and to deliver weapons, light artillery pieces, and vehicles too bulky or heavy to be dropped by parachute. It was also used to deliver supplies. The glider was popularly referred to by the name of the company that designed and produc...
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Waco (Texas, United States)
city, seat (1850) of McLennan county, north-central Texas, U.S. Waco lies along the Brazos River, some 100 miles (160 km) south of Dallas. It was founded in 1849 on the site of a Waco (Hueco) Indian village near a Texas Ranger fort (1837) in a farming and plantation area....
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Wacousta; or, The Prophecy (work by Richardson)
...(1877), while Rosanna Leprohon’s romance Antoinette de Mirecourt; or, Secret Marrying and Secret Sorrowing (1864) depicted life in Quebec after the English conquest in 1759. In Wacousta; or, The Prophecy (1832), John Richardson portrayed the 1763 uprising led by Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa Indians, at Fort Detroit. However, James De Mille’s satiric trave...
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wad (mineralogy)
black and earthy substance that consists mainly of hydrated manganese oxides; it is an important ore of manganese. It varies considerably in chemical composition and contains different impurities, often in large amounts. Wad is very soft, readily soils the fingers, and may be considered to be a mixture chiefly of pyrolusite and romanechite. It results from the decomposition of o...
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Wad Madanī (The Sudan)
city, east-central Sudan. Wad Madanī lies on the west bank of the Blue Nile, 85 miles (136 km) southeast of Khartoum, at an elevation of 1,348 feet (411 metres). It owes its recent growth to the irrigated lands of the Jazīrah (Gezira) irrigation scheme and is the commercial centre of the al-Jazīrah cotton-growing area. Peanuts (groundnuts) and wheat are also...
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Wadai (region, Chad)
historic and cultural region in eastern Chad, central Africa. The chief town of the region is Abéché. The region’s area of savanna grasslands roughly corresponds to the formerly independent Ouaddaï Muslim sultanate (see Wadai, Kingdom of)....
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Wadai (ancient kingdom, Africa)
historical African kingdom east of Lake Chad and west of Darfur, in what is now the Ouaddaï region of eastern Chad. It was founded in the 16th century, and a Muslim dynasty was established there about 1630. Long subordinate to Darfur, it became independent by the 1790s and began a period of rapid expansion, chiefly at the expense of the Bornu kingdom to the west. Its pro...
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Wadd (Arabian deity)
...who was worshiped throughout South Arabia, each kingdom had its own national god, of whom the nation called itself the “progeny” (wld). In Sabaʾ the national god was Almaqah (or Ilmuqah), a protector of artificial irrigation, lord of the temple of the Sabaean federation of tribes, near the capital Maʾrib. Until recently Almaqah was considered to be a moon......
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wadden (tidal mud flat)
...Periodic subsidence, storms, and flooding have since produced this long chain of islands separated from the mainland by the narrow belt of shallow waters and tidal mud flats generally called wadden in Dutch (German: Watten)....
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Waddenzee (inlet, The Netherlands)
shallow inlet of the North Sea between the West Frisian Islands and the northern Netherlands mainland. The inlet extends from Noord-Holland to the northeast, where the islands gradually curve toward the mainland and the channel narrows to a few miles. Until the completion of the IJsselmeer dam (Afsluitdijk), Waddenzee formed the northern part of the former Zuiderzee. A saltwater tidal delta, the ...
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wadding (fabric)
...creating a quilt top, usually assembled of blocks made by cutting patches then stitching them together or by appliquéing cut-out shapes onto a backing. See appliqué; patchwork. Batting, or wadding, made of cotton, polyester, wool, or flannel is layered sandwich-style between the quilt top and backing. The three layers are basted or pinned together, and the quilting design......
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Waddington, C. H. (British embryologist)
British embryologist, geneticist, and philosopher of science....
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Waddington, Conrad Hal (British embryologist)
British embryologist, geneticist, and philosopher of science....
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Waddington, Mount (mountain, North America)
...Yukon Territory, Can., along the border of the panhandle of Alaska, U.S., to the Fraser River. Many peaks exceed 11,000 feet (3,400 m), including Monarch Mountain and Mounts Munday, Tiedemann, and Waddington. The last, at 13,176 feet (4,016 m), is the highest point in the range. Many glaciers have carved canyonlike valleys, resulting in the formation of numerous fjords along the Pacific coast.....
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Waddington, William Henry (French diplomat and politician)
French scholar, diplomat, and politician. His appointment as French premier by the moderate Republicans, largely because of his cautious and colourless personality, marked the beginning of a trend in the Third Republic toward the exclusion from power of outstanding men....
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Wade, Abdoulaye (Senegalese politician)
Following four unsuccessful attempts to gain high office, on April 1, 2000, Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) leader Abdoulaye Wade was sworn in as Senegal’s third president; his election signaled a major power shift in the country, which had been ruled by the Socialist Party (PS) since gaining independence from France in 1960. In the first round of elections on February 27, Wade secured on...
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Wade, Arthur Sarsfield (British writer)
internationally popular British writer who created the sinister Chinese criminal genius Fu Manchu, the hero-villain of many novels. The character Fu Manchu later appeared in motion pictures, radio, and television....
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Wade, Benjamin F. (American politician)
U.S. senator during the Civil War whose radical views brought him into conflict with presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson....
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Wade, Benjamin Franklin (American politician)
U.S. senator during the Civil War whose radical views brought him into conflict with presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson....
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Wade, George Edward (British comedian)
English music-hall comedian known for many years as “the prime minister of mirth.”...
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Wade, Henry Menasco (American lawyer)
American attorney and prosecutor (b. Nov. 11, 1914, Rockwall, Texas—d. March 1, 2001, Dallas, Texas), served as district attorney of Dallas county from 1951 to 1987; he attracted national attention for his prosecution of Jack Ruby and for his role in the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. After Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin, in 1963...
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Wade, Marion E. (American businessman)
The company was founded by former minor league baseball player Marion E. Wade, who opened a mothproofing business in 1929. After recovering from temporary blindness caused by a chemical accident in 1945, Wade was inspired to create a company that viewed “each employee and customer as being made in God’s image—worthy of dignity and respect.”...
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Wade, Sir Thomas Francis (British diplomat)
British diplomatist and Sinologist who developed the famous Wade-Giles system of romanizing the Chinese language....
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Wade, Virginia (British athlete)
The first open tournament was the British Hard Courts at Bournemouth in April 1968, where the champions were Ken Rosewall and Virginia Wade. The first open Wimbledon was a joyous occasion, as many past champions who had been stripped of membership in the All England Club when they turned professional were welcomed back. The total prize money was £26,150 ($62,760), of which £2,000......
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Wade, Wenger and Associates (American company)
American holding company specializing in home and commercial services such as lawn care and landscaping, cleaning, plumbing, home security, and home inspection. It is characterized by a philosophy that combines goals of economic success with a mandate for “honouring God in every transaction.”...
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Wade-Davis Bill (United States [1864])
(1864), unsuccessful attempt by Radical Republicans and others in the U.S. Congress to set Reconstruction policy before the end of the Civil War. The bill, sponsored by senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry W. Davis, provided for the appointment of provisional military governors in the seceded states. When a majority of a state’s white citizens swore allegiance to the Unio...
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Wade-Giles romanization (Chinese language)
system of romanizing the modern Chinese written language, originally devised to simplify Chinese-language characters for the Western world. Initiated by Sir Thomas Francis Wade, the system was modified by the University of Cambridge professor Herbert Allen Giles in his Chinese-English Dictionary (1912). With Giles’s syllabic cha...
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wader
any member of the suborder Charadrii (order Charadriiformes) that is commonly found on sea beaches or inland mudflats; in Britain they are called waders, or wading birds. Shorebirds include the avocet, courser, lapwing, oystercatcher, phalarope, plover, pratincole, ...
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Wade’s rules (chemistry)
...and some resembling spiderwebs (the arachno-boranes). Which type of structure is obtained correlates with the number of valence electrons in the molecule, and the correlation is expressed by Wade’s rules. These rules are empirical, but they can be justified by a consideration of the numbers of 3c,2e and ordinary 2c,2e bonds that are needed in each type of structure. They constitut...
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Wadgaon, battle of (Indian history [1779])
The first war (1775–82) began with British support for Raghunath Rāo’s bid for the office of peshwa (chief minister) of the confederacy. The British were defeated at Wadgaon (see Wadgaon, Convention of ) in January 1779, but they continued to fight the Marāṭhā until conclusion of the Treaty of Salbai (May 1782); the sole British gain was the island ...
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Wadgaon, Convention of (Great Britain-Marāṭhās [1779])
(Jan. 13, 1779), compact concluded after the First Marāthā War in India (1775–82), marking the end of British efforts to intervene in Marāthā affairs by making Raghunath Rāo peshwa (the nominal leader of the Marāthā Confederacy) or at least regent for his infant great-nephew....
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