-
Debasien, Mount (mountain, Uganda)
The northeastern border of the plateau is defined by a string of volcanic mountains that include Mounts Morungole, Moroto, and Kadam, all of which exceed 9,000 feet (2,750 metres) in elevation. The southernmost mountain—Mount Elgon—is also the highest of the chain, reaching 14,178 feet (4,321 metres). South and west of these mountains is an eastern extension of the Rift Valley, as......
-
debasilectalization (linguistics)
...American Southeast, or a descendant of 17th-century West African Pidgin English. The possibility that the structure of modern Ebonics is the result of decreolization has also been widely studied. (Decreolization, or debasilectalization, is the process by which a vernacular loses its basilectal, or “creole,” features under the influence of the language from which it inherited most....
-
débat (literature)
a type of literary composition popular especially in medieval times in which two or more usually allegorical characters discuss or debate some subject, most often a question of love, morality, or politics, and then refer the question to a judge. A tenson is a specific type of débat. A débat may also be an extended discussion, debate, or philosophical argument between two characters i...
-
Débat de Folie et d’Amour (work by Labé)
...remarkable for their emotional intensity and their stylistic simplicity and which probably relate to her passion for the poet Olivier de Magny. The same volume also contained a prose dialogue, Débat de Folie et d’Amour (“Debate of Love and Folly”)....
-
debate (rhetoric)
formal, oral confrontation between two individuals, teams, or groups who present arguments to support opposing sides of a question, generally according to a set form or procedure....
-
Debates in the Senate of Magna Lilliputia (work by Johnson)
...was not without risk because reporting the proceedings of Parliament, which had long been prohibited, was actually punished since the spring of 1738. The series was dubbed Debates in the Senate of Magna Lilliputia, and this Swiftian expedient gives the speeches satiric overtones. Their status was complicated by the fact that Johnson, who had visited the House of....
-
debayashi (Japanese music)
Kabuki as theatre is discussed below in the section Dance and theatre: The development of dance and theatre in the East Asian nations. Its musical events can be divided into onstage activities (debayashi) and offstage groups (geza). In plays derived from puppet dramas, the gidayū musicians, called here the chobo, are placed on their traditional platform......
-
Debba Habe (Nigeria)
town, Bauchi State, northeastern Nigeria, on the road from Gombe to Numan. It was captured about 1810 by Buba Yero, the first Fulani emir of Gombe, and is still one of the largest towns in the Gombe area. A collecting point for peanuts (groundnuts) and cotton, it also serves as a trade centre (sorghum, millet, cowpeas, cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys) for Fulani, Hausa, Tera, and ...
-
Debbora (biblical figure)
prophet and heroine in the Old Testament (Judg. 4 and 5), who inspired the Israelites to a mighty victory over their Canaanite oppressors (the people who lived in the Promised Land, later Palestine, that Moses spoke of before its conquest by the Israelites); the “Song of Deborah” (Judg. 5), putatively composed by her, is perhaps the oldest section of the Bible and ...
-
Debe Habe (Nigeria)
town, Bauchi State, northeastern Nigeria, on the road from Gombe to Numan. It was captured about 1810 by Buba Yero, the first Fulani emir of Gombe, and is still one of the largest towns in the Gombe area. A collecting point for peanuts (groundnuts) and cotton, it also serves as a trade centre (sorghum, millet, cowpeas, cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys) for Fulani, Hausa, Tera, and ...
-
Debed (river, Armenia)
...tributaries, the Akhuryan (130 miles), the Hrazdan (90 miles), the Arpa (80 miles), and the Vorotan (Bargyushad; 111 miles), serve to irrigate most of Armenia. The tributaries of the Kura—the Debed (109 miles), the Aghstev (80 miles), and others—pass through Armenia’s northeastern regions. Lake Sevan, with a capacity in excess of 9 cubic miles (39 cubic kilometres) of water...
-
DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. (South African company)
world’s largest producer and distributor of diamonds. Headquarters are in Johannesburg, S.Af....
-
Debellacyon (work by More)
...faith, defending England’s antiheresy laws and his own handling of heretics, both as magistrate and as writer, in two books of 1533: the Apology and the Debellacyon. He also laughs away the accusation of greed leveled by William Tyndale, translator of parts of the first printed English Bible. More’s poverty was so notorious that th...
-
deben (unit of weight)
...to have been founded on a unit called the kite, with a decimal ratio, 10 kites equaling 1 deben and 10 debens equaling 1 sep. Over the long duration of Egyptian history, the weight of the ......
-
debenture (finance)
...bonds may be secured by a lien against real estate (mortgage bonds) or other property, such as equipment (equipment obligations) owned by the borrower. If the bond is unsecured, it is known as a debenture bond....
-
debenture bond (finance)
...bonds may be secured by a lien against real estate (mortgage bonds) or other property, such as equipment (equipment obligations) owned by the borrower. If the bond is unsecured, it is known as a debenture bond....
-
debenture stock (finance)
loan contract issued by a company or public body specifying an obligation to return borrowed funds and pay interest, secured by all or part of the company’s property. Certificates specifying the amount of stock, with coupons for interest attached, are usually issued to the lenders. The interests of the stockholders may be protected by a trust deed naming a trustee who acts on behalf of the...
-
Debestēvs (Baltic god)
in Baltic religion, the sky god. Dievs and Laima, the goddess of human fate, determine human destiny and world order. Dievs is a wooer of Saule, the sun. As pictured by the pre-Christian Balts, he is an Iron Age Baltic king who lives on a farmstead in the sky. Wearing a silver gown, pendants, and a sword, he occasionally rides down to earth, on horseback or in...
-
debide (Gaelic literature)
...found in early Welsh. The quatrain (seven or eight syllables to a line and rhyme between second and fourth lines) was derived from Latin hymn metres. The quatrains of the later popular metre, the debide (literally “cut in two”), consisted of two couplets with the two lines of each couplet rhyming....
-
Debije, Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus (American physical chemist)
physical chemist whose investigations of dipole moments, X rays, and light scattering in gases brought him the 1936 Nobel Prize for Chemistry....
-
Debir (ancient city, West Bank)
ancient town of Palestine, located near Hebron in the West Bank. According to the Bible, the town was taken from the Canaanites either by Caleb’s son-in-law Othniel or by Joshua himself. Tall Bayt Mirsham (Tell Beit Mirsim) was excavated (1926–32) by W.F. Albright, who uncovered exceptionally clear stratifica...
-
Debit and Credit (work by Freytag)
...The Journalists), still regarded as one of the most successful German comedies, and he acquired an international reputation with his widely translated novel Soll und Haben (1855; Debit and Credit, 1857). It celebrates the solid bourgeois qualities of the German merchants, and the close relationships between people’s characters and the work they do is well brought out...
-
debit card
small card, similar to a credit card, offering means of paying for a purchase through transfer of funds from the purchaser’s bank account to the vendor. Financial institutions that process these transactions benefit from cheaper transaction costs (it is more expensive for banks to process transactions paid with checks) and immediate payment. Although the financial institu...
-
Déblaiement d’art (work by van de Velde)
...and in initials and decorations by Henry van de Velde in Belgium and Germany. Van de Velde, the leading spokesman for the movement as well as one of its most skilled practitioners, in his essay “Déblaiement d’art” (1892) advocated the development of a new art, one that would be both vital and moral, like the great decorative arts of the past, but that would use......
-
déblé (African art)
wooden figure carved in the form of a woman by the Senufo people of West Africa and used as a “rhythm pounder” in certain rituals performed to promote the fertility of the soil. Initiates of the Poro (or Lo) male secret society, performing their fertility dance, held the figures by the upper arms and pounded their heavy bases on the ground in unison to mark the rhythm. They also pla...
-
Débo, Lac (lake, Mali)
situated in central Mali on a section of the Niger River between Mopti, located 50 mi (80 km) to the south, and Timbuktu, 150 mi to the northeast. In this region the Niger is joined by many lakes, creeks, and backwaters; at high water, Lac Débo becomes part of a general inundation....
-
deboning (food processing)
Further processed poultry products leave the backs, necks, and bones available for their own processing. These materials are run through a machine called a mechanical deboner or a meat-bone separator. In general, the crushed meat and bones are continuously pressed against a screen and the edible, soft materials pushed through the screen. The resulting minced product is similar in texture to......
-
Deborah (biblical figure)
prophet and heroine in the Old Testament (Judg. 4 and 5), who inspired the Israelites to a mighty victory over their Canaanite oppressors (the people who lived in the Promised Land, later Palestine, that Moses spoke of before its conquest by the Israelites); the “Song of Deborah” (Judg. 5), putatively composed by her, is perhaps the oldest section of the Bible and ...
-
Deborah, Song of (Old Testament)
...to a mighty victory over their Canaanite oppressors (the people who lived in the Promised Land, later Palestine, that Moses spoke of before its conquest by the Israelites); the “Song of Deborah” (Judg. 5), putatively composed by her, is perhaps the oldest section of the Bible and is of great importance for providing a contemporary glimpse of Israelite civilization in the 12th......
-
Deborin, Abram Moiseyevich (Russian philosopher)
Russian Marxist philosopher who advocated Hegelian dialectics....
-
Debray, Régis (French revolutionary-philosopher)
...warfare with emphasis on the use of collective terrorism. Fired by the quasi-anarchistic teachings of German American political philosopher Herbert Marcuse, French revolutionary-philosopher Régis Debray, and others and armed with a do-it-yourself manual of murder (Carlos Marighela, For the Liberation of Brazil [1970]), New Left revolutionaries embraced......
-
DeBrazza’s monkey (primate)
large brightly coloured guenon widely distributed through central Africa and into Ethiopia and western Kenya, particularly in forests near rivers and swamps. DeBrazza’s monkey is a white-bearded primate with speckled yellow-gray fur and a white stripe along each thigh. Hands, feet, and tail are black. On the forehead is a browband of white-tipped red ha...
-
Debré, Michel (French politician)
French political leader, a close aide of President Charles de Gaulle; after playing a prominent part in the writing of the constitution of the Fifth Republic, he served as its first premier....
-
Debré, Michel-Jean-Pierre (French politician)
French political leader, a close aide of President Charles de Gaulle; after playing a prominent part in the writing of the constitution of the Fifth Republic, he served as its first premier....
-
Debré, Olivier (French painter)
French abstract painter best known for his large-format commissions, including huge ornamental paintings for the French pavilions at the World’s Fairs in Montreal (1967) and Osaka, Japan (1970), and the stage curtains for the Hong Kong Opera, the Shanghai Opera, and both the Comédie Française and the Théâtre des Abbesses in Paris (b. April 14/15, 1920, Paris, Fra...
-
Debrecen (Hungary)
city of county status and seat of Hajdú-Bihar megye (county). One of the most important cities in eastern Hungary, Debrecen is situated on the southwestern extremity of the sandy plain of the Nyírség region and on the eastern end of the Hortobágy puszta (steppe). It has a long history as a market centre and a...
-
Debrett’s Peerage (British periodical)
guide to the British peerage (titled aristocracy), first published in London in 1802 by John Debrett as Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Debrett’s Peerage contains information about the royal family, the peerage, Privy Counsellors, Scottish Lords of Session, baronets, and chiefs of names and clans in Scotland. Although the revised ...
-
“Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage” (British periodical)
guide to the British peerage (titled aristocracy), first published in London in 1802 by John Debrett as Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Debrett’s Peerage contains information about the royal family, the peerage, Privy Counsellors, Scottish Lords of Session, baronets, and chiefs of names and clans in Scotland. Although the revised ...
-
Debreu, Gerard (French-American economist)
French-born American economist, who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Economics for his fundamental contribution to the theory of general equilibrium....
-
debridement (medicine)
...surgery performed under aseptic conditions. Now they found themselves faced with the need to treat large numbers of grossly contaminated wounds in improvised theatres. They rediscovered debridement (the surgical excision of dead and dying tissue and the removal of foreign matter)....
-
debris avalanche (geology)
...gravity, and land on a surface from which they bounce and fall farther. Falls of large volume can trap enough air to facilitate the very rapid flow of rock or debris, forming rock avalanches and debris avalanches, respectively. Entrapped snow and ice may also help mobilize such flows, but the unqualified term avalanche is generally used to refer only to an avalanche of snow.......
-
Debs, Eugene V. (American social and labour leader)
labour organizer and Socialist Party candidate for U.S. president five times between 1900 and 1920....
-
Debs, Eugene Victor (American social and labour leader)
labour organizer and Socialist Party candidate for U.S. president five times between 1900 and 1920....
-
debt (economics)
After World War II it was thought that developing countries would require foreign aid in their early stages of development. This aid would supplement the capital created by domestic savings, permitting a higher rate of investment and thus stimulating growth. It was expected that their reliance on official sources of additional capital would continue until their economies had progressed enough......
-
Debt AIDS Trade Africa (international organization)
...his time between fronting his remarkably durable band and meeting with presidents, prime ministers, economists, ministers, scientists, and philanthropists, Bono eventually helped found in 2002 Debt AIDS Trade Africa (DATA), a policy and advocacy organization that seeks to eradicate poverty, hunger, and the spread of AIDS in Africa through public awareness campaigns and in-country......
-
debt bondage
A person became an indentured servant by borrowing money and then voluntarily agreeing to work off the debt during a specified term. In some societies indentured servants probably differed little from debt slaves (i.e., persons who initially were unable to pay off obligations and thus were forced to work them off at an amount per year specified by law). Debt slaves, however, were......
-
debt cancellation
...for new loans and grants. Owing to Mozambique’s success with economic reform programs, as well as the considerable amount of money it spent on debt servicing, Mozambique benefited from several debt-forgiveness plans beginning in the 1990s and continuing into the early 2000s....
-
debt ceiling (economics)
Efforts have been made in some countries to set restrictions on government borrowing through legislative acts. In the United States, fear of excessive borrowing has resulted in restrictions on the amounts the executive, and even the legislative branches of government, can borrow. When many states found themselves in financial difficulties after borrowing heavily to provide funds for canals and......
-
debt forgiveness
...for new loans and grants. Owing to Mozambique’s success with economic reform programs, as well as the considerable amount of money it spent on debt servicing, Mozambique benefited from several debt-forgiveness plans beginning in the 1990s and continuing into the early 2000s....
-
debt limit (economics)
Efforts have been made in some countries to set restrictions on government borrowing through legislative acts. In the United States, fear of excessive borrowing has resulted in restrictions on the amounts the executive, and even the legislative branches of government, can borrow. When many states found themselves in financial difficulties after borrowing heavily to provide funds for canals and......
-
debt, national (economics)
The ingredient of economic crisis that attracted widest attention was Latin America’s inability to maintain full service on its foreign debt, which had grown to dangerously high levels. Both Mexico and Venezuela, as major petroleum exporters, benefited from rising international oil prices during the 1970s, but, instead of concluding that foreign credit was no longer necessary, they assumed ...
-
debt, public
obligations of governments, particularly those evidenced by securities, to pay certain sums to the holders at some future time. Public debt is distinguished from private debt, which consists of the obligations of individuals, business firms, and nongovernmental organizations....
-
debt relief
...for new loans and grants. Owing to Mozambique’s success with economic reform programs, as well as the considerable amount of money it spent on debt servicing, Mozambique benefited from several debt-forgiveness plans beginning in the 1990s and continuing into the early 2000s....
-
debt slavery
A person became an indentured servant by borrowing money and then voluntarily agreeing to work off the debt during a specified term. In some societies indentured servants probably differed little from debt slaves (i.e., persons who initially were unable to pay off obligations and thus were forced to work them off at an amount per year specified by law). Debt slaves, however, were......
-
debt-for-nature swap (environmentalism)
...habitat for the world’s peoples, both urban and rural, including clean water, clean air, healthful food, and rewarding recreation areas. Among the WWF’s notable achievements is its use of debt-for-nature swaps, in which an organization buys some of a country’s foreign debt at a discount, converts the money to local currency, and then uses it to finance conservation efforts....
-
debtara (Ethiopian clergy)
...to a chanter named Yared, who composed the entire body of hymns (since revised) that is found in the six books of chants. The first known manuscripts, however, date to the 14th century. The debtara, an unordained member of the clergy, is well versed in the Ethiopian church rituals, in aspects of the liturgy, and in the scriptures; he is also trained to distinguish the subtleties of......
-
debtera (Ethiopian clergy)
...to a chanter named Yared, who composed the entire body of hymns (since revised) that is found in the six books of chants. The first known manuscripts, however, date to the 14th century. The debtara, an unordained member of the clergy, is well versed in the Ethiopian church rituals, in aspects of the liturgy, and in the scriptures; he is also trained to distinguish the subtleties of......
-
debtor (law)
relationship existing between two persons in which one, the debtor, can be compelled to furnish services, money, or goods to the other, the creditor. This relationship may be created by the failure of the debtor to pay damages to the injured party or to pay a fine to the community; however, the relationship usually implies that the debtor has received something from the creditor, in return for......
-
debtor-creditor relationship (law)
relationship existing between two persons in which one, the debtor, can be compelled to furnish services, money, or goods to the other, the creditor. This relationship may be created by the failure of the debtor to pay damages to the injured party or to pay a fine to the community; however, the relationship usually implies that the debtor has received somethin...
-
debts, discharge of (law)
...Latin-American countries, by contrast, did not have such provisions. In the late 20th century, however, legislation in some of these countries (e.g., Argentina and France) provided for the discharge of the unpaid portion of pre-bankruptcy creditors under certain conditions....
-
Debucourt, Philibert-Louis (French painter)
The French painter and engraver Philibert-Louis Debucourt might have equalled Rowlandson if he had not been so occupied with the intricacies of colour prints; but he produced a few superb cartoons of the Paris of his day, full of caricatures of fashionable personages....
-
debugging (computer science)
...translators (either assemblers or compilers), which transform an entire program from one language to another; interpreters, which execute a program sequentially, translating at each step; and debuggers, which execute a program piecemeal and monitor various circumstances, enabling the programmer to check whether the operation of the program is correct or not....
-
Debundscha Point (Cameroon)
...from December to May. The north, however, has a dry season only from October to May and an average annual rainfall of about 30 inches. The wettest part of the country lies in the western highlands. Debundscha Point on Mount Cameroon has a mean annual rainfall of more than 400 inches—an average attained by only two other locations in the world—most of which falls from May to......
-
Deburau, Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard (French mime)
Bohemian-born French pantomime actor, who transformed the character of Pierrot in the traditional harlequinade....
-
Deburau, Jean-Gaspard (French mime)
Bohemian-born French pantomime actor, who transformed the character of Pierrot in the traditional harlequinade....
-
Debureau, Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard (French mime)
Bohemian-born French pantomime actor, who transformed the character of Pierrot in the traditional harlequinade....
-
DeBusschere, Dave (American athlete)
American basketball player (b. Oct. 16, 1940, Detroit, Mich. —d. May 14, 2003, New York, N.Y.), became the youngest coach in National Basketball Association (NBA) history when at age 24 he became player-coach for the Detroit Pistons; he later provided tenacious defense and sturdy rebounding during six seasons as a forward with the New York Knicks, and he went on to become an executive with ...
-
DeBusschere, David Albert (American athlete)
American basketball player (b. Oct. 16, 1940, Detroit, Mich. —d. May 14, 2003, New York, N.Y.), became the youngest coach in National Basketball Association (NBA) history when at age 24 he became player-coach for the Detroit Pistons; he later provided tenacious defense and sturdy rebounding during six seasons as a forward with the New York Knicks, and he went on to become an executive with ...
-
Debussy, Achille-Claude (French composer)
French composer whose works have been a seminal force in the music of the 20th century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired. His major works include Clair de lune (“Moonlight,” in ...
-
Debussy, Claude (French composer)
French composer whose works have been a seminal force in the music of the 20th century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired. His major works include Clair de lune (“Moonlight,” in ...
-
Debut (album by Björk)
After moving to London, Björk released Debut, her first international solo album, in 1993. It was a departure from the harder-edged sound of the Sugarcubes and included a wide variety of musical styles ranging from techno-pop to jazz. Debut produced a number of hit singles, including Big Time Sensuality......
-
Déby, Idriss (president of Chad)
...continued to face threats to his regime. In April 1989 an unsuccessful coup attempt was led by the interior minister, Brahim Mahamot Itno, and two key military advisers, Hassan Djamouss and Idriss Déby. Itno was arrested and Djamouss was killed, but Déby escaped and began new attacks a year later. By late 1990 his Movement for Chadian National Salvation forces had captured......
-
debye (unit of measurement)
...at one end of a molecule is of the order of 10-10 esu; the distance between charges is of the order of 10-8 centimetres (cm). Dipole moments, therefore, usually are measured in debyes (one debye is 10-18 esu-cm). For nonpolar molecules, μ = 0....
-
debye length (physics)
The time τ required for an oscillation of this type is the most important temporal parameter in a plasma. The main spatial parameter is the Debye length, h, which is the distance traveled by the average thermal electron in time τ/2π. A plasma can be defined in terms of these parameters as a partially or fully ionized gas that satisfies the following criteria: (1) a cons...
-
Debye, Peter (American physical chemist)
physical chemist whose investigations of dipole moments, X rays, and light scattering in gases brought him the 1936 Nobel Prize for Chemistry....
-
Debye, Peter Joseph William (American physical chemist)
physical chemist whose investigations of dipole moments, X rays, and light scattering in gases brought him the 1936 Nobel Prize for Chemistry....
-
Debye-Hückel equation (chemistry)
a mathematical expression derived to elucidate certain properties of solutions of electrolytes, that is, substances present in the solutions in the form of charged particles (ions). Such solutions often behave as if the number of dissolved particles were greater or less than the number actually present; the Debye-Hückel equation takes into account the interactions between...
-
Debye-Scherrer method (physics)
Swiss physicist who collaborated with Peter Debye in the development of a method of X-ray diffraction analysis. The Debye–Scherrer method is widely used to identify materials that do not readily form large, perfect crystals....
-
DEC (American company)
American manufacturer that created a new line of low-cost computers, known as minicomputers, especially for use in laboratories and research institutions. Founded in 1957, the company employed more than 120,000 people worldwide at its peak in 1990 and earned more than $14 billion in revenue. It was bought by Compaq Computer Corporation in 1998....
-
decacarbonyldimanganese (chemical compound)
Many other metal carbonyls contain two or more metal atoms, such as decacarbonyldimanganese and octacarbonyldicobalt, shown here....
-
década de Césares, La (work by Guevara)
...familiares (1539–42; “Familiar Letters”), Menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea (1539; “Scorn of Court Life and Praise of Village Life”), and La década de Césares (1539; “The Ten Caesars”), a rather shallow historical work—also managed to achieve popularity during his lifetime. His work is now consider...
-
decadal climate variation
Climate varies on decadal timescales, with multiyear clusters of wet, dry, cool, or warm conditions. These multiyear clusters can have dramatic effects on human activities and welfare. For instance, a severe three-year drought in the late 16th century probably contributed to the destruction of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Lost Colony” at Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina, ...
-
decadal variation
Climate varies on decadal timescales, with multiyear clusters of wet, dry, cool, or warm conditions. These multiyear clusters can have dramatic effects on human activities and welfare. For instance, a severe three-year drought in the late 16th century probably contributed to the destruction of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Lost Colony” at Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina, ...
-
Décadas da Ásia (work by Barros)
...(now Melaka). Yet in 1552 it was still a port of call from which St. Francis Xavier dispatched letters to Goa, and João de Barros described its busy shipping activity in his history Décadas da Ásia (1552–1615)....
-
décade (French chronology)
The seven-day week was abandoned, and each 30-day month was divided into three periods of 10 days called décades, the last day of a décade being a rest day. It was also agreed that each day should be divided into decimal parts, but this was not popular in practice and was allowed to fall into disuse....
-
decadence (literature)
a period of decline or deterioration of art or literature that follows an era of great achievement. Examples include the Silver Age of Latin literature, which began about ad 18 following the end of the Golden Age, and the Decadent movement at the end of the 19th century in France and England. ...
-
Decadent (literary movement)
any of several poets or other writers of the end of the 19th century, including the French Symbolist poets in particular and their contemporaries in England, the later generation of the Aesthetic movement. Both groups aspired to set literature and art free from the materialistic preoccupations of industrialized society, and, in both, the freedom of some members’ morals helped to enlarge the...
-
Décadent (literary movement)
any of several poets or other writers of the end of the 19th century, including the French Symbolist poets in particular and their contemporaries in England, the later generation of the Aesthetic movement. Both groups aspired to set literature and art free from the materialistic preoccupations of industrialized society, and, in both, the freedom of some members’ morals helped to enlarge the...
-
Décadent, Le (French literary magazine)
...d’Adoré Floupette (1885; “The Corruption of Adoré Floupette”), by Gabriel Vicaire and Henri Beauclair. From 1886 to 1889 appeared a review, Le Décadent, founded by Anatole Baju, with Verlaine among its contributors. The Decadents claimed Charles Baudelaire (d. 1867) as their inspiration and counted Arthur Rimb...
-
Decadentism (Italian artistic movement)
Italian artistic movement that derived its name but not all its characteristics from the French and English Decadents, who flourished in the last 10 years of the 19th century. Writers of the Italian movement, which did not have the cohesion usual in such cases, generally reacted to positivism with individual stresses on instinct, the irrational, the subconscious, and the individ...
-
Decadentismo (Italian artistic movement)
Italian artistic movement that derived its name but not all its characteristics from the French and English Decadents, who flourished in the last 10 years of the 19th century. Writers of the Italian movement, which did not have the cohesion usual in such cases, generally reacted to positivism with individual stresses on instinct, the irrational, the subconscious, and the individ...
-
decadrachm (ancient coin)
In Sicily the defeat of Carthage in 480 bc may have been commemorated by the famous decadrachms (Demareteia) associated with Queen Demarete, wife of King Gelon. These superb and now very rare examples of early classical genius showed on the obverse the head of Arethusa (the fountain nymph of Syracusan Ortygia), wreathed (possibly for victory), and on the reverse a chariot abov...
-
decaffeination
Caffeine can be removed from the green coffee by a variety of methods. In the most common, solvent extraction, the beans are steamed to raise the moisture content and bring the dissolved caffeine to the surface of the beans. They are then washed by an organic solvent such as methylene chloride, the solution is removed by steam, and the beans are dried....
-
Decaisne, Joseph (French botanist)
After receiving a law degree in 1838, Thuret began to study botany under Joseph Decaisne. He became interested in the history and behaviour of the marine algae and in about 1840 described the flagella (whiplike structures) of the spermatozoids (male sex cells) of the green alga Chara. In 1844 Decaisne and Thuret announced the finding of spermatozoids in the brown marine alga......
-
decal (art)
design that is printed on specially prepared paper to form a film that can be transferred to any surface. Such films are widely used for decorating and labeling any objects that cannot be run through a press....
-
decalcomania (art)
design that is printed on specially prepared paper to form a film that can be transferred to any surface. Such films are widely used for decorating and labeling any objects that cannot be run through a press....
-
“Decalogue” (Polish television series)
Kieślowski’s mammoth Dekalog (1989; Decalogue), cowritten with Piesiewicz, is a series made for Polish television based on the Ten Commandments. One commandment is explored in each of the 10 hour-long episodes; the commandments are not identified so that the audience is invited to identify the moral or ethical conflict in the plot. The series was shown in its entirety a...
-
Decalogue (Old Testament)
(Greek deka logoi, “10 words”), list of religious precepts that, according to various passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy, were divinely revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai and were engraved on two tablets of stone. The Commandments are recorded virtually identically in Ex. 20: 2–17 and Deut. 5: 6–21. The render...
-
Decameron (work by Boccaccio)
Other frames are an integral part of the tales. Boccaccio’s Decameron, for example, presents a frame story centred on 10 people fleeing the Black Death who gather in the countryside and as an amusement relate 10 stories each; the stories are woven together by a common theme, the way of life of the refined bourgeoisie, who combined respect for conventions with an open-minded attitude ...
-
decametre radiation (physics)
The intermittent radio emission at the decametre wavelengths has been studied from Earth in the accessible range of 3.5–39.5 megahertz. Free of Earth’s ionosphere, which blocks lower frequencies from reaching the surface, the radio-wave experiment on the Voyager spacecraft was able to detect emissions from Jupiter down to 60 kilohertz, corresponding to a wavelength of 5 km. The stren...
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.