Skip this Advertisement

A-Z Browse

  • fetal period (biology)
    in mammals, the time between conception and birth, during which the embryo or fetus is developing in the uterus. This definition raises occasional difficulties because in some species (e.g., monkeys and man) the exact time of conception may not be known. In these cases the beginning of gestation is usually dated from some well-defined point in the reproductive cycle (e.g., the begin...
  • Fetcani (South African history)
    The upheaval affected the southern chiefdoms and rebellious tributaries attacked by Shaka as far away as Pondoland. Many of the refugees fled either into the eastern Cape or west onto the Highveld, although their precise number is a matter of dispute. In both areas the arrival of the refugees added to upheavals of very different origin. The Mfengu, as the refugee population was known in the......
  • fetch (oceanography)
    area of ocean or lake surface over which the wind blows in an essentially constant direction, thus generating waves. The term also is used as a synonym for fetch length, which is the horizontal distance over which wave-generating winds blow. In an enclosed body of water, fetch is also defined as the distance between the points of minimum and maximum water-surface elevation. This line generally co...
  • fetch-decode-execute cycle (computing)
    ...both are fetched from memory by the CPU. The CPU has a program counter that holds the memory address (location) of the next instruction to be executed. The basic operation of the CPU is the “fetch-decode-execute” cycle: Fetch the instruction from the address held in the program counter, and store it in a register.Decode the instruction. Parts of it specify the operation to be......
  • fête champêtre (painting)
    (French: “rural festival”), in painting, representation of a rural feast or open-air entertainment. Although the term fête galante (“courtship party”) is sometimes considered to be a synonym for fête champêtre, it is also used to refer to a specific kind of fête champêtre: a more graceful, u...
  • Fête du Trône (Moroccan holiday)
    ...promulgated to help the protectorate, but, instead, it divided the country and accelerated nationalism. Wanting to make Muḥammad a national symbol, the Moroccan nationalists organized the Fête du Trône (Throne Day), an annual festival to commemorate the anniversary of Muḥammad’s assumption of power. On these occasions he gave speeches that, though moderate in ...
  • fête galante (painting)
    ...of the French artist Claude Gillot all provided important source material for early Rococo painting. The delicate sketchlike technique and elegant figures of Watteau’s wistful fantasies, called fêtes galantes, provided the models for the paintings of Jean-Baptiste Pater and Nicolas Lancret, both of whom conveyed a delicately veiled eroticism. Eroticism was more explicit in ...
  • Fête Nationale (Swiss holiday)
    ...there are various harvest and wine festivals. A popular holiday in Geneva is the Escalade, which is celebrated in December and marks the city’s victory over the duke of Savoy in 1602. August 1 is National Day (German: Bundesfeier; French: Fête Nationale; and Italian: Festa Nazionale), which commemorates the agreement between representatives of the Alpine cantons of Uri, Schwyz, an...
  • Fête Nationale du Québec (Canadian holiday)
    official holiday of Quebec, Canada. Observed on June 24, the holiday marks the summer solstice and honours the patron saint of French Canadians—Jean Baptiste, or John the Baptist....
  • Fêtes galantes (poems by Verlaine)
    ...included poignant expressions of love and melancholy supposedly centred on his cousin Élisa, who married another and died in 1867 (she had paid for this book to be published). In Fêtes galantes personal sentiment is masked by delicately clever evocations of scenes and characters from the Italian commedia dell’arte and from the sophisticated pastorals of 18th-century....
  • Fethiye (Turkey)
    town, southwestern Turkey. It lies along a sheltered bay in the eastern part of the Gulf of Fethiye on the Mediterranean Sea that is backed by the western Taurus ranges. Fethiye’s enlarged port is an outlet for the minerals and timber of the region. The hinterland is a major centre of chromium mining. Fethiye stands on the site of the ancient Lycian city of Telmessus, who...
  • Feti, Domenico (Italian painter)
    Italian Baroque painter whose best-known works are small representations of biblical parables as scenes from everyday life—e.g., The Good Samaritan. These works, which Fetti painted between 1618 and 1622, were executed in a style that emphasized the use of rich colour and the changing effects of light and shade. They are important in the development of Baroque l...
  • fetial (Roman official)
    any of a body of 20 Roman priestly officials who were concerned with various aspects of international relations, such as treaties and declarations of war. The fetials were originally selected from the most noble families; they served for life, but, like all priesthoods, they could only submit advice, not make binding decisions....
  • Fetiales (Roman official)
    any of a body of 20 Roman priestly officials who were concerned with various aspects of international relations, such as treaties and declarations of war. The fetials were originally selected from the most noble families; they served for life, but, like all priesthoods, they could only submit advice, not make binding decisions....
  • fetich (religion)
    The sculptural forms are most commonly wood carvings: masks, ancestor figures, fetishes, bowls, boxes, cups, staffs, pots and lids, pipes, combs, tools, weapons, and musical instruments. Similar objects are also carved in ivory, and in some cases copper, brass, and iron are used. In rare instances, stone figures have been found....
  • fetich (psychology)
    in psychology, a form of sexual deviance involving erotic attachment to an inanimate object or an ordinarily asexual part of the human body....
  • fetid buckeye (plant)
    Among the most notable is the Ohio buckeye (A. glabra), also called fetid buckeye and American horse chestnut, a tree growing up to 21 m (70 feet) in height, with twigs and leaves that yield an unpleasant odour when crushed. The digitate leaves, of five to seven leaflets, turn orange to yellow in fall....
  • fetid yew (tree)
    (species Torreya taxifolia), an ornamental evergreen conifer tree of the yew family (Taxaceae), limited in distribution to western Florida and southwestern Georgia, U.S. The stinking yew, which grows to 13 metres (about 43 feet) in height in cultivation, carries an open pyramidal head of spreading, slightly drooping branches. The brownish, orange-tinged bark is irregularly furrowed and scal...
  • Fétis, François-Joseph (Belgian music scholar)
    prolific scholar and pioneer scientific investigator of music history and theory. He was also an organist and composer....
  • fetish (religion)
    The sculptural forms are most commonly wood carvings: masks, ancestor figures, fetishes, bowls, boxes, cups, staffs, pots and lids, pipes, combs, tools, weapons, and musical instruments. Similar objects are also carved in ivory, and in some cases copper, brass, and iron are used. In rare instances, stone figures have been found....
  • fetish (psychology)
    in psychology, a form of sexual deviance involving erotic attachment to an inanimate object or an ordinarily asexual part of the human body....
  • fetishism (religion)
    The sculptural forms are most commonly wood carvings: masks, ancestor figures, fetishes, bowls, boxes, cups, staffs, pots and lids, pipes, combs, tools, weapons, and musical instruments. Similar objects are also carved in ivory, and in some cases copper, brass, and iron are used. In rare instances, stone figures have been found....
  • fetishism (psychology)
    in psychology, a form of sexual deviance involving erotic attachment to an inanimate object or an ordinarily asexual part of the human body....
  • Fetisov, Vyacheslav (Russian hockey player)
    Russian hockey player who was regarded as one of the best defensemen in the history of the sport. As a member of the Soviet Olympic team in the 1980s, he won two gold medals and a silver. He was also a member of seven world championship teams (1978–79, 1981–84, and 1986)....
  • fetoplacental unit (biology)
    ...are part of a second major function of the endocrine system—namely, the control of growth and development. The mammalian fetus develops in the uterus of the mother in a system known as the fetoplacental unit. In this system the fetus is under the powerful influence of hormones from its own endocrine glands and hormones produced by the mother and the placenta. Maternal endocrine glands......
  • Fetter, Frank Albert (American economist)
    American economist who was one of the pioneers of modern academic economics in the United States....
  • Fetter Lane Society (British religious society)
    In 1734 Moravians en route to mission work in the American colonies arrived in London and made contacts that led to the formation of the Fetter Lane Society in 1738, the forerunner of churches in England, Wales, and Ireland. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, met the Moravians during his trip to Georgia in 1735–36. Upon his return home, both he and his brother Charles affiliated with......
  • Fetterman Massacre (United States history)
    As early as 1865 Crazy Horse was a leader in his people’s defiance of U.S. plans to construct a road to the goldfields in Montana. He participated in the massacre of Captain William J. Fetterman and his troop of 80 men (Dec. 21, 1866) as well as in the Wagon Box fight (Aug. 2, 1867), both near Fort Phil Kearny, in Wyoming Territory. Refusing to honour the reservation provisions of the Secon...
  • Fetti, Domenico (Italian painter)
    Italian Baroque painter whose best-known works are small representations of biblical parables as scenes from everyday life—e.g., The Good Samaritan. These works, which Fetti painted between 1618 and 1622, were executed in a style that emphasized the use of rich colour and the changing effects of light and shade. They are important in the development of Baroque l...
  • fetus (embryology)
    the unborn young of any vertebrate animal, particularly of a mammal, after it has attained the basic form and structure typical of its kind....
  • “Feu follet, Le” (work by Drieu La Rochelle)
    ...movement. Characteristic novels of this period include his first novel, L’Homme couvert de femmes (1925; “The Man Covered With Women”), and Le Feu follet (1931; The Fire Within, or Will o’ the Wisp; filmed by Louis Malle in 1963). Le Feu follet is the story of the last hours in the life of a young bourgeois Parisian addict who kills...
  • Feu; journal d’une escouade, Le (work by Barbusse)
    ...with L’Enfer (1908; The Inferno, 1918). In 1914 he volunteered for the infantry, was twice cited for gallantry, and finally was discharged because of his wounds in 1917. Barbusse’s Le Feu; journal d’une escouade, awarded the Prix Goncourt, is one of the few works to survive the proliferation of wartime novels. Its subtitle, Story of a Squad, reve...
  • “Feu, Le” (work by Barbusse)
    novelist, author of Le Feu (1916; Under Fire, 1917), a firsthand witness of the life of French soldiers in World War I. Barbusse belongs to an important lineage of French war writers who span the period 1910 to 1939, mingling war memories with moral and political meditations....
  • Feuchères, Adrien-Victor de (French major)
    ...prince had her well educated not only in modern languages but in Greek and Latin. He took her to Paris and, to prevent scandal and to qualify her to be received at court, had her married in 1818 to Adrien-Victor de Feuchères, a major in the royal guards. The prince provided her dowry and made her husband his aide-de-camp and a baron. The baroness, pretty and clever, became a person of......
  • Feuchères, Sophie Dawes, baronne de (English adventuress)
    English adventuress, mistress of the last survivor of the princes of Condé....
  • Feuchtmayer, Joseph Anton (German artist)
    ...Feichtmayr was a member of the group of families from Wessobrunn in southern Bavaria that specialized in stucco work and produced a long series of masters, including Johann Georg Übelherr and Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer, whose masterpieces are the Rococo figures at Birnau on Lake Constance. The sculptor Christian Wenzinger worked at Freiburg im Breisgau in relative isolation, but his softly...
  • Feuchtwanger, Lion (German writer)
    German novelist and playwright known for his historical romances....
  • feud (feudalism)
    ...the power of the Carolingian kings of the Frankish Empire and to make the inhabitants of their own areas their vassals. These vassals held their land from the lords as tenants of a so-called feud, or fee. Each feudal lord held a court for his tenants in which he applied the same law to all of the tenants, irrespective of their racial or national origin. Thus the old Germanic personal......
  • feud (private war)
    a continuing state of conflict between two groups within a society (typically kinship groups) characterized by violence, usually killings and counterkillings. It exists in many nonliterate communities in which there is an absence of law or a breakdown of legal procedures and in which attempts to redress a grievance in a way that is acceptable to both parties have failed....
  • feudal land tenure (economic system)
    system by which land was held by tenants from lords. As developed in medieval England and France, the king was lord paramount with numerous levels of lesser lords down to the occupying tenant....
  • Feudal Society (work by Bloch)
    ...part of the Universities of Paris I–XIII). There, on the eve of World War II, he completed his masterful two-volume synthesis, La Société féodale (1939, 1940; Feudal Society). Drawing on a lifetime of research, Bloch analyzed medieval ideas and institutions within the context of the intricate feudal bond, which laid the groundwork for the modern......
  • feudal system (social system)
    historiographic construct designating the social, economic, and political conditions in western Europe during the early Middle Ages, the long stretch of time between the 5th and 12th centuries. Feudalism and the related term feudal system are labels invented long after the period to which they were applied. They refer to what those who invented them perceived as the most ...
  • feudalism (social system)
    historiographic construct designating the social, economic, and political conditions in western Europe during the early Middle Ages, the long stretch of time between the 5th and 12th centuries. Feudalism and the related term feudal system are labels invented long after the period to which they were applied. They refer to what those who invented them perceived as the most ...
  • feudality (social system)
    historiographic construct designating the social, economic, and political conditions in western Europe during the early Middle Ages, the long stretch of time between the 5th and 12th centuries. Feudalism and the related term feudal system are labels invented long after the period to which they were applied. They refer to what those who invented them perceived as the most ...
  • Feuer, Cy (American music producer)
    American producer (b. Jan. 15, 1911, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. May 17, 2006, New York, N.Y.), brought a number of Broadway’s most notable musicals to the stage, usually in partnership with Ernest H. Martin, with whom he collaborated for some five decades. Among the team’s dozen Broadway musicals were Guys and Dolls (1950), which won a Tony Award, Can-Can (1953), The B...
  • Feuer Peak (mountain, Austria)
    town, north-central Austria, where the Traun River enters Lake Traun (Traunsee) in the Salzkammergut region, south of Gmunden. Feuer Peak (5,241 feet [1,598 metres]) of the Höllen Mountains overlooks the town. Ebensee was first cited in 1450 and established a saltworks in 1607. The town continued to produce salt into the 21st century. Ebensee’s other products include chemicals (soda ...
  • “Feuer und Schwert im Sudan” (work by Slatin)
    He escaped in 1895 and was made a pasha (the highest rank in the Egyptian court) by the khedive (Ottoman viceroy) of Egypt. His book, Feuer und Schwert im Sudan, 2 vol. (1896, 1922; “Fire and Sword in the Sudan”), was instrumental in enlisting support against the Mahdists. After serving with Lord Kitchener (1897–98) in the reconquest of the Sudan, he was named inspector...
  • Feuerbach, Anselm (German painter)
    one of the leading German painters of the mid-19th century working in a Romantic style of Classicism....
  • Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas (German philosopher)
    German philosopher and moralist remembered for his influence on Karl Marx and for his humanistic theologizing....
  • Feuerbach, Paul Johann Anselm, Ritter von (German jurist)
    jurist noted for his reform of criminal law in Germany....
  • Feuerbach, Paul, knight von (German jurist)
    jurist noted for his reform of criminal law in Germany....
  • Feuerstein, Reuven (Israeli psychologist)
    ...with others: a child sees others thinking and acting in certain ways and then internalizes and models what is seen. An elaboration of this view is the suggestion by the Israeli psychologist Reuven Feuerstein that the key to intellectual development is what he called “mediated learning experience.” The parent mediates, or interprets, the environment for the child, and it is......
  • Feuillade, Louis (French director)
    motion-picture director whose internationally popular screen serials were the most influential French films of the period around World War I....
  • Feuillants, Club of the (French political club)
    conservative political club of the French Revolution, which met in the former monastery of the Feuillants (Reformed Cistercians) near the Tuileries, in Paris....
  • Feuillère, Edwige (French actress)
    French actress whose long career as a much loved and respected star of the French stage and screen saw her shine in a variety of roles, including classical, comedic, and sensual; among her most acclaimed stage performances was in the 1947 Partage de midi (b. Oct. 29, 1907, Vesoul, France--d. Nov. 13, 1998, Paris, France)....
  • Feuilles d’analyse appliquée à la géométrie (work by Monge)
    ...a solid in three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane by drawing the projections—known as plans, elevations, and traces—of the solid on a sheet of paper. Feuilles d’analyse appliquée à la géométrie (1801; “Analysis Applied to Geometry”) was an expanded version of his lectures on differential geometry...
  • Feuilles d’automne, Les (work by Hugo)
    Four books of poems came from Hugo in the period of the July Monarchy: Les Feuilles d’automne (1831; “Autumn Leaves”), intimate and personal in inspiration; Les Chants du crépuscule (1835; Songs of Twilight), overtly political; Les Voix intérieures (1837; “Inner Voices”), both personal and philosophical; and......
  • Feuillet, Raoul-Auger (French dancer)
    French dancer, dancing master, and choreographer whose dance notation system was published in his Chorégraphie ou l’art de décrire la danse (1700; “Choreography, or the Art of Describing the Dance”). Working in Paris, he collaborated with André Lorin, conductor of the Royal Academy of Dance; he also wrote Recueil de danses (1704; “Coll...
  • Feuillets d’Hypnos (work by Char)
    ...II Char led a Resistance unit in the French Alps. After the war’s end he published some of his finest (and most politically committed) poems in the collections Seuls demeurent (1945) and Feuillets d’Hypnos (1946; “Leaves of Hypnos”). The latter work, his poetic journal of the war years, reflects his humanism, his belief in man’s high calling, and...
  • Feurs (France)
    former region of France lying on the eastern side of the Massif Central and included within the modern département of Loire. The name is derived from that of Feurs (Forum Segusiavorum in Roman times), a town midway between Roanne and Saint-Étienne, in an agriculturally rich area watered by the Loire River. The Forez counts of the Artaud family vied with the archbishops of......
  • Fever (recording by Lee)
    ...during the decade included a version of Richard Rodgers and Moss Hart’s Lover (1952), with an audacious mambo-style arrangement by Gordon Jenkins, and Fever (1958), one of Lee’s signature tunes, featuring one of her most seductive vocal performances and a musical backing of only drums, bass, and finger snaps. Lee also had a noted s...
  • fever (pathology)
    abnormally high bodily temperature or a disease of which an abnormally high temperature is characteristic. Although most often associated with infection, fever is also observed in other pathologic states, such as cancer, coronary artery occlusion, and disorders of the blood. It also may result from physiological stresses, such as strenuous exercise or ovulation, or from environm...
  • fever blister (pathology)
    abnormally high bodily temperature or a disease of which an abnormally high temperature is characteristic. Although most often associated with infection, fever is also observed in other pathologic states, such as cancer, coronary artery occlusion, and disorders of the blood. It also may result from physiological stresses, such as strenuous exercise or ovulation, or from environm...
  • Fever River (river, Illinois, United States)
    city, seat (1827) of Jo Daviess county, northwestern Illinois, U.S. It lies along the Galena River (originally called Fever River), 4 miles (6 km) east of the Mississippi River and about 15 miles (25 km) southeast of Dubuque, Iowa. French explorers visited the region in the late 17th century and found Sauk and Fox Indians mining lead. In 1807 the U.S. Congress created a lead-mining district,......
  • Fever River Settlement (Illinois, United States)
    city, seat (1827) of Jo Daviess county, northwestern Illinois, U.S. It lies along the Galena River (originally called Fever River), 4 miles (6 km) east of the Mississippi River and about 15 miles (25 km) southeast of Dubuque, Iowa. French explorers visited the region in the late 17th century and found Sauk and Fox...
  • feverfew (plant)
    ...balsamita); pyrethrum (C. coccineum); Marguerite, or Paris daisy (C. frutescens); Shasta daisy (hybrid forms of C. maximum); florists’ chrysanthemum (C. morifolium); feverfew (C. parthenium); corn marigold (C. segetum); and tansy (C. vulgare) are popular garden plants. Feverfew and pyrethrum are used in insecticides; feverfew and ta...
  • Feversham, Louis de Durfort, 2nd earl of, Viscount Sondes of Lees Court, Baron Duras of Holdenby, baron of Throwley, marquis de Blanquefort (British military officer)
    French-born soldier who played a notable role in military and diplomatic affairs in England under Charles II and James II....
  • feverwort (plant)
    any of the four North American plant species of the genus Triosteum, all coarse perennials belonging to the family Caprifoliaceae. Several other species of the genus are East Asian. The common names feverwort, wild ipecac, and horse gentian resulted from former medicinal uses of the plant. Other names for certain of the plants are tinker’s weed and wild coffee....
  • Févin, Antoine de (French composer)
    ...could usually count on being given adequate warning of a new commission. The meeting of Louis XII of France and Ferdinand V the Catholic of Castile at Savona in 1507, for which the French composer Antoine de Févin wrote a superb choral work, Gaude Francorum regia corona, was certainly not decided upon at short notice. Nor was the visit of Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici to Ven...
  • Few Days in Athens, A (work by Wright)
    ...relatives. At age 21 she returned to Scotland to live with a great-uncle, who was a professor of philosophy at Glasgow College. There she read widely and wrote some youthful romantic verse and A Few Days in Athens (1822), a novelistic sketch of a disciple of Epicurus that outlined the materialistic philosophy to which she adhered throughout her life. In August 1818 she sailed with her......
  • Few Good Men, A (American film)
    ...that generated lukewarm reviews. Better-received were Hoffa (1992), in which he portrayed the controversial Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, and A Few Good Men (1992), in which his supporting performance as a dyspeptic marine colonel earned him his 10th Oscar nomination, an all-time record for a male actor. His 11th nomination, for his......
  • Fey, Elizabeth Stamatina (American comedian, writer, and actress)
    American comedian, writer, and actress whose work on the television shows Saturday Night Live (SNL; 1997–2006) and 30 Rock (2006– ) helped establish her as one of the leading women in comedy in the early 21st century....
  • Fey, Tina (American comedian, writer, and actress)
    American comedian, writer, and actress whose work on the television shows Saturday Night Live (SNL; 1997–2006) and 30 Rock (2006– ) helped establish her as one of the leading women in comedy in the early 21st century....
  • Feydeau, Georges (French dramatist)
    French dramatist whose farces delighted Parisian audiences in the years immediately prior to World War I and are still regularly performed....
  • Feydeau, Georges-Léon-Jules-Marie (French dramatist)
    French dramatist whose farces delighted Parisian audiences in the years immediately prior to World War I and are still regularly performed....
  • Feyder, Jacques (French director)
    popular French motion-picture director of the 1920s and ’30s whose films are imbued with a sympathy for the common man and an attempt at psychological interpretation of character. His sharp criticism of French social and political trends was subordinated to his delineation of passionate and often poignant characters....
  • Feyerabend, Paul Karl (American philosopher)
    The historicist critique was initiated by the philosophers N.R. Hanson (1924–67), Stephen Toulmin, Paul Feyerabend (1924–94), and Thomas Kuhn. Although these authors differed on many points, they shared the view that standard logical-empiricist accounts of confirmation, theory, and other topics were quite inadequate to explain the major transitions that have occurred in the history.....
  • Feynman diagram (physics)
    a graphical method of representing the interactions of elementary particles, invented in the 1940s and ’50s by the American theoretical physicist Richard P. Feynman. Introduced during the development of the theory of quantum electrodynamics as an aid for visualizing and calculating the effects of electromagnetic interactions among ...
  • Feynman, Richard P. (American physicist)
    American theoretical physicist who was widely regarded as the most brilliant, influential, and iconoclastic figure in his field in the post-World War II era....
  • Feynman, Richard Phillips (American physicist)
    American theoretical physicist who was widely regarded as the most brilliant, influential, and iconoclastic figure in his field in the post-World War II era....
  • Feyẕābād (Afghanistan)
    town, northeastern Afghanistan. It lies along the Kowkcheh River, at 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above sea level. Feyẕābād was destroyed by Morād Beg of Qondūz in 1821 and its inhabitants removed to Qondūz, but, after Badakhshan was annexed by ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān, ruler of Afghanistan (1880–1901), the town recovered some ...
  • Feyzullah (Turkish religious leader)
    ...in local revolts in eastern Anatolia and among the Arab tribes of Syria and Iraq. Disillusioned by the defeat at Senta, Mustafa left most matters of state to the leader of the Muslim hierarchy, Feyzullah, while he himself devoted his last years to hunting. A military mutiny deposed Mustafa on Aug. 22, 1703....
  • Fez (Morocco)
    city, northern Morocco, on the Wadi Fès just above its influx into the Sebou River....
  • fez (hat)
    In India the so-called Gandhi cap (a type frequently seen on Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru), the fez, and variously styled turbans are in general use. In Latin America and in the southwestern United States, the sombrero—a high-crowned hat of felt or straw with a wide brim rolled up at the edges—is popular. An adaptation with a smaller brim, usually fashioned of beaver felt to......
  • Fezzan (region, Libya)
    historic region of northern Africa and until 1963 one of the three provinces of the United Kingdom of Libya. It is part of the Sahara (desert) and now constitutes the southwestern sector of Libya....
  • FF (medicine)
    Estimation of the GFR and RPF allows the proportion of available plasma perfusing the kidney that is filtered by the glomerulus to be calculated. This is called the filtration fraction and on average in healthy individuals is 125/600, or about 20 percent. Thus about one-fifth of plasma entering the glomeruli leaves as filtrate, the remaining four-fifths continuing into the efferent glomerular......
  • FF-1 (aircraft)
    ...later as a test pilot. Following World War I he worked for the Loening Aeronautical Engineering Corp., but in 1929 he founded the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation on Long Island, N.Y. His FF-1, which entered service with the U.S. Navy in 1933, was a two-seat biplane with retractable landing gear. With the F4F Wildcat, introduced in 1940, Grumman switched to monoplane construction. The.....
  • FFC (French history)
    in World War II (1939–45), members of a movement for the continuation of warfare against Germany after the military collapse of Metropolitan France in the summer of 1940. Led by General Charles de Gaulle, the Free French were eventually able to unify most French resistance forces in their struggle against Germany....
  • FFI (French history)
    in World War II (1939–45), members of a movement for the continuation of warfare against Germany after the military collapse of Metropolitan France in the summer of 1940. Led by General Charles de Gaulle, the Free French were eventually able to unify most French resistance forces in their struggle against Germany....
  • Fflint, Sir (county, Wales, United Kingdom)
    county in the northeastern corner of Wales, bounded on the east by the River Dee and England and bounded on the west by Denbighshire. The present county of Flintshire encompasses an area along the lower Dee and the Dee estuary and extends inland to the Clwydian Range. The historic county of Flintshire, which covers a larger area, includes all of the present county as well as the...
  • Ffrangcon-Davies, Dame Gwen (British actress)
    English actress who became a legend on the classical British stage during her 80-year-long acting career....
  • FFS (training instrument)
    ...for civil transport aircraft and military fighters and are used to train pilots for operating specific aircraft and handling emergency situations (see flight simulator). Two basic classes exist: full flight simulators (FFSs) and flight training devices (FTDs). FFSs are complex machines that consist of a cockpit, motion system, and visual system controlled by high-speed computers. Some mo...
  • FFT (mathematics)
    ...high-resolution images of the radio sky. The laborious computational task of doing Fourier transforms to obtain images from the interferometer data is accomplished with high-speed computers and the fast Fourier transform (FFT), a mathematical technique that is specially suited for computing discrete Fourier transforms. In recognition of his contributions to the development of the Fourier......
  • FFV
    In 1999 Brazil mandated that by 2003 all new cars sold in the country had to be FlexFuel vehicles (FFVs)—vehicles certified to run on gasoline containing up to 85 percent ethanol (ethyl alcohol), marketed as E85. This initiative led numerous American, European, and Japanese manufacturers to certify some of their models as E85-compliant, which is indicated by the eighth character in the......
  • FGC (surgery)
    ritual surgical procedure that is traditional in some societies. FGC has been practiced by a wide variety of cultures and as a result includes a number of related procedures and social meanings....
  • FGD (technology)
    Sulfur dioxide in flue gas from fossil-fuel power plants can be controlled by means of an absorption process called flue gas desulfurization (FGD). FGD systems may involve wet scrubbing or dry scrubbing. In wet FGD systems, flue gases are brought in contact with an absorbent, which can be either a liquid or a slurry of solid material. The sulfur dioxide dissolves in or reacts with the absorbent......
  • FGM (surgery)
    ritual surgical procedure that is traditional in some societies. FGC has been practiced by a wide variety of cultures and as a result includes a number of related procedures and social meanings....
  • FHA (United States government agency)
    ...provided jobs on long-term construction projects, and the Civilian Conservation Corps put 2,500,000 young men to work planting or otherwise improving huge tracts of forestland. For homeowners, the Federal Housing Administration began insuring private home-improvement loans to middle-income families in 1934; in 1938 it became a home-building agency as well....
  • FHFA (United States government agency)
    ...Enterprise Oversight assumed additional regulatory responsibilities for both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in 1992. In 2007 the Federal Housing Reform Act transferred these responsibilities to the new Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)....
  • FHI (sports organization)
    ...included weight-lifting events, as did the Games of 1900 and 1904, but thereafter these events were suspended until 1920. In that year, at the suggestion of the International Olympic Committee, the International Weightlifting Federation (Fédération Haltérophile Internationale; FHI) was formed to regularize events and supervise international competition. By 1928 the one- and...
Skip this Advertisement

Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.

If you think a reference to this article on "" will enhance your Web site, blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article, and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.

You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.

copy link

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.

The Britannica Store
A-Z Browse

Image preview