A-Z Browse

  • Gabriel, Peter (British musician)
    former lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis and solo artist known for the intelligence and depth of his lyrics and for his commitment to various political causes....
  • Gabriel synthesis (chemistry)
    ...hydrogen atoms on the reacting site). To avoid the problem of multiple alkylation, methods have been devised for “blocking” substitution so that only one alkyl group is introduced. The Gabriel synthesis is one such method; it utilizes phthalimide, C6H4(CO)2NH, whose one acidic hydrogen atom has been removed upon the addition of a base such as KOH t...
  • Gabrieleño (people)
    any of two, or possibly three, dialectally and culturally related North American Indian groups who spoke a language of Uto-Aztecan stock and lived in the lowlands, along the seacoast, and on islands in southern California at the time of Spanish colonization. The Gabrielino proper inhabited what are now southern and eastern Los Angeles county and northern Orange county, as well a...
  • Gabrieli, Andrea (Italian composer)
    Italian Renaissance composer and organist, known for his madrigals and his large-scale choral and instrumental music for public ceremonies. His finest work was composed for the acoustic resources of the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice. He was the uncle of Giovanni Gabrieli....
  • Gabrieli, Giovanni (Italian composer)
    Italian Renaissance composer, organist, and teacher, celebrated for his sacred music, including massive choral and instrumental motets for the liturgy....
  • Gabrielino (people)
    any of two, or possibly three, dialectally and culturally related North American Indian groups who spoke a language of Uto-Aztecan stock and lived in the lowlands, along the seacoast, and on islands in southern California at the time of Spanish colonization. The Gabrielino proper inhabited what are now southern and eastern Los Angeles county and northern Orange county, as well a...
  • Gabrilowitsch, Ossip Salomonovich (Russian pianist)
    Russian-born American pianist noted for the elegance and subtlety of his playing....
  • Gabrovo (Bulgaria)
    town, north-central Bulgaria. It is situated on both banks of the Yantra River, at the foot of the Shipka Pass in the Balkan Mountains. A major industrial centre, Gabrovo has a high in-migration population from the surrounding area. Called the “Bulgarian Manchester,” the town has a large textile industry—clothes, leather goods, and accessories. Other manufac...
  • Gabryella (Polish author)
    ...discernible in Józef Korzeniowski’s novels Spekulant (1846; “The Speculator”) and Kollokacja (1847; “The Collocation”). A woman novelist, Narcyza Żmichowska (pseudonym Gabryella), produced Poganka (1846; “The Pagan”), a psychological allegory anticipating 20th-century sensibility in its subtle ...
  • Gabú (Guinea-Bissau)
    town located in eastern Guinea-Bissau. Gabú is situated along the Colufe River, a tributary of the Gêba River, and is an agricultural marketing centre. Peanuts (groundnuts), mostly grown by the primarily Muslim Fulani (Fulbe) peoples, are the principal crop. The town is connected by road to Bissau, the national capital, and to ...
  • Gabú (region, Guinea-Bissau)
    region located in northeastern Guinea-Bissau. The Corubal River flows east-west through the southern half of Gabú, while the Colufe River flows east-west through the centre and empties into the Gêba River. The Gêba River in turn forms the northwestern border with the neighbouring region of Bafatá. The Gabú ...
  • Gabú Plain (plain, Guinea-Bissau)
    The coastal area is demarcated by a dense network of drowned valleys, called rias. The Bafatá Plateau is drained by the Geba and Corubal rivers. The Gabú Plain occupies the northeastern portion of the country and is drained by the Cacheu and Geba rivers and their tributaries. The interior plains are part of the southern edge of the Sénégal River basin. The uniform......
  • Gabú Plateau (plateau, Guinea-Bissau)
    ...Colufe River flows east-west through the centre and empties into the Gêba River. The Gêba River in turn forms the northwestern border with the neighbouring region of Bafatá. The Gabú Plateau, with an elevation of some 300–500 feet (90–150 metres), extends north of the Corubal River to the border with Senegal. South of the Corubal River are the Bo...
  • gaccha (Jainism)
    among the image-worshipping Shvetambara sect of the Indian religion Jainism, a group of monks and their lay followers who claim descent from eminent monastic teachers. Although some 84 separate gacchas have appeared since the 7th–8th century, only a few have survived, such as the Kharatara (located mainly in Rajasthan), the Tapa, and the Ancala. While t...
  • gachupín (Latin American colonist)
    any of the colonial residents of Latin America from the 16th through the early 19th centuries who had been born in Spain. The name refers to the Iberian Peninsula. Among the American-born in Mexico the peninsulars were contemptuously called gachupines (“those with spurs”) and in South America, chapetones (“tenderfeet”). They enjoyed the special favour of t...
  • Gacy, John Wayne (American serial killer)
    American serial killer whose murders of 33 boys and young men in the 1970s received international media attention and shocked his suburban Chicago community, where he was known for his sociability and his performance as a clown at charitable events and childrens’ parties....
  • Gad (Hebrew tribe)
    one of the 12 tribes of Israel that in biblical times composed the people of Israel who later became the Jewish people. The tribe was named after the elder of two sons born to Jacob and Zilpah, a maidservant of Jacob’s first wife, Leah....
  • Gad (Hebrew patriarch)
    In reconstructing the history of Israelite prophecy, the prophets Samuel, Gad, Nathan, and Elijah (11th to 9th centuries bc) have been viewed as representing a transitional stage from the so-called vulgar prophetism to the literary prophetism, which some scholars believed represented a more ethical and therefore a “higher” form of prophecy. The literary prophets also ha...
  • GAD (enzyme)
    ...of the postsynaptic membrane. GABA is widely distributed in the brain, being especially prevalent at higher levels of the central nervous system. It is produced from glutamate by the enzyme glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD). Consequently, the concentrations of GABA and GAD parallel each other in the nervous system....
  • Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq (Egyptian religious leader)
    Egyptian religious leader who, as grand sheikh of al-Azhar, the Muslim world’s highest religious body, issued rulings based on strict Islamic orthodoxy, including support for female circumcision and harsh punishment for those breaking the fast during Ramadan (b. April 5, 1917--d. March 15, 1996)....
  • gad fly (insect)
    any member of the insect family Tabanidae (order Diptera), but more specifically any member of the genus Tabanus. These stout flies, as small as a housefly or as large as a bumble bee, are sometimes known as greenheaded monsters; their metallic or iridescent eyes meet dorsally in the male and are separate in the female. Gad fly, a nickname, may refer either to the fly’s roving habits...
  • gada (sociology)
    ...the large units, kinship is only an ancillary principle of association, supplementing more important ties based on shared membership of a generation class, or age-set. According to the so-called gada system, all the Oromo male children of the same generation formed an indissoluble fraternity; and, as members of this fraternity, they moved through the various stages of life and positions....
  • Gadaba language
    language spoken in India, one of the Munda languages belonging to the Austro-Asiatic family of languages. Dialects include Gadba and Gudwa....
  • Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācāryya (Indian philosopher)
    ...of this school were Pakṣadhara Miśra of Mithilā, Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma (16th century), his disciple Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (both of Bengal), and Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācāryya....
  • Gadah Ha-Maʾaravit, Ha- (region, Palestine)
    area of the former British-mandated (1920–47) territory of Palestine west of the Jordan River, claimed from 1949 to 1988 as part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan but occupied from 1967 by Israel. The territory, excluding East Jerusalem, is also known within Israel by its biblical names, Judaea a...
  • Gadamer, Hans-Georg (German philosopher)
    German philosopher whose system of philosophical hermeneutics, derived in part from concepts of Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger, was influential in 20th-century philosophy, aesthetics, theology, and criticism....
  • Gadames (oasis, Libya)
    oasis, northwestern Libya, near the Tunisian and Algerian borders. It lies at the bottom of a wadi (seasonal river) bordered by the steep slopes of the stony al-Ḥamrāʾ Plateau. Located at the junction of ancient Saharan caravan routes, the town was the Roman stronghold Cydamus (whose ruins remain). It was an episcopal see under the Byzantines, and columns of the Christian chur...
  • Gadar Party (Sikh political organization)
    (Urdu: “Revolution”), an early 20th-century movement among Indians, principally Sikhs living in North America, to end British rule in their homeland of India. The movement originated with an organization of immigrants in California called the Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, many of the Ghadrites returned to India and for several mo...
  • Gadara (ancient city, Jordan)
    ancient city of Palestine, a member of the Decapolis, located just southeast of the Sea of Galilee in Jordan. Gadara first appeared in history when it fell to the Seleucid Antiochus the Great (218 bc); the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus took it after 10 months’ siege (c. 100 bc). It was restored by the Roman general Pompey, and Augustus gave it to Herod th...
  • Gadbā (language)
    ...Parjī is spoken by about 36,000 individuals in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The Konda Dora, a scheduled tribe of some 23,000, live mostly in Andhra Pradesh and speak Koṇḍa. The Gadbā, who live mainly in Andhra Pradesh, number approximately 28,000. Peṅgo is spoken by fewer than 2,000 individuals living in Orissa, and Kui and Kuvi are spoken by a number of tribes....
  • Gadd, Cyril John (British historian)
    The first serious attempt at establishing a chronology for the Indus civilization relied on cross-dating with Mesopotamia. In this way, Cyril John Gadd cited the period of Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 bce) and the subsequent Isin-Larsa Period (2017–1794 bce) as the time when trade between ancient India and Mesopotamia was at its height. Calibration of the ev...
  • Gadda, Carlo Emilio (Italian author)
    Italian essayist, short-story writer, and novelist outstanding particularly for his original and innovative style, which has been compared with that of James Joyce....
  • Gaddang (people)
    ...Bontoc, southern Kalinga, Tinggian) nearly all live in populous villages, but one ethnic unit (the Ifugao) has small farmsteads of kinsmen dotted throughout the rice terraces. The second group (the Gaddang, northern Kalinga, and Isneg or Apayao) are sparsely settled in hamlets or farmsteads around which new gardens are cleared as the soil is worked out; some Gaddang live in tree houses....
  • Gaddi (people)
    ...the Outer Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indo-Europeans are called the Dogrī dynasty. In the Vale of Kashmir the same group is represented by the Kashmīrī people. The Gaddī and Gūjari, who live in the hilly areas of the Lesser Himalayas, also belong to the European group. The Gaddī are essentially a hill people; they possess large flocks of ...
  • Gaddi, Agnolo (Italian artist)
    son and pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, who was himself the major pupil of the Florentine master Giotto. Agnolo was an influential and prolific artist who was the last major Florentine painter stylistically descended from Giotto....
  • Gaddi, Taddeo (Italian artist)
    pupil and most faithful follower of the Florentine master Giotto. A capable artist, although lacking his teacher’s comprehensive aesthetic vision, he was, after Giotto’s death, the leading Florentine painter for three decades....
  • Gaddis, William (American author)
    American novelist of complex, satiric works who was considered one of the best of the post-World War II modernist writers....
  • Gaddis, William Thomas (American author)
    American novelist of complex, satiric works who was considered one of the best of the post-World War II modernist writers....
  • Gade, Niels Vilhelm (Danish composer)
    Danish composer who founded the Romantic nationalist school in Danish music. He studied violin and composition and became acquainted with Danish poetry and folk music. Both Mendelssohn and Schumann, who were his friends, were attracted by the Scandinavian character of his music. Schumann wrote of him in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and in 1843...
  • Gades (Spain)
    city, capital, and principal seaport of Cádiz provincia (province) in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southwestern Spain. The city is situated on a long, narrow peninsula extending into the Gulf of Cádiz...
  • Gades, Antonio (Spanish dancer and choreographer)
    Spanish dancer and choreographer (b. Nov. 14, 1936, Elda, Spain—d. July 20, 2004, Madrid, Spain), popularized flamenco and other Spanish dances with his elegant performances and powerful choreography. He was trained by the great dancer Pilar López—who chose the name Gades as more suitable for him—and worked with her company for nearly a decade before forming his own, Ba...
  • Gadfly (missile)
    ...new generation of Soviet SAM systems entered service in the 1980s. These included the SA-10 Grumble, a Mach-6 mobile system with a 60-mile range deployed in both strategic and tactical versions; the SA-11 Gadfly, a Mach-3 semiactive radar homing system with a range of 17 miles; the SA-12 Gladiator, a track-mobile replacement of Ganef; the SA-13 Gopher, a replacement for Gaskin; and the SA-14, a...
  • gadfly petrel (bird)
    any of several species of petrels distinguished from others by their fluttering type of flight. See petrel....
  • Gadhafi, Moammar (Libyan statesman)
    de facto leader of Libya from 1969 and a controversial Arab statesman....
  • Gadhipur (India)
    town, administrative headquarters of Ghāzīpur district, Uttar Pradesh state, northern India, northeast of Vārānasi (Benares), on the Ganges River. Its ancient name of Gadhīpūr was changed to Ghāzīpur in about 1330, reputedly in honour of Ghāzī Malik, a Muslim ruler. The town was a strategically important river port under the Br...
  • Gadi (people)
    ...the Outer Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indo-Europeans are called the Dogrī dynasty. In the Vale of Kashmir the same group is represented by the Kashmīrī people. The Gaddī and Gūjari, who live in the hilly areas of the Lesser Himalayas, also belong to the European group. The Gaddī are essentially a hill people; they possess large flocks of ...
  • Gadia Lohār (people)
    ...peoples in the Alwar, Jaipur, Bharatpur, and Dholpur areas include the Mīnas (Mewātīs); the Meos; the Banjārās, who are traveling tradesmen and artisans; and the Gadia Lohārs, another itinerant tribe, who make and repair agricultural and household implements. The Bhīls, one of the oldest peoples in India, inhabit the districts of......
  • Gadidae (fish family)
    ...peoples in the Alwar, Jaipur, Bharatpur, and Dholpur areas include the Mīnas (Mewātīs); the Meos; the Banjārās, who are traveling tradesmen and artisans; and the Gadia Lohārs, another itinerant tribe, who make and repair agricultural and household implements. The Bhīls, one of the oldest peoples in India, inhabit the districts of.........
  • Gadifer de La Salle (Poitevin adventurer)
    Poitevin adventurer who, with Jean de Béthencourt, began the conquest of the Canary Islands....
  • Gadiformes (fish order)
    The Paracanthopterygii comprises six orders: Batrachoidiformes, or toadfishes, about 45 species; Gadiformes, or codfishes, about 800 species; Gobiesociformes, or clingfishes, about 100 species; Lophiiformes, or anglerfishes, about 210 species; Percopsiformes, or trout-perches, about eight species;......
  • Gadinidae (gastropod family)
    ...specialization.)Superfamily PatelliformiaBrackish water or marine limpets with (Siphonariidae) gill-like structures or with a lung (Gadinidae).Superfamily AmphibolaceaOperculum present; shell conical; with pulmonary cavity; brackish water; burrow in sand; 1......
  • Gadir (Spain)
    city, capital, and principal seaport of Cádiz provincia (province) in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southwestern Spain. The city is situated on a long, narrow peninsula extending into the Gulf of Cádiz...
  • gadje (people)
    ...refer to themselves by one generic name, Rom (meaning “man” or “husband”), and to all non-Roma by the term gadje (also spelled gadze or gaje; a term with a pejorative connotation meaning “bumpkin,”.....
  • Gadjusek, Daniel Carleton (American physician)
    American physician and medical researcher, corecipient (with Baruch S. Blumberg) of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his research on the causal agents of various degenerative neurological disorders....
  • Gadolin, Johan (Finnish chemist)
    In 1794, Johan Gadolin, a Finnish chemist, while investigating a rare Swedish mineral, discovered a new earth in impure form, which he believed to be a new element and to which he gave the name ytterbia, from Ytterby, the village where the ore was found. The name, however, was soon shortened to yttria. In 1803, from the same mineral, later named gadolinite in Gadolin’s honour, another new e...
  • gadolinite (mineral)
    ...a new element and to which he gave the name ytterbia, from Ytterby, the village where the ore was found. The name, however, was soon shortened to yttria. In 1803, from the same mineral, later named gadolinite in Gadolin’s honour, another new earth was reported in the literature independently by several chemists. The new earth became known as ceria, from the asteroid Ceres, which had just...
  • gadolinium (chemical element)
    (Gd), chemical element, rare-earth metal of the lanthanoid series of the periodic table. Silvery white and moderately ductile, the metal reacts slowly with oxygen and water. Below 17° C it is ferromagnetic and at very low temperatures, superconducting. Credit for the discovery of gadolinium is shared by J.-C.-G. de Marignac and P.-É. Lecoq de Boisbaudran...
  • Gador, Sierra de (mountain, Spain)
    The province contains the lead mines of the Sierra de Gador (the richest in the world during the 19th century), and the Marquesado de Zenete region is one of Spain’s largest producers of iron ore. The Granada coast (part of the Costa del Sol) includes the thriving beach resorts of Motril, Salobreña, and Almuñécar. Other important towns are Guadix, Loja, and Baza. The......
  • gadrooning (architecture)
    in architectural decoration, surfaces worked into a regular series of (vertical) concave grooves or convex ridges, frequently used on columns. In Classical architecture fluting and reeding are used in the columns of all the orders except the Tuscan. In the Doric order there are 20 grooves on a column and in the Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite orders there are 24....
  • Gadsden (Alabama, United States)
    city, seat (1866) of Etowah county, northeastern Alabama, U.S. It is situated on the Coosa River in the Appalachian foothills, 65 miles (105 km) northeast of Birmingham. The original farming settlement was known as Double Springs, and the town was founded there in 1846 as a steamboat station. It was renamed for Ja...
  • Gadsden, James (American politician)
    U.S. soldier, diplomat, and railroad president, whose name is associated with the Gadsden Purchase....
  • Gadsden Purchase (United States-Mexican history)
    (Dec. 30, 1853), transaction that followed the conquest of much of northern Mexico by the United States in 1848. Known in Mexican history as the sale of the Mesilla Valley, it assigned to the United States nearly 30,000 additional square miles (78,000 square km) of northern Mexican territory (La Mesilla), now southern Arizona and southern New Mexico, in exchange for $10,000,000....
  • Gadsden Purchase Treaty (United States-Mexican history)
    (Dec. 30, 1853), transaction that followed the conquest of much of northern Mexico by the United States in 1848. Known in Mexican history as the sale of the Mesilla Valley, it assigned to the United States nearly 30,000 additional square miles (78,000 square km) of northern Mexican territory (La Mesilla), now southern Arizona and southern New Mexico, in exchange for $10,000,000....
  • Gadūk Pass (mountain pass, Iran)
    ...or another of the slopes. Only two passes allow a relatively easy crossing in a single ascent—these are the Kandevān Pass, between the Karaj and the Chālūs rivers, and the Gadūk Pass, between the Hableh and the Tālā rivers. The main divide runs generally south of the highest crest, which—with the exception of the towering and isolated cone...
  • gadulka (musical instrument)
    The word gusla sometimes refers also to the gadulka, a similar Bulgarian instrument with three or four strings. The Russian gusli, an unrelated instrument, is a psaltery....
  • Gadus (fish genus)
    fish genus of the family Gadidae, including the individuals and groups known as bib, cod, pollock, and whiting....
  • Gadus luscus (fish)
    common fish of the cod family, Gadidae, found in the sea along European coastlines. The bib is a rather deep-bodied fish with a chin barbel, three close-set dorsal fins, and two close-set anal fins. It usually grows no longer than about 30 cm (12 inches) and is copper red with darker bars. Though abundant, it is not sought as food....
  • Gadus macrocephalus (fish)
    A North Pacific species of cod, G. macrocephalus, is very similar in appearance to the Atlantic form. In Japan this fish, which is found in both the eastern and western Pacific, is called tara; it is fished both for food and for liver oil. Smaller than the Atlantic cod, it grows to a maximum of about 75 cm (30 inches) long and is mottled brownish with a white lateral line. ...
  • Gadus merlangus (fish)
    (species Gadus, or Merlangius, merlangus), common marine food fish of the cod family, Gadidae. The whiting is found in European waters and is especially abundant in the North Sea. It is carnivorous and feeds on invertebrates and small fishes. It has three dorsal and two anal fins and a chin barbel that, if present, is very small. Its maximum length is about 70 cm (28 inches), and it...
  • Gadus morhua (fish species)
    (species Gadus morhua), large and economically important marine fish of the family Gadidae, found on both sides of the North Atlantic. The cod, a cold-water fish, generally remains near the bottom, ranging from inshore regions to deep waters. It is valued for its edible flesh, the oil of its liver, and other products. A dark-spotted fish, with three dorsal fins, two anal fins, and a chin b...
  • Gadus virens (fish)
    (Pollachius, or Gadus, virens), North Atlantic fish of the cod family, Gadidae. It is known as saithe, or coalfish, in Europe. The pollock is an elongated fish, deep green with a pale lateral line and a pale belly. It has a small chin barbel and, like the cod, has three dorsal and two anal fins. A carnivorous, lively, usually schooling fish, it grows to about 1.1 m (3.5 feet)...
  • gadwall (bird)
    (Anas strepera), small, drably coloured duck of the family Anatidae, a popular game bird. Almost circumpolar in distribution in the Northern Hemisphere, the gadwall breeds above latitude 40° and winters between 20–40°. In North America the densest breeding populations occur in the Dakotas and the prairie provinces of Canada; the coast of Louisiana is a primary winterin...
  • gadze (people)
    ...refer to themselves by one generic name, Rom (meaning “man” or “husband”), and to all non-Roma by the term gadje (also spelled gadze or gaje; a term with a pejorative connotation meaning “bumpkin,”.....
  • Gaea (Greek mythology)
    Greek personification of the Earth as a goddess. Mother and wife of Uranus (Heaven), from whom the Titan Cronus, her last-born child by him, separated her, she was also mother of the other Titans, the Gigantes, the Erinyes, and the Cyclopes (see giant; Furies; Cyclops). Gaea may have been originally a mother goddess...
  • Gaede, Wolfgang (German physicist)
    ...with pressures that are routinely four to five orders of magnitude lower than those first used by Thomson, Aston, and Dempster. The invention of the diffusion pump by the German physicist Wolfgang Gaede in 1915, with important improvements by the American chemist Irving Langmuir shortly thereafter, freed mass spectroscopy from the severe limitations of poor vacuum. During the 1960s......
  • Gaedel, Ed (American entertainer)
    ...was sold, and Veeck headed another group that bought the American League St. Louis Browns. In 1951, while still owner of the Browns, Veeck staged his most famous promotion when he had 3-foot 7-inch Ed Gaedel pinch hit. Finding it impossible to throw to Gaedel’s strike zone, the pitcher walked him. Although the crowd thoroughly enjoyed the stunt, the league commissioner declared Gaedel...
  • Gaedhilge literature
    the body of writings composed in Gaelic and the languages derived from it, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, and in Welsh and its sister languages, Breton and Cornish. For writings in English by Irish, Scottish, and Welsh authors, see English literature. French-language works by Breton authors are covered in French literature....
  • Gaeilge
    a member of the Goidelic group of Celtic languages, spoken in Ireland. As one of the national languages of the Republic of Ireland, Irish is taught in the public schools and is required for certain civil-service posts....
  • Gaeilge literature
    the body of writings composed in Gaelic and the languages derived from it, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, and in Welsh and its sister languages, Breton and Cornish. For writings in English by Irish, Scottish, and Welsh authors, see English literature. French-language works by Breton authors are covered in French literature....
  • Gaekwad dynasty (Indian history)
    Indian ruling family and title of its head whose capital was at Baroda in Gujarāt state. The state became a leading power in the 18th-century Marāthā confederacy....
  • Gaekwar dynasty (Indian history)
    Indian ruling family and title of its head whose capital was at Baroda in Gujarāt state. The state became a leading power in the 18th-century Marāthā confederacy....
  • Gaelic Athletic Association (Irish organization)
    Dublin played a leading role in the cultural renaissance that began in 1884 with the establishment of the Gaelic Athletic Association (Cumann Lúthchleas Gael) for the revival of historically Irish games. It was broadened in 1893 with the foundation of the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge), which promotes the Irish language and Irish folklore. The National Gallery, the Irish Museum of......
  • Gaelic football (sport)
    Irish version of football (soccer), an offshoot of Britain’s medieval mêlée, in which entire parishes would compete in daylong matches covering miles of countryside. A code of rules slightly restricting the ferocity of the sport was adopted in 1884, and the Gaelic Athletic Association was formed the same year to govern competition....
  • Gaelic language
    a member of the Goidelic group of Celtic languages, spoken in Ireland. As one of the national languages of the Republic of Ireland, Irish is taught in the public schools and is required for certain civil-service posts....
  • Gaelic League (Irish organization)
    ...and first president of the Republic of Ireland (Éire). He was the outstanding figure in the struggle for the preservation and extension of the Irish language from 1893, when he founded the Gaelic League (a nationalistic organization of Roman Catholics and Protestants), until 1922, when the founding of the Irish Free State accorded the Irish language equal status with English....
  • Gaelic literature
    the body of writings composed in Gaelic and the languages derived from it, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, and in Welsh and its sister languages, Breton and Cornish. For writings in English by Irish, Scottish, and Welsh authors, see English literature. French-language works by Breton authors are covered in French literature....
  • Gaelic revival (Irish literature)
    resurgence of interest in Irish language, literature, history, and folklore inspired by the growing Irish nationalism of the early 19th century. By that time Gaelic had died out as a spoken tongue except in isolated rural areas; English had become the official and literary language of Ireland. The discovery by philologists of how to read Old Irish (written prior to 900) and the subsequent transla...
  • Gaelic Symphony (work by Beach)
    American pianist and composer known for her Piano Concerto (1900) and her Gaelic Symphony (1894), the first symphony by an American woman composer....
  • Gaels, Society of (political party, Ireland)
    Fine Gael was founded in September 1933 in the amalgamation of the Society of Gaels (Cumann na nGaedheal)—the party of William Thomas Cosgrave, first president of the Irish Free State—and two lesser parties, the Centre Party (formerly the Farmers’ Party) and the National Guard (formerly the Army Comrades Association), also known as the “Blueshirts.” The Society o...
  • Gaeltacht (region, Ireland)
    ...tourism) and the fertility of the land was in many cases insufficient to provide an acceptable standard of living for the people. These western areas include the districts known collectively as the Gaeltacht, in which the Irish language and the traditional national culture are best preserved. Emigration abroad or to cities within Ireland has always been among the chief threats to the survival.....
  • Gaerfyrddin, Sir (county, Wales, United Kingdom)
    county of southwestern Wales, extending inland from the Bristol Channel. The present county is coterminous with the historic county of the same name. It rises from sea level along the Bristol Channel to an elevation of more than 2,000 feet (600 metres) at Black Mountain in the east....
  • Gaeta (Italy)
    town, seaport, and archiepiscopal see, Latina province, Lazio region, south-central Italy, on the Gulf of Gaeta, northwest of Naples. Gaeta first came under the influence of the Romans in the 4th century bc; a road was built c. 184 bc connecting the town with the port, and it became a favoured Roman resort. After the fall of ...
  • Gaeta, Mola di (Italy)
    town, Lazio (Latium) region, south central Italy, on the Golfo (gulf) di Gaeta between the mouth of the Garigliano and the Gaeta peninsula, northwest of Naples. A town of the ancient Volsci people, it was later taken by the Romans and became a popular Roman summer residence noted for the Caecuban and Falernian wines. Formia was destroyed by the Saracens in 842. There are ruins o...
  • Gaetan, Giovanni da (pope)
    pope from 1118 to 1119....
  • Gaetani family (Italian family)
    noble family of medieval origin, the so-called Anagni branch of which won political power and financial success with the election of Benedetto Caetani (c. 1235–1303) as Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303; see Boniface VIII)....
  • Gaetano (Catholic theologian)
    one of the major Catholic theologians of the Thomist school....
  • Gaetano da Thiene (Catholic priest)
    Venetian priest who co-founded the Theatine order and became an important figure of the Catholic Reformation....
  • Gaetano, Il (Italian painter)
    Italian Renaissance painter whose early work typified the 16th-century International style....
  • Gaëte, Martin-Michel-Charles Gaudin, duc de (French finance minister)
    French finance minister throughout the French Consulate and the First Empire (1799–1814) and founder of the Bank of France (1800)....
  • Gaetuli (people)
    ancient district of interior North Africa that in Roman times, at least, was inhabited by wandering tribes, the Gaetuli. The area, not clearly defined, included the southern slopes of the Atlas Mountains, from the Aurès Massif westward as far as the Atlantic; southward it extended to the oases in the northern part of the Sahara. Distinguished from the peoples to the south, the Gaetuli......

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