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  • Salvaleón de Higüey (Dominican Republic)
    city in the wide coastal lowland of the southeastern Dominican Republic. Founded in 1502 by Juan Ponce de León, Higüey has long been a pilgrimage centre known for its elaborate shrine of the Virgin, which houses a magnificent altar. The city is a commercial as well as a religious and administrative centre. The surrounding area produces cacao, cor...
  • ṣalvar (garment)
    ...The garment is believed to have originated in Persia, and it is presumed that the Arabs saw it there when they invaded that country in the 7th century. The trousers, called chalvar, chalwar, or ṣalvar according to the country where they were worn, measured about 3 yards (2.75...
  • Salvarsan (drug)
    ...a selective affinity for certain chemicals. He experimented with the effects of various chemical substances on disease organisms. In 1910, with his colleague Sahachiro Hata, he conducted tests on arsphenamine, once sold under the commercial name Salvarsan. Their success inaugurated the chemotherapeutic era, which was to revolutionize the treatment and control of infectious diseases.......
  • salvation (religion)
    in religion, the deliverance of mankind from such fundamentally negative or disabling conditions as suffering, evil, finitude, and death. In some religious beliefs it also entails the restoration or raising up of the natural world to a higher realm or state. The idea of salvation is a characteristic religious notion related to an issue of profound human concern....
  • Salvation Army (religious organization)
    international Christian religious and charitable movement organized and operated on a military pattern. The Army is established in more than 80 countries, preaching the gospel in about 112 languages in 16,000 evangelical centres and operating more than 3,000 social welfare institutions, hospitals, schools, and agencies. Its international headquarters are in London....
  • Salvation Army Hostel (building, Paris, France)
    Le Corbusier constructed two other important buildings during this period, the Salvation Army Hostel in Paris, with its attempt at a “breathing” glass wall conceived as an unopenable glass surface equipped with an air conditioning system (a technological and financial failure), and the Swiss Dormitory at the Cité Universitaire in Paris (1931–32). In the latter structure...
  • Salvation Hunters, The (film by Sternberg)
    Sternberg immigrated to the United States as a boy. He began working in films as early as 1911 for a film-servicing company, and by 1923 he was a scriptwriter and cameraman in Hollywood. The Salvation Hunters (1925), his first independent release, brought immediate recognition; it was a realistic portrait of waterfront life, almost entirely composed of motionless shots. Two years later......
  • salvator salvandus (religion)
    ...of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus....
  • Salvatores, Gabriele (Italian director, writer, and actor)
    Other Nominees...
  • salve (pharmacology)
    Semisolid dosage forms include ointments and creams. Ointments are preparations for external use, intended for application to the skin. Typically, they have an oily or greasy consistency and can appear “stiff” as they are applied to the skin. Ointments contain drug that may act on the skin or be absorbed through the skin for systemic action. Many ointments are made from petroleum......
  • Salvelinus (fish)
    (Salvelinus), any of several freshwater food and game fishes distinguished from the similar trout by light, rather than black, spots and by a boat-shaped bone (vomer) that is toothed only in front, on the roof of the mouth. Chars are of the trout and salmon family, Salmonidae, and often have smaller scales than their relatives....
  • Salvelinus alpinus (fish)
    The Arctic char (S. alpinus), of North America and Europe, inhabits the Arctic and adjacent oceans and enters rivers and lakes to breed. Some populations are restricted to freshwater lakes, which they colonized in glacial times. Like the other chars, the Arctic char is a good food and sport fish. It may weigh 6.8 kg (15 pounds) or more. The brook trout, Dolly Varden trout, and lake trout......
  • Salvelinus fontinalis (fish)
    (Salvelinus fontinalis), popular freshwater game fish, a variety of char, regarded for its flavour and its fighting qualities when hooked. The brook trout belongs to the salmon family, Salmonidae. A native of the northeastern United States and Canada, it has been transplanted to many parts of the world. It lives in cold, clean fresh water and is recognized by dark, wormlike markings on the...
  • Salvelinus malma (fish)
    (species Salvelinus malma), char of the family Salmonidae, found in northwestern North America and northeastern Asia. It has yellow spots on the back, reddish spots on the sides, and a white edge on the lower fins; it takes its name from that of a character in Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge. It often migrates to sea, grows large and silvery, and returns to streams to ...
  • Salvelinus namaycush (fish)
    (Salvelinus namaycush), large, voracious char, family Salmonidae, widely distributed from northern Canada and Alaska, U.S., south to New England and the Great Lakes basin. It is usually found in deep, cool lakes. The fish are greenish gray and covered with pale spots. In spring, lake trout of about 2.3 kg (5 pounds) are caught in shallow water; in summer, larger fish, up to about 45 kg (10...
  • Salvi, Niccolò (Italian sculptor and architect)
    Italian sculptor and architect whose late Roman Baroque masterpiece is the Trevi Fountain in Rome....
  • Salvi, Nicola (Italian sculptor and architect)
    Italian sculptor and architect whose late Roman Baroque masterpiece is the Trevi Fountain in Rome....
  • Salvia (plant genus)
    the sage genus, containing more than 900 species of herbaceous and woody plants of the mint family (Lamiaceae), order Lamiales. Some members are important as sources of flavouring....
  • Salvia apiana (plant)
    ...and style (respectively, the male structure that produces the pollen and the female structure that bears the pollen-receptive surface, the stigma) in the upper lip, whereas S. apiana has long stamens and style and a specialized floral configuration. S. mellifera is pollinated by small or medium-sized bees that carry pollen on their......
  • Salvia farinacea (plant)
    ...native near the mountain lakes of Guatemala. It attains more than 4 metres (13 feet) in height and has triangular, 30-cm (12-inch) spikes of woolly, scarlet corollas opening from magenta calyxes. Blue sage (S. farinacea) opens bright blue flowers after rains in the hills of southwestern North America. Possibly the best-known Salvia is the garden annual scarlet sage (S.......
  • Salvia mellifera (plant)
    ...and size of the genitalia. In plants, variations in flower structure may impede pollination. Two species of sage from California provide an example: The two-lipped flowers of Salvia mellifera have stamens and style (respectively, the male structure that produces the pollen and the female structure that bears the pollen-receptive surface, the stigma) in the upper......
  • Salvia officinalis (plant)
    (Salvia officinalis), aromatic perennial herb of the family Lamiaceae (Labiatae) native to the Mediterranean region, cultivated for its leaves, which are used fresh or dried as a flavouring in many foods, particularly in stuffings for poultry and pork and in sausages. The bushes grow about 2 feet (60 cm) tall and have rough or wrinkled and downy, gray-green or whitish gr...
  • Salvia sclarea (plant)
    ...a woody perennial growing to 60 cm (2 feet) tall, bears aromatic leaves that are the source of the culinary herb (see sage). Another species with foliage used for flavouring is clary (S. sclarea), a taller, biennial herb with strong-smelling, hairy, heart-shaped leaves. Its white flowers and leaflike bracts below them are pinkish or violet-flushed. Both species are......
  • Salvia splendens (plant)
    ...from magenta calyxes. Blue sage (S. farinacea) opens bright blue flowers after rains in the hills of southwestern North America. Possibly the best-known Salvia is the garden annual scarlet sage (S. splendens) from Brazil, the blazing spikes of which contrast with dark green, oval leaves....
  • Salvia wagneri (plant)
    Montane tropical America has many Salvia species, perhaps the most spectacular of which is Wagner’s salvia (S. wagneri), or chupamiel, a treelike shrub, native near the mountain lakes of Guatemala. It attains more than 4 metres (13 feet) in height and has triangular, 30-cm (12-inch) spikes of woolly, scarlet corollas opening from magenta calyxes. Blue sage (S.......
  • Salviati, Antonio (Italian glassmaker)
    Italian glass manufacturer who helped reestablish Murano as a centre of Italian glassworking and was instrumental in stimulating European interest in brightly coloured, ornate pieces of Italian glass....
  • Salviati, Francesco (Italian painter)
    painter and designer, one of the leading Mannerist fresco painters of the Florentine-Roman school....
  • Salvin, Anthony (British architect)
    ...rehabilitated in the 18th century under the direction of Robert Adam, and the surrounding park was landscaped by Capability Brown. Much of Adam’s work in the Gothic style was replaced about 1855 by Anthony Salvin, who converted the interior to an Italian Renaissance-style palace. Hulne Park and North Demesne are remnants of the ancient hunting grounds of the marcher (border) lords. Parts...
  • Salvinia (fern)
    ...in a globose indusium, each containing either one megaspore or several microspores; 2 genera, often treated as separate families (Azollaceae and Salviniaceae), Azolla (about 6 species) and Salvinia (about 10 species), of floating aquatics, distributed nearly worldwide but most diverse in the tropics.Family Marsileaceae......
  • Salvinia auriculata (plant)
    ...which spreads quickly by its underground ropelike rhizome, rapidly invading abandoned fields and pastures in both temperate and tropical regions. One species of water spangles (Salvinia auriculata) became a major pest in India, blocking irrigation ditches and rice paddies. Another species (S. molesta) within three years covered 520 square kilometres (200 square......
  • Salvinia molesta (plant)
    ...in both temperate and tropical regions. One species of water spangles (Salvinia auriculata) became a major pest in India, blocking irrigation ditches and rice paddies. Another species (S. molesta) within three years covered 520 square kilometres (200 square miles) of the artificial Lake Kariba in southern Africa, cutting off light and oxygen and thus killing other plant life......
  • Salviniaceae (plant family)
    ...cells; 1 genus (Anemia) with about 100 species, mostly in the Neotropics.Order SalvinialesFamily Salviniaceae (floating ferns)Plants heterosporous; stems usually relatively short, mostly appearing dichotomously branched, sometimes lacki...
  • Salviniales (plant order)
    plant order containing two families of tiny ferns that float on water: Salviniaceae and Azollaceae, each consisting of one genus. Salvinia (water spangle, or floating moss) has about 10 species, and Azolla (mosquito fern) has six species. Roots are present in Azolla but missing from Salvinia. The two families differ further in their...
  • Salvius, Johann Adler (Swedish diplomat)
    The principal Swedish diplomat at Westphalia, Johann Adler Salvius, complained to his government in 1646 thatpeople are beginning to see the power of Sweden as dangerous to the balance of power. Their first rule of politics here is that the security of all depends upon the equilibrium of the individuals. When one ruler begins to become powerful . . . the others place themselves,......
  • Salween River (river, Asia)
    major stream of Southeast Asia and the longest in Myanmar (Burma). Rising in the T’ang-ku-la Mountains, a range of eastern Tibet, the river flows generally south for about 1,500 miles (2,400 km) through Yunnan province, China, and eastern Myanmar, emptying into the Gulf of Martaban of the Andaman Sea at Moulmein. In its lower course the river forms the frontier between Myanmar and Thailand ...
  • Salyut (Soviet space station series)
    any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961....
  • Salyut 1 (Soviet space station series)
    any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961....
  • Salyut 3 (Soviet space station series)
    any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961....
  • Salyut 4 (Soviet space station series)
    any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961....
  • Salyut 5 (Soviet space station series)
    any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961....
  • Salyut 6 (Soviet space station series)
    any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961....
  • Salyut 7 (Soviet space station series)
    any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961....
  • Salza, Hermann von (German crusader)
    German grand master (Hochmeister), from 1210 to 1239, of the organization of German crusaders called the Teutonic Order....
  • Salzburg (Austria)
    city, capital of Salzburg Bundesland (federal state), north-central Austria. It is situated in a level basin on both sides of the Salzach River near the northern foothills of the Alps and the Bavarian (German) border. The historic centre of the city, with its rich mix of art and architecture, was added to the UNESCO ...
  • Salzburg (state, Austria)
    Bundesland (federal state), west-central Austria. It is bordered by Bavaria (Germany) on the west and north and is bounded by the Bundesländer Oberösterreich on the north and east, Steiermark on the east, Kärnten on the south, and Tirol on the south and west. The province is drained by the Salzach, Enns, and Mur rivers and occupies an area of 2...
  • Salzburg Festival (music festival, Salzburg, Austria)
    ...the 19th century, and in 1917 Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Richard Strauss, and Max Reinhardt founded the Festival Theatre Committee, which mounted a festival at Salzburg on an annual basis. The Salzburg Festival now comprises recitals, concerts of orchestral and chamber music, church music, opera, and drama. The music of Mozart dominates the festival. The Festspielhaus (Festival Theatre),......
  • Salzburg Limestone Alps (mountains, Austria)
    ...in the world. The trough formed by the upper Salzach and upper Enns rivers separates the Tauern mountain ranges to the south from the moderately high Kitzbüheler Alps and, farther north, the Salzburg Limestone Alps, whose karst features include caves, notably the ice caves of the Tennen Mountains. The Flysch Alps north and east of the city of Salzburg are part of the Alpine......
  • Salzburg Marionette Theatre (theatre, Salzburg, Austria)
    ...artistic quality for adult audiences. The marionettes of the Art Puppet Theatre in Munich, for instance, were striking exemplars of the German tradition in deeply cut wood carving. In Austria the Salzburg Marionette Theatre specializes in Mozart operas and has achieved a high degree of naturalism and technical expertise. In Czechoslovakia—a country with a fine puppet......
  • Salzgitter (Germany)
    city, Lower Saxony Land (state), north-central Germany. It lies in the foothills of the Harz Mountains, southwest of Braunschweig. The area covers the largest deposit of iron ore in Germany (no longer mined), and in 1937 the former Reichswerke (...
  • Salzillo, Francisco (Spanish sculptor)
    sculptor, a prolific creator of figures for the Holy Week procession. He is considered by some authorities to be the greatest sculptor in 18th-century Spain and by others as merely an excellent folk artist....
  • Salzillo y Alcaraz, Francisco (Spanish sculptor)
    sculptor, a prolific creator of figures for the Holy Week procession. He is considered by some authorities to be the greatest sculptor in 18th-century Spain and by others as merely an excellent folk artist....
  • Salzkammergut (region, Austria)
    region, north-central Austria. The region consists mainly of the Traun River basin and is renowned for its lake and mountain scenery. Often called the Austrian “Lake District,” it has more than 30 lakes, including the Atter, Traun, Mond, Wolfgang (Aber), and Hallstätter. The highest mountains in the region, the Dachstein Gruppe, lie to the...
  • Salzmann, Siegmund (Austrian novelist)
    Austrian novelist and journalist, author of the children’s classic and adult allegory Bambi, a sensitively told subjective story of the life of a wild deer....
  • SAM (chemical compound)
    ...The first known optically active sulfur compounds were sulfonium salts, prepared in 1900. A number of sulfonium salts occur in nature; some examples include S-adenosyl methionine, a key biological source of the methyl group; thetin or 3-dimethylsulfonium propanoate,......
  • Sam and Dave (American music duo)
    American vocal duo who were among the most popular performers of soul music in the late 1960s and whose gritty, gospel-drenched style typified the Memphis Sound....
  • Sam Bass (ballad)
    ...warning young men to avoid the curse of piracy. The fact that so many folk heroes are sadistic bullies (“Stagolee”), robbers (“Dupree”), or pathological killers (“Sam Bass,” “Billy the Kid”) comments on the folk’s hostile attitude toward the church, constabulary, banks, and railroads. The kindly, law-abiding, devout, enduring steel ...
  • Sam Browne belt
    ...of equipment carried by uniformed officers has grown considerably since the 1950s, when it basically consisted of a handgun in a holster, handcuffs, and a nightstick. The holster was attached to a Sam Browne belt—a wide belt, usually made of leather, supported by a strap extending diagonally over the right shoulder. The belt was ill-adapted to changes in other police equipment, however,....
  • Sam Houston, Fort (fort, Texas, United States)
    Military installations largely account for San Antonio’s rapid growth after 1940. Fort Sam Houston (1879), inside the city, is the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Army and site of a national cemetery and the Academy of Health Sciences, the army’s basic school for medical personnel. Nearby are three U.S. Air Force bases: Lackland, Randolph, and Brooks. Lackland, in the southwestern part ...
  • Sam Houston Normal Institute (university, Huntsville, Texas, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Huntsville, Texas, U.S. It is part of the Texas State University System. The university includes colleges of arts and sciences, business administration, criminal justice, and education and applied science. In addition to undergraduate studies, the university offers a range of master’s degree programs and doctoral pro...
  • Sam Houston State College (university, Huntsville, Texas, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Huntsville, Texas, U.S. It is part of the Texas State University System. The university includes colleges of arts and sciences, business administration, criminal justice, and education and applied science. In addition to undergraduate studies, the university offers a range of master’s degree programs and doctoral pro...
  • Sam Houston State Teachers College (university, Huntsville, Texas, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Huntsville, Texas, U.S. It is part of the Texas State University System. The university includes colleges of arts and sciences, business administration, criminal justice, and education and applied science. In addition to undergraduate studies, the university offers a range of master’s degree programs and doctoral pro...
  • Sam Houston State University (university, Huntsville, Texas, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Huntsville, Texas, U.S. It is part of the Texas State University System. The university includes colleges of arts and sciences, business administration, criminal justice, and education and applied science. In addition to undergraduate studies, the university offers a range of master’s degree programs and doctoral pro...
  • Sam Peng (section of Bangkok, Thailand)
    ...in the 18th century and its citadel was moved to the east bank of the Chao Phraya River, Chinese merchants and tradesmen occupying the site moved a short distance southward to the area now known as Sam Peng. Business was at first carried on in one-story wood and thatch houses. By the early 1900s a number of streets had been lined with two-story masonry shop-houses. This ever-expanding district....
  • Sam Rainsy Party (political party, Cambodia)
    ...his son Prince Ranariddh (although the latter was removed from the party in 2006). These two parties hold the largest number of seats in both legislative houses and form the governing coalition. The Sam Rainsy Party, founded in 1995 as the Khmer National Party and given its current name in 1998, is the third largest party and constitutes the official opposition....
  • Sam Saen Thai (king of Lan Xang)
    great sovereign of the Lan Xang kingdom of Laos, whose reign brought peace, prosperity, and stability to the kingdom....
  • Sam Sene Thai (king of Lan Xang)
    great sovereign of the Lan Xang kingdom of Laos, whose reign brought peace, prosperity, and stability to the kingdom....
  • Sam wśród ludzi (novel by Brzozowski)
    ...(1908; “Flames”), is a fictional account of the Russian revolutionary movements connected with the secret organization Zemlya i Volya (“Land and Freedom”). His novel Sam wśród ludzi (1911; “Alone Among Men”) is the first volume of what was intended to be a series of examinations of “the philosophical and political......
  • samāʿ (Ṣūfī religious practice)
    (Arabic: “listening”), the Ṣūfī (Muslim mystic) practice of listening to music and chanting to reinforce ecstasy and induce mystical trance. The Muslim orthodox regarded such practices as un-Islāmic, and the more puritanical among them associated the Ṣūfis’ music, song, and dancing with drinking parties and immoral activities. The ...
  • SAMA (financial institution, Saudi Arabia)
    The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) was established in 1952 as the kingdom’s central money and banking authority. It regulates commercial and development banks and other financial institutions. Its functions include issuing, regulating, and stabilizing the value of the national currency, the riyal; acting as banker for the government; and managing foreign reserves and investments. As a...
  • Sama, Bālkrishṇa (Nepalese author)
    The advent of modern literature in Nepal really began in the 1920s and ’30s with the work of Bālkrishṇa Sama, who wrote lyric poetry, plays based on Sanskrit and English models, and some short stories. Sama and his great contemporary, the poet Lakṣmīprasād Devkoṭā, discarded the earlier Sanskrit-dominated literary tradition and adopted some.....
  • samabhava (Hinduism)
    ...aparigraha (nonpossession), which implied that man had to jettison the material goods that cramped the life of the spirit and to shake off the bonds of money and property. The other was samabhava (equability), which enjoined him to remain unruffled by pain or pleasure, victory or defeat, and to work without hope of success or fear of failure....
  • Samadet faience (pottery)
    tin-glazed earthenware made in the 18th century in Samadet, Landes, France, at a factory founded in 1732. It is delicately painted with such motifs as formal flowers and cupids, in pink, blue, yellow green, and purplish black on white....
  • samadhi (Indian philosophy)
    (“total self-collectedness”), in Hindu and Buddhist religion and philosophy, the highest state of mental concentration that a person can achieve while still bound to the body and which unites him with the highest reality. Samadhi is a state of profound and utterly absorptive contemplation of the Absolute that is undisturbed by desire, anger, or any other ego-generated thought or emo...
  • samādhi (Indian philosophy)
    (“total self-collectedness”), in Hindu and Buddhist religion and philosophy, the highest state of mental concentration that a person can achieve while still bound to the body and which unites him with the highest reality. Samadhi is a state of profound and utterly absorptive contemplation of the Absolute that is undisturbed by desire, anger, or any other ego-generated thought or emo...
  • samahartri (Mauryan official)
    ...the ministerial council being a largely advisory body. The offices of the sannidhatri (treasurer), who kept the account, and the samahartri (chief collector), who was responsible for revenue records, formed the hub of the revenue administration. Each administrative department, with its superintendents and......
  • Samain (Celtic festival)
    (Celtic: “End of Summer”), one of the most important and sinister calendar festivals of the Celtic year. At Samhain, held on November 1, the world of the gods was believed to be made visible to mankind, and the gods played many tricks on their mortal worshipers; it was a time fraught with danger, charged with fear, and full of supernatural episodes. Sacrifices and propitiations of ev...
  • Samak Sundaravej (prime minister of Thailand)
    On Jan. 28, 2008, by a vote of 310 to 163, the parliament of Thailand elected Samak Sundaravej, leader of the People Power Party (PPP) and a former mayor of Bangkok, as the country’s new prime minister. King Bhumibol Adulyadej ratified the election the following day. Samak was the first Thai prime minister to be democratically elected since the ousting of Thaksin Shinawatra as prime ministe...
  • Samakow, Battle of (Turkish history)
    ...Chernomen in the Battle of the Maritsa River, took the Macedonian towns of Dráma, Kavála, and Seres (Sérrai), and won a significant victory over a Bulgarian-Serbian coalition at Samakow (now Samokovo). These victories brought large territories under direct Ottoman rule and made the princes of northern Serbia and Bulgaria, as well as the Byzantine emperor, Murad’s vas...
  • Samakuva, Isaias (Angolan politician)
    ...of civil war. Some UNITA troops were absorbed into the Angolan army, but the majority returned to civilian life. The three factions reunified, and UNITA transformed itself into a political party. Isaias Samakuva was elected president of UNITA in June 2003....
  • Samal (archaeological site, Turkey)
    archaeological site in the foothills of the Anti-Taurus Mountains, south-central Turkey. Samal was one of the Late Hittite city-states that perpetuated the more or less Semitized southern Anatolian culture for centuries after the downfall of the Hittite empire (c. 1190 bc)....
  • Samal (people)
    Muslim cultural-linguistic group of the Philippines, numbering about 360,000 in the late 20th century. They live in the southern islands of the Sulu Archipelago, southwest of Mindanao, mainly in the Tawitawi island cluster. Like other Filipino Muslims, the Samal differ markedly from the Christians, who constitute the vast majority of the country’s population. Kinship solidarity is very str...
  • Samalan language
    ...island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan; almost all the languages of the Philippine Islands; and the Sangiric, Minahasan, and Gorontalic languages of northern Sulawesi in central Indonesia. The Samalan dialects—spoken by the Sama-Bajau, the so-called sea gypsies in the Sulu Archipelago, and elsewhere in the Philippines—do not appear to belong to the Philippine group, and their...
  • Sāmān-Khudā (Sāmānid ruler)
    There was nothing of the popular hero in the Sāmānids’ origin. Their eponym was Sāmān-Khodā, a landlord in the district of Balkh and, according to the dynasty’s claims, a descendant of Bahrām Chūbīn, the Sāsānian general. Sāmān became Muslim. His four grandsons were rewarded for services to the caliph...
  • Samaná (Dominican Republic)
    city, northeastern Dominican Republic, on the southern shore of the Samaná Peninsula. The city was founded in 1756 by Spaniards from the Canary Islands. In 1825 there was a notable influx of black immigrants from the United States. Samaná serves as a commercial and manufacturing centre for the hinterland, which yields timber, cacao, coconuts, rice, and marble. Tann...
  • Samaná Bay (bay, Dominican Republic)
    bay located in the northeastern Dominican Republic and lying along the Mona Passage joining the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Bounded on the north by the Samaná Peninsula, the bay measures about 40 miles (65 km) east-west and 15 miles (25 km) north-south. Its well-protected deepwater anchorages make it one of the finest natural harbours in the West Indies. The Yun...
  • Samana Cay (island, The Bahamas)
    islet, eastern Bahamas, 22 miles (35 km) northeast of Acklins Island. About 10 miles (16 km) long and up to 2 miles (3 km) wide and bound by reefs, the verdant cay has long been uninhabited, but figurines, pottery shards, and other artifacts discovered there in the mid-1980s have been ascribed to Lucayan Indians living on the cay about the time of Christopher Columbus’ vo...
  • samanantara-pratyaya (Buddhist philosophy)
    ...all causes are classifiable into four types (catvāraḥ pratyayāḥ): (1) the direct cause (hetu-pratyaya); (2) the immediately preceding cause (samanantara-pratyaya), for, according to the Buddhist theory of universal momentariness (kṣaṇikatva), the disappearance of the mental activity of the first moment is......
  • samandarin (chemical compound)
    ...aurotaenia, produces a deadly alkaloid, batrachotoxin (14), which is used by tribal peoples as an arrow poison. The skin of salamanders secretes a comparably poisonous alkaloid—samandarin (15)....
  • sāmaṇera (Buddhism)
    Buddhist rite of ordination by which a layman becomes a novice (Pāli sāmaṇera; Sanskrit śrāmaṇera). The ceremony is also the preliminary part of higher ordination, raising a novice to a monk (see upasaṃpadā)....
  • Sāmānid dynasty (Iranian dynasty)
    (ad 819–999), first native dynasty to arise in Iran after the Muslim Arab conquest. It was renowned for the impulse that it gave to Iranian national sentiment and learning....
  • Samaniego, Félix María (Spanish poet)
    poet whose books of fables for schoolchildren have a grace and simplicity that has won them a place as the first poems that Spanish children learn to recite in school....
  • Samaniego, Manuel (artist)
    In addition to sculpture, the paintings of the Quito school displayed Rococo intimacy. Manuel Samaniego portrayed the Virgin as a good shepherdess in peasant costume and Joseph as a worker with his clothes unbuttoned and loose. These aspects are both found in his painting of a full scene (late 18th century) depicting Joseph’s workshop, in which Joseph practices carpentry while Mary spins wi...
  • samanta (Indian government)
    ...the chief merchant (sarthavaha), and representatives of the artisans and of the scribes. During that period the term samanta, which originally meant neighbour, was beginning to be applied to intermediaries who had been given grants of land or to conquered feudatory rulers. There was also a noticeable......
  • “Samantabhadra-cari-praṇidhāna-gatha” (Buddhist text)
    (“Practical Vows of Samantabhadra”), a Mahāyāna (“Greater Vehicle”) Buddhist text that has also made an important contribution to the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. Closely related to the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (“Discourse on the Adornments of the Buddha”) and sometimes considered its final section, the Bhadr...
  • “Samantabhadra-caryā-praṇidhāna” (Buddhist text)
    (“Practical Vows of Samantabhadra”), a Mahāyāna (“Greater Vehicle”) Buddhist text that has also made an important contribution to the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. Closely related to the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (“Discourse on the Adornments of the Buddha”) and sometimes considered its final section, the Bhadr...
  • sāmānya (Indian philosophy)
    (4) Sāmānya, or genus, which denotes characteristic similarities that allow two or more objects to be classed together....
  • samāpatti (Buddhism)
    The dhyānas are followed by four further spiritual exercises, the samāpattis (“attainments”). They are described as: (1) consciousness of infinity of space; (2) consciousness of the infinity of cognition; (3) concern with the unreality of things (nihility); and (4) consciousness of unreality as the object of thought....
  • Samar (island, Philippines)
    island, east-central Philippines, the third largest (after Luzon and Mindanao), part of the Visayas group. It lies between the Samar and Philippine seas and is separated from the Bicol Peninsula of Luzon (northwest) by the San Bernardino Strait. A bridge across the San Juanico Strait connects Samar with Leyte to the southwest. Samar lacks the high mountains that characterize most of the Visayas, b...
  • Samara (Russia)
    city and administrative centre, west-central Samara oblast (region), western Russia. It lies along the Volga River at the latter’s confluence with the Samara River. Founded in 1586 as a fortress protecting the Volga trade route, it soon became a major focus of trade and later was made a regional seat. In 1935 the city was renamed after Valerian Vladim...
  • samara (plant reproductive body)
    ...ornamental. The tree grows to 9–15 m (30–50 feet) tall. The compound leaves (rare among maples) consist of three, five, or seven coarsely toothed leaflets. The single seed is borne in a samara, or key—i.e., a broad, flat winglike structure. Owing to its quick growth and its drought resistance, the box elder was widely planted for shade by early settlers in the prairie areas...
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