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  • Ta-Sunko-Witko (Sioux chief)
    Sioux Indian chief of the Oglala tribe who was an able tactician and determined warrior in the Sioux resistance to the white man’s invasion of the northern Great Plains....
  • Ta-ti-wan I (anthropology)
    Two major cultures can be identified in the northwest: Laoguantai, in eastern and southern Shaanxi and northwestern Henan, and Dadiwan I—a development of Laoguantai culture—in eastern Gansu and western Shaanxi. The pots in both cultures were low-fired, sand-tempered, and mainly red in colour, and bowls with three stubby feet or ring feet were common. The painted bands of this......
  • Ta-t’ien-wan Stadium (sports facility, Chungking, China)
    Sports and recreation are dominant features of Chungking’s cultural life. Ta-t’ien-wan Stadium, the city’s main sports centre, offers a football (soccer) field; volleyball, basketball, and tennis courts; a track-and-field playground; and a parachute tower. The stadium has a capacity of 100,000. Numerous parks, both in the Old City and in outlying areas, attract large numbers o...
  • “Ta-ts′ang Ching” (Buddhist literature)
    the total body of Buddhist literature deemed canonical in China and Japan and comprising works of the most varied character numbering more than 2,000 in the standard Chinese edition and more than 3,000 in the latest Japanese edition. Unlike canons of the southern Buddhist schools, this vast “storehouse” continued to expand for many centuries. It began with translations of Sanskrit te...
  • Ta-tu (China)
    name by which the Venetian traveler Marco Polo referred to the city of Beijing, China, which at that time was the capital of the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (1206–1368)....
  • Ta-tu (China)
    city, province-level shi (municipality), and capital of the People’s Republic of China. Few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. The city has been an integral part of China’s history over the past eight centuries, and nearly every major b...
  • Ta-t’ung (China)
    city, northern Shanxi sheng (province), northern China. The city is situated at the northern limits of traditional Chinese settlement, just south of the Great Wall on a fertile plain watered by the Sanggan River and its tributaries. Pop. (2002 est.) city, 1,028,730; (2007 est.) urban agglom., 1,873,000...
  • Ta-wen-k’ou culture (ancient culture)
    ...sites in northern Jiangsu (first half of 4th millennium) represent regional cultures that derived in large part from that of Qingliangang. Upper strata also show strong affinities with contemporary Dawenkou sites in southern Shandong, northern Anhui, and northern Jiangsu. Dawenkou culture (mid-5th to at least mid-3rd millennium) is characterized by the emergence of wheel-made pots of various......
  • Ta-wo-erh (people)
    Mongol people living mainly in the eastern portion of Inner Mongolia autonomous region and western Heilongjiang province of China and estimated in the early 21st century to number more than 132,000. They are one of the official ethnic minorities of China. Their language, which varies widely enough from other Mongolian languages to once have been thought to be Tungusic or a mixtu...
  • T’a-yao niang (Chinese play)
    ...his gentle face with a horrifying mask to frighten his enemies when he went into battle. Some suggest the colourful painted faces of warriors in today’s Chinese opera derive from this play. T’a-yao niang (“Stepping and Swaying Woman”) was a farcical domestic play in which a sobbing wife bitterly complained about her brutal husband, who then appeared and, singi...
  • Ta-yeh (China)
    city, southeastern Hubei sheng (province), east-central China. Daye, established as a city in 1994, is situated on the south bank of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) near Huangshi and about 55 miles (90 km) southeast of Wuhan, the provincial capital....
  • Ta-yü (China)
    ...minerals. The area around P’ing-hsiang in the west is the coking coal capital of south central China; another major coal-mining centre is Feng-ch’eng, south of Nan-ch’ang. The region surrounding Ta-yü, on the Kwangtung border, is the centre of tungsten mining, and extensive deposits have been discovered at the extreme southern tip of the province. The ore mined in so...
  • Ta-yüan (Taiwan)
    shih (municipality), southwestern Taiwan, with an area of 68 square miles (176 square km). It is one of the oldest urban settlements on the island. The Han Chinese settled there as early as 1590 (some sources say earlier), when it was known as T’ai-yüan, Ta-yüan, or T’ai-wan—a name that was later extended to the whole island. The Dutch arrived in the city ...
  • Taʾabbaṭa Sharran (Arab poet)
    ...(“brigand”) poets, who were depicted as living a life of solitude and hardship in the desert accompanied only by its fiercest denizens (the snake, the hyena, and the wolf). Taʾabbaṭa Sharran (“He Who Has Put Evil in His Armpit”) and al-Shanfarā are among the best known of the ......
  • Taabwa (people)
    a people who live mainly on the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika, on the high grassy plateaus of the Marungu massif in extreme southeastern Congo (Kinshasa). Some also live in northeasternmost Zambia and along the Luapula River. Tabwa speak a Bantu language closely related to those of neighbouring Bemba of Zambia and Luba of Congo....
  • Taaffe, Eduard, Graf von (prime minister of Austria)
    statesman and twice prime minister of Austria (1868–70 and 1879–93) who controlled most of the empire’s quarreling nationalities and forged a conservative coalition that remained in power longer than any other ministry during the reign of the emperor Francis Joseph....
  • Taaffe, Ellen (American composer)
    American composer, the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in composition....
  • Taal Lake (lake, Philippines)
    lake in southwestern Luzon, Philippines, occupying a volcanic crater with a maximum width of 15 miles (24 km), at less than 10 feet (3 m) above sea level. It has an area of 94 square miles (244 square km) and is the country’s third largest lake. Within the lake rises Volcano Island (984 feet [300 m]), which itself contains another small crater (Yellow Lake). Volcano Island, called Taal Vol...
  • Taal Volcano (volcano, Philippines)
    ...with a maximum width of 15 miles (24 km), at less than 10 feet (3 m) above sea level. It has an area of 94 square miles (244 square km) and is the country’s third largest lake. Within the lake rises Volcano Island (984 feet [300 m]), which itself contains another small crater (Yellow Lake). Volcano Island, called Taal Volcano, has erupted 25 times since 1572, most recently in 1970....
  • taangata whenua (Maori society)
    To most Maori, being Maori means recognizing and venerating their Maori ancestors, having claims to family land, and having a right to be received as taangata whenua (“people of the land”) in the village of their ancestors. It means the acceptance of group membership and the shared recognition, with members of the group, of distinctly Maori ways....
  • Taʿanit Esther (Judaism)
    ...the destruction of the First and Second Temples in 586 bce and 70 ce, respectively; Tzom Gedaliahu (Tishri 3); ʿAsara be-Ṭevet (Fast of Ṭevet 10); and Taʿanit Esther (Fast of Esther; Adar 13). Also celebrated are Lag ba-Omer (Iyyar 18), usually observed as a school holiday, and Ṭu bi-Shevaṭ (Shevaṭ 15), in modern times...
  • Taarab (Kenyan popular music form)
    ...area around Lake Victoria inhabited by the Luo; called benga, it is perhaps the most distinctly Kenyan form in the musical repertoire. Taarab, a popular music of the eastern coastal region heavily influenced by Arabic styles, is also played throughout the country....
  • Tab (beverage)
    ...acquisition of new products. In 1946 the company purchased rights to the Fanta soft drink, previously developed in Germany. It introduced the lemon-lime drink Sprite in 1961 and the sugar-free cola Tab in 1963. By purchase of Minute Maid Corporation in 1960, it entered the citrus beverage market. In 1982 the company acquired a controlling interest in Columbia Pictures, a motion-picture and......
  • tab (musical instrument)
    ...were expected to extemporize their parts. By the 13th century, three types of drum appear to have been established: the nakers, small paired kettledrums; the tab, a small cylindrical drum, often with snares; and the tambourine. They apparently served only as time beaters and, except for the tambourine, were beaten with sticks. Only from about the 14th......
  • Tabābiʿah (Ḥimyarite rulers)
    A major break with the past was made in the 4th century ad, when the polytheistic religion of the earlier cultures was replaced by a monotheistic cult of “The Merciful (Raḥmān), Lord of heaven and earth.” There was also an increasing interest, both friendly and hostile, in central Arabia. Already in the 2nd and 3rd centuries ad Sabaean, ...
  • tabac du diable (plant)
    any of three species of plants that grow in bogs and meadows of temperate regions. In eastern North America the skunk cabbage is Symplocarpus foetidus, which belongs to the arum family (Araceae, order Arales). In French-speaking parts of Canada it is called tabac du diable (“devil’s tobacco”) or chou puant (“stinking cabbage”). It is a fleshy...
  • Tabah Incident (Egyptian history)
    ...Kāmil and his alliance with the khedive, who became more willing to cooperate with Cromer. Muṣṭafā Kāmil now turned to Sultan Abdülhamid. When a dispute (the Tābah Incident, 1906) arose between the Ottomans and the occupying power over the Sinai Peninsula, Muṣṭafā Kāmil sought to rally Egyptian nationalist opinion in.....
  • Tabal (historical state, Turkey)
    ...King Tutammu of Patina, who had been strategically safe as long as Arpad had not been conquered, also was defeated and his land turned into an Assyrian province. In 738 Samal, Milid, Kaska, Tabal, and Tuwanuwa (classical Tyana) came to terms with the Assyrian king. The Assyrian influence again had reached the inner parts of Anatolia. In 732 King Wasu-Sarmas of Tabal was deposed by the......
  • tabali (brick)
    ...probably comparable with that of earlier centuries, but with the former cylindrical huts replaced by those of square plan, reflecting the changing size of families. New houses are built from tabali, or pear-shaped mud bricks, and the large palaces of the emirs are often richly decorated within, with spaces spanned by palm ribs....
  • Tabanidae (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...
  • Tabanus (genus of horse fly)
    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...
  • Tabanus lineola (horse fly)
    ...may refer either to the fly’s roving habits or to its mouthparts, which resemble a wedge-shaped miner’s tool. Other such names are breeze fly and ear fly. One of the most common species (Tabanus lineola) has bright-green eyes and is known as green head. The genus Chrysops, usually known as deer fly, is slightly smaller than Tabanus and has dark markings on the...
  • Ṭabaqah Dam (dam, Syria)
    dam on the Euphrates River in north-central Syria. The dam, which is located 30 miles (50 km) upriver from the town of Ar-Raqqah, was begun in 1968. Its construction prompted an intense archaeological excavation of the area around the town of Ṭabaqah. The dam is of earth-fill construction, some 197 feet (60 m) high and 2.8 miles (4.5 km) long. It was c...
  • ṭabaqāt (Islam)
    ...ḥadīth stimulated a characteristic form of premodern Muslim intellectual and literary activity, the collecting of biographical materials into compendiums (ṭabaqāt). By viewing the Qurʾān and documentable sunnah as preeminent, ash-Shāfiʿī also undermined those in ʿAbbāsid court cir...
  • Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl al-shuʿarāʾ (work by Jumaḥī)
    ...(“classes,” or “levels”). Two such early works belong to al-Aṣmaʿī and his student Ibn Sallām al-Jumaḥī; the latter’s Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl al-shuʿarāʾ (“Classes of Champion Poets”) categorizes poets by both period and theme without providi...
  • tabard (clothing)
    ...was noted for its plainness. There was little or no decoration, and garments were unbelted. A sleeveless surcoat was generally worn over the tunic. This had derived in the late 12th century from the tabard, a garment worn by crusading knights over their armour to prevent the sun from reflecting off the metal and making them visible to an enemy. The surcoat, which was worn by both men and women,...
  • Tabard, François (French artist)
    ...Lurçat’s art did not become definitive until the 1930s, when under the influence of Gothic tapestry, particularly the 14th-century “Angers Apocalypse,” and in collaboration with François Tabard, master weaver at Aubusson, he formulated the principles that were to make tapestry once again a joint creation between artist and weaver—an art in its own right...
  • Tabaré: An Indian Legend of Uruguay (poem by Zorrilla de San Martín)
    Uruguayan poet famous for a long historical verse epic, Tabaré (1886; final edition after several revisions, 1926), a poem in six cantos, based upon a legend of the love between a Spanish girl and an Indian boy....
  • Tabarestan (historical region, Iran)
    historic region of northern Iran, bordering the Caspian Sea on the north....
  • Ṭabarī, aṭ- (Muslim scholar)
    Muslim scholar, author of enormous compendiums of early Islāmic history and Qurʾānic exegesis, who made a distinct contribution to the consolidation of Sunnī thought during the 9th century. He condensed the vast wealth of exegetical and historical erudition of the preceding generations of Muslim scholars and laid the foundations for both Qurʾānic...
  • Tabarin, Operation (British military plan)
    ...be lost and that a pro-German Argentine government might control both sides of the vital Drake Passage linking Atlantic and Pacific sea routes resulted in a secret military plan, code-named “Operation Tabarin,” to establish a base on Deception Island for closer watch. When the British returned to the island in February 1944, they found their earlier sign gone and an Argentine flag...
  • Ṭabarīyā, Buḥayrat (lake, Israel)
    lake in Israel through which the Jordan River flows. From 1948 to 1967 it was bordered immediately to the northeast by the cease-fire line with Syria. It is famous for its biblical associations. Located 686 feet (209 m) below sea level, it has a surface area of 64 square miles (166 square km). The sea’s maximum depth, which occurs in the northeast, is 157 feet (48 m). Measuring 13 miles (21...
  • Tabarly, Eric Marcel Guy (French yachtsman)
    French yachtsman who became a national hero when he won the 1964 Observer Single-Handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR) in record time and, in a series of sailboats named Pen Duick, went on to win numerous other solo races, including the 1976 OSTAR; he drowned after falling from the original Pen Duick (b. July 24, 1931, Nantes, France--d. June 12, 1998, off the coast of Wales)....
  • “tabarro, Il” (opera by Puccini)
    ...(The Triptych; New York City, 1918), three stylistically individual one-act operas—the melodramatic Il tabarro (The Cloak), the sentimental Suor Angelica, and the comic Gianni Schicchi. His last opera, based on the fable of ......
  • Tabasará Mountains (mountains, Panama)
    A central spine of mountain ranges extends almost the entire length of Panama, dividing the country into Atlantic- and Pacific-facing slopes. The two principal ranges, the Tabasará Mountains (Cordillera Central) in the west and the Cordillera de San Blas in the east, are separated near the centre of the country by a saddle of lower land. This depression (the Panama Canal site) divides......
  • Tabasaran language
    This language group includes Lezgi (with 240,000 speakers in Dagestan and about 170,000 in Azerbaijan); Tabasaran (about 90,000); Agul (about 12,000); Rutul (about 15,000); Tsakhur (about 11,000); Archi (fewer than 1,000); Kryz (about 6,000); Budukh (about 2,000); Khinalug (about 1,500); and Udi (about 3,700). The majority of Lezgi languages are spoken in southern Dagestan, but some of them......
  • tabasco (pepper)
    hot red pepper, a variety of Capsicum frutescens of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family. See pepper....
  • Tabasco (state, Mexico)
    estado (state), southeastern Mexico. It is bounded by the Gulf of Mexico to the north, by the state of Campeche to the east, by Guatemala to the southeast, and by the states of Chiapas to the south and Veracruz to the west. Its capital city is ...
  • Tabasco Plain (region, Mexico)
    tropical lowland on the Gulf of Mexico, in Tabasco state, southeastern Mexico. Occupying the coastal lowlands south of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and north of the Yucatán Peninsula, the Tabasco Plain is made up of alluvial materials deposited by the Grijalva and Usumacinta rivers and is covered with dense, tropical forest. The climate is hot and humid,...
  • tabasheer (chemistry)
    ...of bamboo are used as ornamentals in landscape gardens. The fine-grained silica produced in the joints of bamboo stems has been used as a medicine in the Orient for centuries under the name tabasheer. East Asian artists, poets, and epicures have long celebrated the beauty and utility of bamboo in paintings and verse....
  • tabashir (chemistry)
    ...of bamboo are used as ornamentals in landscape gardens. The fine-grained silica produced in the joints of bamboo stems has been used as a medicine in the Orient for centuries under the name tabasheer. East Asian artists, poets, and epicures have long celebrated the beauty and utility of bamboo in paintings and verse....
  • Tabatabaʾi, Sayyid Zia od-Din (Iranian statesman)
    Iranian statesman who led the coup d’état of 1921 in which he was made prime minister....
  • Tabb med manifestet (work by Ahlin)
    ...financially, and he left school at age 13 to work, although he later attended several folk high schools. He eventually settled in Stockholm, where he began his career as a writer. The early novel Tåbb med manifestet (1943; “Tåbb with the Manifesto”) presents many of the central ideas of Ahlin’s writings. In it a young proletarian finds the communist ide...
  • tabby (cat)
    type of dark-striped coat colouring found in both wild and domestic cats. One of the most common coat colours, the tabby pattern dates back to domestic cats in ancient Egypt. It is a recognized colour variety in purebred cats and is frequently seen in cats of mixed ancestry. Tabby colouring is highly variable but, for show cats, should consist of the following dark markings: st...
  • tabby weave (textile)
    simplest and most common of the three basic textile weaves. It is made by passing each filling yarn over and under each warp yarn, with each row alternating, producing a high number of intersections. Plain-weave fabrics that are not printed or given a surface finish have no right or wrong side. They do not ravel easily but tend to wrinkle and have less absorbency than other weaves....
  • Tabebuia pentaphylla (plant)
    ...tree of the family Flacourtiaceae; West Indian boxwood, a North American lumber trade name for wood from two tropical American trees, Phyllostylon brasiliensis of the family Ulmaceae and Tabebuia pentaphylla of the family Bignoniaceae; and a number of woods from Australian trees in the genera Eucalyptus and Tristania (family Myrtaceae), Alyxia (family......
  • Tabebuia serratifolia (genus Tabebuia)
    ...tree of the family Flacourtiaceae; West Indian boxwood, a North American lumber trade name for wood from two tropical American trees, Phyllostylon brasiliensis of the family Ulmaceae and Tabebuia pentaphylla of the family Bignoniaceae; and a number of woods from Australian trees in the genera Eucalyptus and Tristania (family Myrtaceae), Alyxia (family.........
  • Tabei Junko (Japanese mountaineer)
    ...from the north. The Chinese team included a Tibetan woman, Phantog, who reached the summit on May 27. The honours for the first woman to summit Everest, however, belong to the Japanese climber Tabei Junko, who reached the top from the South Col on May 16. She was climbing with the first all-women expedition to Everest (although male Sherpas supported the climb.)...
  • Tabel o Rangakh (Russian government)
    (Jan. 24, 1722), classification of grades in the Russian military, naval, and civil services into a hierarchy of 14 categories and the foundation of a system of promotion based on personal ability and performance rather than on birth and genealogy. This system, introduced by Peter I the Great, granted anyone who attained the eighth rank the status of a hereditary noble. It thus ...
  • tabelliones (Roman law)
    ...law schools at Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus (now Beirut) and to their salaried professors. There was also a humbler class of paid legal documentary experts, the tabelliones, who were useful in nonlitigious transactions....
  • Tabennisi (Egypt)
    ...the military about 314, withdrew alone into the wilderness at Chenoboskion, near his Theban home. Soon after, he joined the hermit Palemon and a colony of solitaries (anchorites) in the same area at Tabennisi, on the east bank of the Nile River. With a talent for administration, Pachomius built the first monastic enclosure, replacing the scattered hermits’ shelters, and he drew up a comm...
  • Taber ice (ice formation)
    2. Segregated, or Taber, ice includes ice films, seams, lenses, pods, or layers generally 0.15 to 13 centimetres (0.06 to 5 inches) thick that grow in the ground by drawing in water as the ground freezes. Small ice segregations are the least spectacular but one of the most extensive types of ground ice, and engineers and geologists interested in ice growth and its effect on engineering......
  • Tabernacle (Judaism)
    (“dwelling”), in Jewish history, the portable sanctuary constructed by Moses as a place of worship for the Hebrew tribes during the period of wandering that preceded their arrival in the Promised Land. The Tabernacle no longer served a purpose after the erection of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in 950 bc....
  • Tabernacle of the Sacrament (work by Desiderio da Settignano)
    ...his portraits of women and children, although he also executed two public monuments of major importance in Florence—the tomb of Carlo Marsuppini in Sta. Croce (c. 1453–55) and the “Tabernacle of the Sacrament” in S. Lorenzo (1461). The tabernacle, which was probably assembled and completed by assistants after Desiderio’s death, indicates the new trends ...
  • Tabernacle Pentecostal Church (Christian sect)
    ...N.C., in 1911 by the merger of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church (organized in 1898 by several Pentecostal associations) and the Pentecostal Holiness Church (organized in 1900). A third group, the Tabernacle Pentecostal Church, joined the consolidation in 1915....
  • Tabernacles, Feast of (Judaism)
    a Jewish autumn festival of double thanksgiving that begins on the 15th day of Tishri (in September or October), five days after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is one of the three Pilgrim Festivals of the Old Testament....
  • Tabernanthe iboga (plant)
    hallucinogenic drug and the principal iboga alkaloid, found in the stems, leaves, and especially in the roots of the African shrub Tabernanthe iboga. Ibogaine was isolated from the plant in 1901 and was synthesized in 1966. In small doses it acts as a stimulant. The peoples of West Africa and the Congo region have used iboga extracts or chewed the root of the plant in order to remain......
  • tabes dorsalis (pathology)
    rare neurologic form of tertiary syphilis, involving sensory deficits, loss of neuromuscular coordination, and diminished reflexes. Symptoms of this form of neurosyphilis chiefly affect the legs and may not appear for more than 25 years after the initial infection. Untreated, tabes dorsalis usually makes unassisted walking impossible and severely debilitates the victim....
  • Tabgatch (people)
    The Wei dynasty was founded by Tabgatch (Tuoba) tribesmen who, like many of the nomads inhabiting the frontiers of northern China, were of uncertain origin. Their language was basically Turkish, and scholars presume that their ancestry can be traced to proto-Turkish, proto-Mongol, or Xiongnu peoples. In any case, the Tuoba were non-Han Chinese, and their conquests of the small, weak North China......
  • Tabgatch (Chinese history [386-534/535])
    (ad 386–534/535), the longest lived and most powerful of the northern Chinese dynasties that existed before the reunification of China under the Sui and Tang dynasties....
  • tabi (footwear)
    Traditional Japanese footwear includes sandals, slippers, and wooden clogs (geta) worn with the tabi, a sock with a separate section for the big toe....
  • Tabinshwehti (king of Burma)
    king who unified Myanmar (reigned 1531–50). He was the second monarch of the Toungoo dynasty, which his father, Minkyinyo, had founded in 1486....
  • tabiʿun (Islam)
    ...ʿUmar II (717–720) was the only Umayyad caliph who is known to have condemned the levying of human tribute and ordered that it be discontinued. He also sent 10 tābiʿūn (“followers”; disciples of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions) to teach Islam to the Berbers. The enlightened policy of this pious cali...
  • tabl (musical instrument)
    any of a group of two-headed cylindrical drums used in Islamic music along the Mediterranean coast. They are the ancestors of European tenor and bass drums....
  • tabla (musical instrument)
    pair of small drums fundamental (since the 18th century) to Hindustani music of northern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The higher-pitched of the two drums, which is played with the right hand, is also referred to individually as the tabla or as the daya (dahina or ...
  • “Tablas Alfonsíes” (astronomy)
    the first set of astronomical tables prepared in Christian Europe. They enabled calculation of eclipses and the positions of the planets for any given time based on the Ptolemaic theory, which assumed that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. The introduction states that the work was prepared in Toledo, Spain, for King Alfonso X of León and Cast...
  • Tablas de Daimiel National Park (park, Spain)
    nature reserve and wetland ecosystem, located about 19 miles (30 km) northeast of the city of Ciudad Real, south-central Spain. The park, created in 1973, occupies 4,633 acres (1,875 hectares) and lies at the confluence of the Guadiana and Cigüela rivers, where fresh and brackish waters converge on the marshes and support both migratory and resident waterfowl year-round. ...
  • Tablatur-Buch (work by Scheidt)
    ...and instruments in the different stanzas foreshadowed the later Lutheran cantatas based on chorales. Scheidt’s work, though influenced by Sweelinck, shows his own skill in counterpoint. His Tablatur-Buch (1650) contains harmonized accompaniments for 100 sacred songs and psalms, pointing to the growing practice of congregational singing in Lutheran churches....
  • tablature (music)
    system of musical notation based on a player’s finger position, as opposed to notes showing rhythm and pitch. Tablatures were used for lute and keyboard music during the Renaissance and Baroque eras....
  • table (gem)
    ...stone is the girdle; the girdle lies on a plane that separates the crown, the stone’s upper portion, from the pavilion, the stone’s base. The large facet in the crown parallel to the girdle is the table; the very small one in the pavilion also parallel to the girdle is the culet. Certain stones, such as mogul cut diamonds (egg-shaped jewels faceted without regard for symmetry or b...
  • table (furniture)
    basic article of furniture, known and used in the Western world since at least the 7th century bc, consisting of a flat slab of stone, metal, wood, or glass supported by trestles, legs, or a pillar....
  • Table Alphabeticall, conteyning and teaching the true writing and understanding of hard usuall English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French &c., A (dictionary by Cawdrey)
    In 1604 at London appeared the first purely English dictionary to be issued as a separate work, titled A Table Alphabetical, Containing and Teaching the True Writing and Understanding of Hard Usual English Words, Borrowed from the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or French &c., by Robert Cawdrey, who had been a schoolmaster at Oakham, Rutland, about 1580 and in 1604 was living at......
  • Table Bay (bay, South Africa)
    bay of the Atlantic Ocean, located near the southern tip of Africa and forming the harbour of Cape Town. Extending north from Cape Town to Melkbosstrand, S.Af., the bay is 12 miles (19 km) long and 8 miles wide; it contains Robben Island and is overlooked by Table Mountain. Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to see the bay (c....
  • table beet (plant)
    ...form of the plant Beta vulgaris of the goosefoot family (Chenopodiaceae), one of the most important vegetables. Four distinct types are cultivated for four different purposes: (1) the garden beet, or beetroot, or table beet, as a garden vegetable; (2) the sugar beet, a major source of sugar; (3) the mangel-wurzel, or mangold, a succulent feed for livestock; and (4) the leaf beet,......
  • table berg (iceberg)
    ...it floats on the water. Because of their origin, the Antarctic icebergs are much longer than they are high, occasionally measuring some tens of kilometres in length. For this reason they are called table bergs....
  • table carpet
    ...Taking this European attitude into account, the Egyptian manufacturers created several unusual shapes and sizes for the European market: square, round, and cruciform carpets, obviously designed for tables rather than floors. During the 17th century, covering the entire floor with costly knotted carpets became fashionable. The mid-20th century witnessed a boom in antique-carpet prices that......
  • table mountain (geology)
    ...today. Fissure eruptions beneath the ice form steep ridges of broken lava fragments rather than lava-flow plateaus, while subglacial eruptions from point-source vents that erupt repeatedly form table mountains. Table mountain volcanoes have steep sides of pillow lavas—sacklike structures that form when flows of basaltic lava are extruded into the ocean, a deep lake, or a water-filled......
  • Table Mountain (mountain, South Africa)
    flat-topped mountain in southwestern South Africa, overlooking Cape Town and Table Bay and dominating the northern end of the high, rocky Cape Peninsula. Its tabular shape results from nearly horizontal layers of sandstone exposed by vigorous wind and water erosion. The distinctive-looking mountain is one of Cape Town’s most recognize...
  • table roll (papermaking)
    The table rolls, in addition to supporting the wire, function as water-removal devices. The rapidly rotating roll in contact with the underside of the wire produces a suction or pumping action that increases the drainage of water through the wire....
  • table salt (sodium chloride)
    mineral substance of great importance. The mineral form halite, or rock salt, is sometimes called common salt to distinguish it from a class of chemical compounds called salts....
  • table saw (tool)
    ...unit can also be pivoted to make angular and ripping cuts. The work is laid on a wooden table on top of the base, and the motor-blade unit is manually moved across it, cutting as it goes. The table saw (or stationary circular saw) consists of a circular saw that can be raised and tilted, protruding through a slot in a horizontal metal table on which the work can be laid and pushed into......
  • table sugar (biochemical compound)
    ...colourless, water-soluble compounds present in the sap of seed plants and the milk of mammals and making up the simplest group of carbohydrates. (See also carbohydrate.) The most common sugar is sucrose, a crystalline tabletop and industrial sweetener used in foods and beverages....
  • table talk (literature)
    informal conversation at or as if at a dining table; especially, the social talk of a celebrity recorded for publication. Collections of such conversations exist from as early as the 3rd century ad, and the term has been in use in English since about the 16th century. The practice of recording conversations and sayings of the famous became especially popular in the 17th century. This...
  • Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks, The (work by Davies)
    ...and At My Heart’s Core (1950), which are satires on Canadian standards and values. He also published collections of humorous essays, such as The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947); The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949), in which an irascible old bachelor’s opinions highlight the problems of sustaining culture in Canada; and Samuel Marchbanks’ Alm...
  • Table Talks (work by Luther)
    ...to be the poor timing of his decision. (It is noteworthy that Luther was not the first of the reformers to marry.) Katherine of Bora proved to be a splendid helpmate for Luther. Table Talks, a collection of Luther’s comments at the dinner table as recorded by one of his student boarders, pays tribute to “Dr. Katie” as a skillful household manager an...
  • table tennis (sport)
    ball game similar in principle to lawn tennis and played on a flat table divided into two equal courts by a net fixed across its width at the middle. The object is to hit the ball so that it goes over the net and bounces on the opponent’s half of the table in such a way that the opponent cannot reach it or return it correctly. The lightweight hollow ball is propelled back and forth across t...
  • Tableau comparatif (work by Haüy)
    ...minéralogie (1801; “Treatise on Mineralogy”), Traité de physique (“Treatise on Physics”), written at Napoleon’s request (1803), and Tableau comparatif (“Comparative Table”), his mineralogical classification (1809)....
  • Tableau économique (work by Quesnay)
    Quesnay’s system of political economy was summed up in Tableau économique (1758), which diagrammed the relationship between the different economic classes and sectors of society and the flow of payments between them. In his Tableau Quesnay developed the notion of economic equilibrium, a concept frequently used as a point of departure for subsequent economic analys...
  • Tableau historique et critique de la poésie française et du théâtre français au XVIe siècle (work by Sainte-Beuve)
    ...periodical, Le Globe. In its pages he wrote his first essays on the poetry of Victor Hugo and soon became a member of his literary circle of Romantic writers and poets. In his first book, Tableau historique et critique de la poésie française et du théâtre français au XVIe siècle (1828; “Historical and Critic...
  • tableau mecanique (art)
    Among the more elaborate mechanical devices popularized in the 18th century were tableaux mécaniques, or mechanical pictures. These framed painted landscapes, in which figures, windmills, and so forth spring to life by means of hidden clockwork, remained popular through the 19th century. A tableau designed for Mme de Pompadour (1759; Conservatoire National des Arts et......
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