A-Z Browse

  • Tasso, Torquato (Italian poet)
    greatest Italian poet of the late Renaissance, celebrated for his heroic epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (1581; “Jerusalem Liberated”), dealing with the capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade....
  • Tassoni, Alessandro (Italian author)
    Italian political writer, literary critic, and poet, remembered for his mock-heroic satiric poem La secchia rapita (The Rape of the Bucket), the earliest and, according to most critics, the best of many Italian works in that genre....
  • taste (sense)
    the detection and identification by the sensory system of dissolved chemicals placed in contact with some part of an animal. Because the term taste is commonly associated with the familiar oral taste buds of vertebrates, many authorities prefer the term contact chemoreception, which has a broader connotation. See chemoreception; tongue....
  • taste (art)
    ...with laughter—which, in some views, is itself a species of aesthetic interest—introduces a concept without which there can be no serious discussion of the value of art: the concept of taste. If I am amused it is for a reason, and this reason lies in the object of my amusement. We thus begin to think in terms of a distinction between good and bad reasons for laughter. Amusement at....
  • taste blindness (biology)
    A substantial minority of people exhibit specific taste blindness, an inability to detect as bitter such chemicals as phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). Taste blindness for PTC and other carbamides appears to be hereditary (as a recessive trait), occurring in about a third of Europeans and in roughly 40 percent of the people in Western India. Taste blindness for carbamides is not correlated with......
  • taste bud (anatomy)
    The sensory structures for taste are the taste buds, clusters of cells contained in goblet-shaped structures called papillae that open by a small pore to the mouth cavity. A single taste bud contains about 50 to 75 slender taste receptor cells, all arranged in a banana-like cluster pointed toward the gustatory pore. Taste receptor cells, which differentiate from the surrounding epithelium, are......
  • Taste of Honey, A (work by Delaney)
    British playwright who, at age 19, won critical acclaim and popular success with the London production of her first play, A Taste of Honey (1958). Two years later, Delaney received the Drama Critics’ Circle Award for the play’s New York City production....
  • Taste of Power, The (work by Mňačko)
    ...Mňačko, Alfonz Bednár, and Dominik Tatarka. Mňačko was among the first eastern European writers to criticize Stalinism, in his popular novel The Taste of Power (1967), while Tatarka attacked the Gustav Husák regime’s process of “normalization” in Czechoslovakia after 1969 in Sám proti noci...
  • taste receptor (anatomy)
    In humans two distinct classes of chemoreceptors are recognized: taste (gustatory) receptors, as found in taste buds on the tongue; and smell (olfactory) receptors, embedded high in the lining (epithelium) of the nasal cavity. These respond to different classes of chemicals: gustatory receptors to water-soluble materials (e.g., salt) in direct contact with them and olfactory receptors to......
  • taste-testing
    Professional tasters, sampling tea for the trade, taste but do not consume a light brew in which the liquor is separated from the leaf after five to six minutes. The appearance of both the dry and infused leaf is observed, and the aroma of vapour, colour of liquor, and creaming action (formation of solids when cooled) are assessed. Finally the liquor is taken into the mouth with a sucking......
  • tasting
    Professional tasters, sampling tea for the trade, taste but do not consume a light brew in which the liquor is separated from the leaf after five to six minutes. The appearance of both the dry and infused leaf is observed, and the aroma of vapour, colour of liquor, and creaming action (formation of solids when cooled) are assessed. Finally the liquor is taken into the mouth with a sucking......
  • Tastsinn und das Gemeingefühl, Der (work by Weber)
    Weber’s findings were elaborated in Der Tastsinn und das Gemeingefühl (1851; “The Sense of Touch and the Common Sensibility”), which was considered by the English psychologist E.B. Titchener to be “the foundation stone of experimental psychology.” Weber’s empirical observations were expressed mathematically by Gustav Theodor Fechner, who call...
  • Tasvir-i Efkâr (Turkish newspaper)
    ...about the same time, he published an anthology of poems translated from the French. In 1860 he worked for a newspaper, the Tercüman-i ahval, and in 1862 started his own paper, the Tasvir-i efkâr (“Picture of Ideas”), which soon became a vehicle for the expression of new political and literary ideas. Şinasi also wrote for the Ceride-i......
  • TAT (rocket)
    For space launching, three additional small auxiliary motors were strapped to a Thor rocket used as a first stage, resulting in the Thrust-Augmented Thor (TAT), nearly twice as powerful as the original Thor. Total thrust at lift-off was 330,000 pounds. Adding an Agena rocket as a second stage resulted in the two-stage Thor–Agena rocket, used to launch the Air Force’s......
  • TAT (psychology)
    ...with the 10 inkblot cards of the Rorschach test. The associations these ambiguous images provoke require expert interpretation; results provide useful information on emotional aberrations.The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) uses 20 pictures of people in different situations to which the viewer ascribes meaning, which reflects areas of anxiety, personal conflict, and interpersonal......
  • Tat Khalsa (Sikhism)
    ...the traditional blue. Those who accepted these changes were called Bandai Sikhs, while those opposed to them—led by Mata Sundari, one of Guru Gobind Singh’s widows—called themselves the Tat Khalsa (the “True” Khalsa or “Pure” Khalsa), which should not be confused with the Tat Khalsa segment of the Singh Sabha, discussed below....
  • Tat language
    ...latter consist of Ossetic (spoken in central Georgia), Talysh (spoken in far southeastern Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea), Kurdish (spoken in scattered areas in Armenia and southern Georgia), and Tat (spoken in northeastern Azerbaijan)....
  • tat tvam asi (Hindu philosophy)
    (Sanskrit: “thou art that”), in Hindu philosophy, the famous expression of the relationship between the individual and the absolute. The statement is frequently repeated in the sixth chapter of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (c. 600 bc), as the teacher Uddālaka Āruṇi instructs his son in the nature of the supreme reality. The id...
  • Tata (oasis, Morocco)
    oasis, southwestern Morocco. Situated in an arid region at the extreme northwestern edge of the Sahara, Tata oasis is located in a canyon watered by three wadis descending from Mount Bani, an outlier of the Anti-Atlas mountains. The oasis contains about 30 ksars (fortified villages) with houses built out of pink clay. The inhabitants of the region include Berbers (Imazighen)...
  • Tata (president of Guatemala)
    soldier and dictator who ruled Guatemala for 13 years (1931–44)....
  • Tata Airlines (Indian airline)
    airline founded in 1932 (as Tata Airlines) that grew into an international airline owned by the Indian government; it serves southern and east Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, the United States, and Canada. Headquarters are in Bombay (Mumbai)....
  • Tata family (Indian family)
    family of Indian industrialists and philanthropists who founded ironworks and steelworks, cotton mills, and hydroelectric-power plants that proved crucial to India’s industrial development....
  • Tata Iron and Steel Company (Indian corporation)
    ...and coal production jumped from roughly 500,000 tons in 1868 to some 6,000,000 tons in 1900 and more than 20,000,000 tons by 1920. Coal was used for iron smelting in India as early as 1875, but the Tata Iron and Steel Company, which received no government aid, did not start production until 1911, when, in Bihar, it launched India’s modern steel industry. Tata grew rapidly after World War...
  • Tata, J. R. D. (Indian aviator and industrialist)
    Indian industrialist (b. July 29, 1904, Paris, France--d. Nov. 29, 1993, Geneva, Switz.), for more than 50 years controlled what under his leadership became India’s largest industrial empire. Tata was born into one of India’s wealthiest families, but his mother was French, and he spent much of his childhood in France. As a result, French was his first language. It was while on a summ...
  • Tata, Jamsetji Nasarwanji (Indian industrialist)
    ...(i.e., textiles in Lancashire), by adding enough rupees to its revenue to make ends meet. Bombay’s textile industry had by then developed more than 80 power mills, and the Indian industrialist Jamsetji (Jamshedji) N. Tata’s (1839–1904) huge Empress Mill was in full operation at Nagpur, competing directly with Lancashire mills for the vast Indian market. Britain’s mil...
  • Tata, Jamshedji Nusserwanji (Indian industrialist)
    ...(i.e., textiles in Lancashire), by adding enough rupees to its revenue to make ends meet. Bombay’s textile industry had by then developed more than 80 power mills, and the Indian industrialist Jamsetji (Jamshedji) N. Tata’s (1839–1904) huge Empress Mill was in full operation at Nagpur, competing directly with Lancashire mills for the vast Indian market. Britain’s mil...
  • Tata, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (Indian aviator and industrialist)
    Indian industrialist (b. July 29, 1904, Paris, France--d. Nov. 29, 1993, Geneva, Switz.), for more than 50 years controlled what under his leadership became India’s largest industrial empire. Tata was born into one of India’s wealthiest families, but his mother was French, and he spent much of his childhood in France. As a result, French was his first language. It was while on a summ...
  • Tata Mailau, Mount (mountain, East Timor)
    The eastern part of Timor is rugged, with the mountains rising to 9,721 feet (2,963 metres) at Mount Tatamailau (Tata Mailau) in the centre of a high plateau. The area has a dry tropical climate and moderate rainfall. Hilly areas are covered with sandalwood; scrub and grass grow in the lowlands, together with coconut palms and eucalyptus trees. There are hot springs and numerous mountain......
  • tata maki-e (Japanese lacquerwork)
    ...patron of the arts, and under his patronage a real revival took place. When he died, his widow erected the Kōdai-ji at Kyōto, in which distinctive lacquer decoration called tata maki-e (Koda-ji maki-e) was used. This temple still contains examples of this ware that were presented by her....
  • Tata Motors Ltd. (Indian company)
    ...However, as Ford struggled in the early 21st century, it began selling a number of its brands. In 2007 the company sold Aston Martin, and the following year it sold Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors Ltd. of India....
  • Tata, Ratan (Indian businessman)
    Indian business mogul Ratan Tata, chairman of the privately owned Tata Group, a Mumbai-based conglomerate of nearly 100 companies, made international headlines in 2008 with some of the year’s most ambitious moves in the automotive industry. On January 10 he saw his longtime goal of building the world’s cheapest car come to fruition when Tata Motors officially launched the Nano, a tin...
  • Tata, Ratan Naval (Indian businessman)
    Indian business mogul Ratan Tata, chairman of the privately owned Tata Group, a Mumbai-based conglomerate of nearly 100 companies, made international headlines in 2008 with some of the year’s most ambitious moves in the automotive industry. On January 10 he saw his longtime goal of building the world’s cheapest car come to fruition when Tata Motors officially launched the Nano, a tin...
  • Tata, Sir Dorabji Jamsetji (Indian industrialist)
    Tata began organizing India’s first large-scale ironworks in 1901, and these were incorporated in 1907 as Tata Iron and Steel Company. Under the direction of his sons, Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata (1859–1932) and Sir Ratanji Tata (1871–1932), the Tata Iron and Steel Company became the largest privately owned steelmaker in India and the nucleus of a group of companies producing no...
  • Tata, Sir Ratanji (Indian industrialist)
    ...India’s first large-scale ironworks in 1901, and these were incorporated in 1907 as Tata Iron and Steel Company. Under the direction of his sons, Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata (1859–1932) and Sir Ratanji Tata (1871–1932), the Tata Iron and Steel Company became the largest privately owned steelmaker in India and the nucleus of a group of companies producing not only textiles, st...
  • Tatabánya (Hungary)
    city of county status and seat of Komárom-Esztergom megye (county), northwestern Hungary. Lying in the valley of the Gallei River, between the Vértes Hills to the south and the Gerecse Mountains to the northeast, the city was once Hungary’s main mining centre and is located on the country’s largest lignite deposit, the Tatab...
  • Tatamailau, Mount (mountain, East Timor)
    The eastern part of Timor is rugged, with the mountains rising to 9,721 feet (2,963 metres) at Mount Tatamailau (Tata Mailau) in the centre of a high plateau. The area has a dry tropical climate and moderate rainfall. Hilly areas are covered with sandalwood; scrub and grass grow in the lowlands, together with coconut palms and eucalyptus trees. There are hot springs and numerous mountain......
  • tatami
    rectangular mat used as a floor covering in Japanese houses. It consists of a thick straw base and a soft, finely woven rush cover with cloth borders. A tatami measures approximately 180 by 90 cm (6 by 3 feet) and is about 5 cm (2 inches) thick. In shinden and shoin domestic architecture, tatami completely cover the floor....
  • tatamis
    rectangular mat used as a floor covering in Japanese houses. It consists of a thick straw base and a soft, finely woven rush cover with cloth borders. A tatami measures approximately 180 by 90 cm (6 by 3 feet) and is about 5 cm (2 inches) thick. In shinden and shoin domestic architecture, tatami completely cover the floor....
  • Tatanagar (India)
    city, East Singhbhūm district, Jharkhand state, northeastern India, at the junction of the Subarnarekhā and Kharkai rivers. Sometimes called Tatanagar, the city was named for industrialist Jamsetji (Jamshedji) Nusserwanji Tata, whose company opened a steel plant there in 1911, and it rapidly grew in importance. The second largest city in the state, Jamshedpur is a ...
  • Tatanka Iyotake (Sioux chief)
    Teton Dakota Indian chief under whom the Sioux tribes united in their struggle for survival on the North American Great Plains. He is remembered for his lifelong distrust of white men and his stubborn determination to resist their domination....
  • Tataouine (Tunisia)
    ...area include seminomadic shepherds and cave-dwelling cultivators of grains, olives, figs, and date palms. The densely populated Mediterranean island of Jerba (Jarbah) is nearby, and Tataouine (Taṭāwīn), south of Medenine, is a starting point for trans-Saharan caravans. Oil fields, connected by pipeline with La Skhira (Al-Ṣukhayrah) on the Gulf of Gabes, and......
  • Tatar (people)
    any member of several Turkic-speaking peoples that collectively numbered more than 5 million in the late 20th century and lived mainly in west-central Russia along the central course of the Volga River and its tributary, the Kama, and thence east to the Ural Mountains. The Tatars are also settled in Kazakhstan and, to a lesser extent, in western Siberia....
  • Tatar A. S. S. R. (republic, Russia)
    republic in the east-central part of European Russia. The republic lies in the middle Volga River basin around the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers. Kazan is the capital....
  • Tatar City (Beijing, China)
    ...traditional core of Beijing essentially consisted of two walled cities (the walls no longer stand), the northern inner city and the southern outer city. The inner city, also known conventionally as Tatar City, lay to the southwest of the site of the Mongol city of Dadu; it was in the form of a square, with walls having a perimeter of nearly 15 miles (24 km). The outer city, also known as the......
  • Tatar language
    northwestern (Kipchak) language of the Turkic subfamily of Altaic languages. It is spoken in the republic of Tatarstan in west-central Russia and in Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and China. There are numerous dialectal forms. The major Tatar dialects are Kazan Tatar (spoken in Tatarstan), Western or Misher Tatar, as well as the minor eastern or Siberian dialects, Kasimov, Tepter (Teptyar), and Astra...
  • Tatar Pazardzhik (Bulgaria)
    town, west-central Bulgaria. It lies along the upper Maritsa River, between the Rhodope Mountains to the south and the Sredna Mountains to the north. It is a rail junction and an industrial centre, specializing in textiles, rubber, furniture, engineering, and the processing of agricultural produce....
  • tatar sable (mammal)
    any of several species of Asian weasels. See weasel....
  • Tatar Strait (strait, Russia)
    narrow passage of the northwest Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Japan (south) to the Sea of Okhotsk between Sakhalin Island (east) and the Asian mainland. From 4.5 to 213 miles (7 to 342 km) in width and 393 miles (632 km) long, it is generally shallow with depths less than 700 feet (210 m). The strait, which receives the Amur River in the north, is the site of the Russian ports of Uglegorsk, Aleksa...
  • Tatara Bridge (bridge, Japan)
    ...the 1979 Ohmishima steel arch bridge, whose 297-metre (975-foot) span made it the longest such structure in the Eastern Hemisphere. But the single most significant structure on the route is the 1999 Tatara cable-stayed bridge, whose main span of 890 metres (2,920 feet) makes it the longest of its type in the world—34 metres (112 feet) longer than the 1995 Normandy Bridge in France. The.....
  • Tataraimaka (region, New Zealand)
    The fighting resumed in the Second Taranaki War in April 1863 after Governor Grey built an attack road into the Waikato area and drove the Taranaki Maori from the Tataraimaka block. While fighting raged in Taranaki once again, the Waikato War began in July 1863, and the Waikato River region, the centre of the King Movement tribes, became the main target of the Europeans. Once again the war was......
  • Tătărescu, Gheorghe (premier of Romania)
    Romanian diplomat and politician who, as premier of Romania (1934–37, 1939–40), was unable to stem the tide of fascism....
  • Tatarian Stage (geochronology)
    Murchison included the red beds and evaporite beds now referred to as the Kungurian Stage in the lower part of his Permian System, while incorporating the nonmarine beds of the Tatarian Stage (a regional stage roughly equivalent to the Capitanian Stage plus a portion of the Wordian Stage) in its upper part. The upper portion of these nonmarine beds was subsequently shown to be Early Triassic in......
  • Tatariya (republic, Russia)
    republic in the east-central part of European Russia. The republic lies in the middle Volga River basin around the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers. Kazan is the capital....
  • “Tatárjárás” (operetta by Kálmán)
    ...cabaret songs under a pseudonym.) His reputation as a composer of operettas was made by his first stage work, Tatárjárás (1908; The Gay Hussars). The strongly Hungarian tone of this piece succeeded in winning over Viennese audiences, and The Gay Hussars was performed throughout Europe and the......
  • Tatarka, Dominik (Slovak author)
    ...writings multiplied. The difficulties of World War II and its aftermath of communist rule found vivid, personal expression in the work of Ladislav Mňačko, Alfonz Bednár, and Dominik Tatarka. Mňačko was among the first eastern European writers to criticize Stalinism, in his popular novel The Taste of Power (1967), while Tatarka......
  • tatárok Magyarországon, A (work by Kisfauldy)
    Kisfaludy left school at 16 to become a soldier and fought in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1811, while leading a precarious existence as a painter in Vienna, he tried his hand at a historical drama, A tatárok Magyarországon (“The Tartars in Hungary”). The play remained unknown until eight years later, when it was performed by a repertory company in a provincial town;....
  • Tatarsky Proliv (strait, Russia)
    narrow passage of the northwest Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Japan (south) to the Sea of Okhotsk between Sakhalin Island (east) and the Asian mainland. From 4.5 to 213 miles (7 to 342 km) in width and 393 miles (632 km) long, it is generally shallow with depths less than 700 feet (210 m). The strait, which receives the Amur River in the north, is the site of the Russian ports of Uglegorsk, Aleksa...
  • Tatarstan (republic, Russia)
    republic in the east-central part of European Russia. The republic lies in the middle Volga River basin around the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers. Kazan is the capital....
  • Tatary, Gulf of (strait, Russia)
    narrow passage of the northwest Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Japan (south) to the Sea of Okhotsk between Sakhalin Island (east) and the Asian mainland. From 4.5 to 213 miles (7 to 342 km) in width and 393 miles (632 km) long, it is generally shallow with depths less than 700 feet (210 m). The strait, which receives the Amur River in the north, is the site of the Russian ports of Uglegorsk, Aleksa...
  • Taṭāwīn (Tunisia)
    ...area include seminomadic shepherds and cave-dwelling cultivators of grains, olives, figs, and date palms. The densely populated Mediterranean island of Jerba (Jarbah) is nearby, and Tataouine (Taṭāwīn), south of Medenine, is a starting point for trans-Saharan caravans. Oil fields, connected by pipeline with La Skhira (Al-Ṣukhayrah) on the Gulf of Gabes, and......
  • tatbīq (Islamic philosophy)
    ...conditions of India. According to him, religious ideas were universal and eternal, but their application could meet different circumstances. The main tool of his policy was the doctrine of tatbīq, whereby the principles of Islam were reconstructed and reapplied in accordance with the Qurʾān and the Ḥadīth (the spoken traditions attributed to......
  • Tate, Allen (American author)
    American poet, teacher, novelist, and a leading exponent of the New Criticism. In both his criticism and his poetry, he emphasized the writer’s need for a tradition to adhere to; he found his tradition in the culture of the conservative, agrarian South and, later, in Roman Catholicism, to which he converted in 1950....
  • Tate Britain (museum branch, Westminster, England, United Kingdom)
    art museums in the United Kingdom that house the national collection of British art from the 16th century and the national collection of modern art. There are four branches: the Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, the Tate Liverpool, and the Tate St. Ives in Cornwall....
  • Tate, Buddy (American musician)
    American tenor saxophonist (b. Feb. 22, 1915, Sherman, Texas—d. Feb. 10, 2001, Chandler, Ariz.), played with a big, rich tone and fluent melodic imagination, first with traveling swing bands in the Midwest. As a featured soloist with Count Basie (1939–48), he incorporated some of Lester Young’s innovative melodic and harmonic concepts; he then led a popular band at the Celebri...
  • Tate galleries (museums, United Kingdom)
    art museums in the United Kingdom that house the national collection of British art from the 16th century and the national collection of modern art. There are four branches: the Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, the Tate Liverpool, and the Tate St. Ives in Cornwall....
  • Tate, George Holmes (American musician)
    American tenor saxophonist (b. Feb. 22, 1915, Sherman, Texas—d. Feb. 10, 2001, Chandler, Ariz.), played with a big, rich tone and fluent melodic imagination, first with traveling swing bands in the Midwest. As a featured soloist with Count Basie (1939–48), he incorporated some of Lester Young’s innovative melodic and harmonic concepts; he then led a popular band at the Celebri...
  • Tate, James (American poet)
    American poet noted for the surreal imagery and ironic stance of his poetry....
  • Tate, James Vincent (American poet)
    American poet noted for the surreal imagery and ironic stance of his poetry....
  • Tate, John Orley Allen (American author)
    American poet, teacher, novelist, and a leading exponent of the New Criticism. In both his criticism and his poetry, he emphasized the writer’s need for a tradition to adhere to; he found his tradition in the culture of the conservative, agrarian South and, later, in Roman Catholicism, to which he converted in 1950....
  • Tate Liverpool (museum branch, Liverpool, England, United Kingdom)
    ...adapted to house museums. Among these is the Orsay Museum (see photograph), formerly a major railroad station in Paris, which was reopened in 1986 as a national museum of the 19th century, and the Tate Gallery of the North at Liverpool (1988), an art museum housed in a warehouse in the Albert Dock, by the River Mersey....
  • Tate, Margaret (English singer)
    English soprano, a well-known opera, concert, and recording artist who was considered one of the 20th century’s foremost interpreters of French song....
  • Tate Modern (museum branch, Bankside, England, United Kingdom)
    Their most prominent project was the Tate Modern (one of the Tate galleries) in London. To create the museum, Herzog and de Meuron converted a former power plant on the South Bank of the River Thames. Incorporating traditional elements with Art Deco and modernism, the architects created what they described as a “building of the 21st century.” Upon opening to the public in May 2000,.....
  • Tate, Nahum (English writer)
    poet laureate of England and playwright, adapter of other’s plays, and collaborator with Nicholas Brady in A New Version of the Psalms of David (1696)....
  • Tate no Kai (Japanese society)
    ...culture, he raged against Japan’s imitation of the West. He diligently developed the age-old Japanese arts of karate and kendo and formed a controversial private army of about 80 students, the Tate no Kai (Shield Society), with the idea of preserving the Japanese martial spirit and helping protect the emperor (the symbol of Japanese culture) in case of an uprising by the left or a......
  • Tate, Sharon (American actress)
    Manson’s hold over his followers was graphically illustrated in 1968–69, when the Family carried out several murders on Manson’s orders. The most famous victim was actress Sharon Tate, wife of motion-picture director Roman Polanski, who was killed in her Los Angeles home along with three guests. The ensuing trial of Manson and his followers in 1970 attracted national attention...
  • Tate St. Ives (museum branch, England, United Kingdom)
    ...in its closure in 1997–98. The Tate Liverpool houses British and contemporary art in a wide range of media, from paintings and sculptures to video, installation, and performance pieces. The Tate St. Ives is located in an area that became an artist colony following World War II. Opened in 1993, it overlooks a beach and includes the nearby Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden. The....
  • tatebana (Japanese art style)
    Early styles were known as tatebana, standing flowers; from these developed a more massive and elaborate style, rikka (which also means standing flowers), introduced by the Ikenobō master Senkei around 1460. The early rikka style symbolized the mythical Mt. Meru of Buddhist cosmology. Rikka represented seven elements: peak, waterfall, hill,......
  • Tatebayashi (Japan)
    city, Gumma ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies in the northern Kantō Plain along the Isesaki line of the Tōbu railway, north of Tokyo. Founded in the 16th century as a castle town, it developed as a commercial centre for the surrounding rice-producing region. Long known for its silk, the city now also produces woolen textiles, beverages, and processed ...
  • Tateomys (rodent)
    ...rats are their ecological counterparts, primarily eating insects and other invertebrates. In the mountain forests of Sulawesi, some shrew rats are their own counterparts within the same habitat. Greater Sulawesian shrew rats (genus Tateomys) forage for earthworms at night, and the lesser Sulawesian shrew rat (Melasmothrix naso) exploits the same resource during......
  • Tatera indica (rodent)
    ...burrows of the great gerbil sometimes weaken embankments in western Asia, where it also damages crops. Although these rodents primarily eat seeds, roots, nuts, green plant parts, and insects, the Indian gerbil (Tatera indica) also eats eggs and young birds. Gerbils are active throughout the year, but in regions where winters are cold and snow is usual, they may......
  • Tathagata (Buddha)
    (Sanskrit and Pali), one of the titles of a buddha and the one most frequently employed by the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, when referring to himself. The exact meaning of the word is uncertain; Buddhist commentaries present as many as eight explanations. The most generally adopted interpretation is “one who has thus (tatha) gone (...
  • tathagatagarbha (Buddhism)
    ...future. Some Buddhists believe that there is only one buddha for each historical age, others that all beings will become buddhas because they possess the buddha nature (tathagatagarbha)....
  • “Tathāgataguhyaka” (Buddhist text)
    (“The Mystery of Tathāgatahood [Buddhahood]”), oldest and one of the most important of all Buddhist Tantras. These are the basic texts of the Tantric—an esoteric and highly symbolic—form of Buddhism, which developed in India and became dominant in Tibet. The Tantric form stands, along with the Mahāyāna and Theravāda,...
  • Tathari (Italy)
    city, Sardinia, Italy, near the north coast of the island on the edge of the limestone hills above the plain of Riu Mannu, north-northwest of Cagliari. In the 12th century, Sassari, then called Tathari, grew as the coastal peoples retreated inland from the raiding Saracens. It became important as the capital of the giudicato (judiciary circuit, a territorial division) of ...
  • Tathata (religion)
    in Indian religious thought, the supreme goal of certain meditation disciplines. Although it occurs in the literatures of a number of ancient Indian traditions, the Sanskrit term nirvana is most commonly associated with Buddhism, in which it is the oldest and most common designation for the goal of the Buddhist path. It is used to refer t...
  • tathbīt (Islam)
    Both tashbīh and taʿṭīl were avoided by many theologians who spoke rather of tanzīh (keeping God pure) and of tathbīt (confirming God’s attributes). The major reason for the fear of tashbīh is that it can easily lead to paganism and idolatry, while taʿṭīl leads to atheism....
  • taʾthīr (music)
    ...formulas, variety of intonations, and other conventional devices. The performer improvises within the framework of the maqām, which is also imbued with ethos (Arabic taʾthīr), a specific emotional or philosophical meaning attached to a musical mode. Rhythms are organized into rhythmic modes, or īqāʿāt (singular......
  • Tati, Jacques (French actor and director)
    French filmmaker and actor who gained renown for his comic films that portrayed people in conflict with the mechanized modern world. He wrote and starred in all six of the feature films that he directed; in four of them he played the role of Monsieur Hulot, a lanky, pipe-smoking fellow with a quizzical, innocent nature....
  • Tatian (Syrian biblical writer)
    Syrian compiler of the Diatessaron (Greek: “From Four,” or “Out of Four”), a version of the four Gospels arranged in a single continuous narrative that, in its Syriac form, served the biblical-theological vocabulary of the Syrian church for centuries. Its Greek and Latin versions influenced the Gospel text. Tatian also founded, or at least was ...
  • Tatianos (Syrian biblical writer)
    Syrian compiler of the Diatessaron (Greek: “From Four,” or “Out of Four”), a version of the four Gospels arranged in a single continuous narrative that, in its Syriac form, served the biblical-theological vocabulary of the Syrian church for centuries. Its Greek and Latin versions influenced the Gospel text. Tatian also founded, or at least was ...
  • taʿṭīl (Islam)
    (Arabic: “assimilating”), in Islām, anthropomorphism, comparing God to created things. Both tashbīh and its opposite, taʿṭīl (divesting God of all attributes), are regarded as sins in Islāmic theology. The difficulty in dealing with the nature of God in Islām arises from the seemingly contradictory views contained...
  • Tatischeff, Jacques (French actor and director)
    French filmmaker and actor who gained renown for his comic films that portrayed people in conflict with the mechanized modern world. He wrote and starred in all six of the feature films that he directed; in four of them he played the role of Monsieur Hulot, a lanky, pipe-smoking fellow with a quizzical, innocent nature....
  • Tatishchev, Vasily Nikitich (Russian historian)
    Russian economic administrator and historian who was the first to produce a comprehensive Russian history....
  • Tatler, The (English periodical)
    a periodical launched in London by the essayist Sir Richard Steele in April 1709, appearing three times weekly until January 1711. At first its avowed intention was to present accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, of poetry, and of foreign and domestic news. These all were reported and “issued” from various London coffee and chocolate houses. In time ...
  • Tatlin, Vladimir Yevgrafovich (Russian sculptor)
    Ukrainian painter, sculptor, and architect remembered for his visionary “Monument to the Third International” in Moscow, 1920....
  • Tatparyatika (work by Vacaspati Misra)
    ...argued that the meaning of a word is apprehended by hearing the last letter of the word together with recollection of the preceding ones. Vācaspati Miśra in the 9th century wrote his Tātparyaṭīkā (c. 840) on Uddyotakara’s Vārttika and further strengthened the Nyāya viewpoint against the Buddhists. He divided per...
  • Tatra Mountains (mountain range, Europe)
    highest range of the Central Carpathians. The mountains rise steeply from a high plateau and extend for approximately 40 miles (64 km) along the Slovakian-Polish frontier, varying in width from 9 to 15 miles (14 to 24 km). About 300 peaks are identified by name and elevation, the highest being Gerlachovský (or Gerlach) Peak (8,711 feet [2,655 m]). Although it has no glaci...
  • Tatra National Park (park, Europe)
    ...attractions of Kraków, Małopolskie is a region of great natural beauty and one of the country’s most visited. Six national parks lie within its boundaries. Notable among them are Tatra National Park, which contains jagged granite peaks, postglacial lakes, and hundreds of caves; Ojców National Park, also known for its caves, including the 755-foot- (230-metre-) long.....
  • Tatry Mountains (mountain range, Europe)
    highest range of the Central Carpathians. The mountains rise steeply from a high plateau and extend for approximately 40 miles (64 km) along the Slovakian-Polish frontier, varying in width from 9 to 15 miles (14 to 24 km). About 300 peaks are identified by name and elevation, the highest being Gerlachovský (or Gerlach) Peak (8,711 feet [2,655 m]). Although it has no glaci...
  • Tatry National Park (national park, Slovakia)
    Slovakia’s wildlife is abundant and diverse; the Tatry (High Tatras) National Park shelters an exceptional collection of wild animals, including bears, wolves, lynx, wildcats, marmots, otters, martens, and minks. Hunting is prohibited in the parks, and some animals, such as the chamois, are protected nationwide. The forests and lowland areas support numerous game birds, such as partridges,....

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

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

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

copy link

We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.

Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.

A-Z Browse

Image preview