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  • underwool (fur)
    The pelts of fur-bearing animals are called true furs when they consist of two elements: a dense undercoat, called ground hair, and longer hairs, extending beyond that layer, called guard hair. The principal function of ground hair is to maintain the animal’s body temperature; that of guard hair is to protect the underlying fur and skin and to shed rain or snow. Pelts that lack either eleme...
  • Underworld (film by Sternberg)
    ...(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 he directed Underworld (1927), one of the outstanding pictures of the year. Marked by carefully created atmosphere, striking lighting effects, and colourful characterization, it initiated a series of......
  • Underworld (work by DeLillo)
    ...lore, social fiction, and postmodern irony; Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections (2001, National Book Award), an affecting, scathingly satiric family portrait; and Don DeLillo’s Underworld (1997), a brooding, resonant, oblique account of the Cold War era as seen through the eyes of both fictional characters and historical figures. All three novels testify t...
  • underworld (religion)
    Creation myths of ancient Mesopotamia typically begin with the separation of heaven and earth, giving rise to a three-story universe that includes heaven above, earth in the middle, and the underworld below. The high gods reign in the heavens as an assembly or council. Earth is the realm of mortal humans, whose purpose is to serve the gods by providing them with sacred dwellings, food, and......
  • underwriting
    The two basic functions in insurance are underwriting and rating, which are closely related to each other. Underwriting deals with the selection of risks, and rating deals with the pricing system applicable to the risks accepted....
  • underwriting cycle
    Profits in property and liability insurance have tended to rise and fall in fairly regular patterns lasting between five and seven years from peak to peak; this phenomenon is termed the underwriting cycle. Stages of the underwriting cycle may be described as follows: initially, when profits are relatively high, some insurers, wishing to expand sales, start to lower prices and become more......
  • undescended testes (pathology)
    disorder in which one or both of the testes do not descend spontaneously to the usual position in the scrotum. (The testes normally descend around the time of the male infant’s birth.) Usually only one testis fails to descend into the scrotum; the other, descended testis suffices to ensure the individual’s normal male sexuality. Cases in which bo...
  • undescended testicles (pathology)
    disorder in which one or both of the testes do not descend spontaneously to the usual position in the scrotum. (The testes normally descend around the time of the male infant’s birth.) Usually only one testis fails to descend into the scrotum; the other, descended testis suffices to ensure the individual’s normal male sexuality. Cases in which bo...
  • undifferentiated schizophrenia (mental disorder)
    1. The simple or undifferentiated type of schizophrenic manifests an insidious and gradual reduction in external relations and interests. The patient’s emotions lack depth, and ideation is simple and refers to concrete things. There are a relative absence of mental activity, a progressive lessening in the use of inner resources, and a retreat to simpler or stereotyped forms of behaviour....
  • Undine (work by Fouqué)
    German novelist and playwright remembered chiefly as the author of the popular fairy tale Undine (1811)....
  • undine (mythology)
    mythological figure of European tradition, a water nymph who becomes human when she falls in love with a man but is doomed to die if he is unfaithful to her. Derived from the Greek figures known as Nereids, attendants of the sea god Poseidon, Ondine was first mentioned in the writings of the Swiss author Paracelsus, who put forth his theory that there are spir...
  • Undine (work by Schreiner)
    ...an active fantasy life. From 1874 until 1881 (when she went to England, hoping to study medicine) she earned her living as a governess; during this time she wrote two semiautobiographical novels, Undine (published 1928) and The Story of an African Farm (1883), and began From Man to Man (1926), at which she worked intermittently for 40 years but never finished....
  • undisclosed agency
    Continental European laws restrict the application of agency rules to cases where the agent acts openly in another’s name. Thus, French jurists infer from article 1984 of their Civil Code, according to which agency is the act of the agent pour le mandant et en son nom (“for and on behalf of the principal”), the negative conclusion that in case an agent does not disclose...
  • Undivine Comedy, The (work by Krasiński)
    Krasiński’s reputation rests primarily on two tragic dramas. In Nieboska komedia (1835; The Undivine Comedy) he presents a future struggle between the masses and the privileged that represents the first literary expression of class war. In his second important play, Irydion (1836; Eng. trans. ......
  • UNDOF (United Nations)
    A disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, signed following the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, established a United Nations buffer zone in the Golan Heights, monitored by a UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). The UNDOF mandate was renewed every six months thereafter. Negotiations between Syria and Israel, initiated during bilateral talks held in Madrid in 1991, continued intermittently......
  • UNDP (international program)
    United Nations (UN) organization formed in 1965 to help countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable human development, an approach to economic growth that emphasizes improving the quality of life of all citizens while conserving the environment and natural resources for future generations. The largest UN development assistance program, the UNDP is headed by an administra...
  • Undset, Sigrid (Norwegian author)
    Norwegian novelist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928....
  • unducted fan (engineering)
    ...the rear of the aircraft, with the plane of the propeller aft of the engine. These arrangements are referred to as “pusher” layouts. A recently developed engine layout, identified as the unducted fan (or UDF; trademark), provides a set of very high-efficiency counter-rotating propeller blades, each blade mounted on one of either of two sets of counter-rotating low-pressure turbine...
  • undue influence (law)
    A testamentary disposition is not valid if at the time of its execution the testator was mentally incompetent or if he acted under “undue influence”—i.e., coercion—or under fraud. It is difficult, however, to break a will upon such grounds. The courts, especially those of Anglo-American systems, demand strict proof that the testator, when he made the provision, was......
  • undulant fever (pathology)
    infectious disease of humans and domestic animals characterized by an insidious onset of fever, chills, sweats, weakness, pains, and aches, all of which resolve within three to six months. The disease is named after the British army physician David Bruce, who in 1887 first isolated and identified the causative bacteria, Brucella, from the spleen of a soldier who h...
  • Undur Khan (Mongolia)
    town, eastern Mongolian People’s Republic. Situated on the Kerulen River, 180 miles (290 km) east of Ulaanbaatar, the town lies at a major junction of transportation routes between Ulaanbaatar and Choybalsan. Coal mining is economically important; the coalfield in the Mörön River valley, 50 miles (80 km) from the town, has a productive coal seam up to 15 feet (4.5 m) thick. Po...
  • Une (chemical element)
    an artificially produced element belonging to the transuranium group, atomic number 109. It is predicted to have chemical properties resembling those of iridium....
  • UNE (political party, Guatemala)
    ...the neoliberal National Advancement Party (Partido de Avanzada Nacional; PAN), and the National Alliance (Alianza National; AN). Notable parties that formed in the early 21st century include the National Union for Hope (Unión Nacional de Esperanza; UNE), the Patriotic Party (Partido Patriota; PP), the Grand National Alliance (Gran Alianza Nacional; GANA), and the Centre of Social......
  • Une de Mai (horse)
    ...Adios in the 1940s and his son Adios Butler in the 1950s, the pacer Bret Hanover and the trotter Nevele Pride in the 1960s, and the pacer Niatross retired to stud in 1981. The French trotting mare Une de Mai was at one time one of the leading money winning horses in purses....
  • “Une Vie sans joie” (work by Renoir)
    ...with theatrical circles through his sister-in-law, the actress Vera Sergine, Renoir was attracted by the evolving art of the film and decided to write a screenplay. It was made into the film Catherine, or Une Vie sans joie (“A Life Without Joy”), in 1923, with his wife appearing under the name of Catherine Hessling. The first film Renoir directed was La Fille de.....
  • Unea (island, Papua New Guinea)
    ...of New Britain Island in the Bismarck Sea. The group, with a total land area of 45 square miles (117 square km), includes the main islands of Garove (Ile des Lacs; 26 square miles [67 square km]), Unea (Merite; 11 square miles [28 square km]), and Mundua (2 square miles [5 square km]), as well as five smaller islands. Unea is the highest of the islands, rising to 1,939 feet (591 metres).......
  • Unebourg, Dominique-René Vandamme, count d’ (French general)
    French general in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars....
  • UNEF (international organization)
    ...decision to abandon his policy of “militant inaction” toward Israel. For 10 years, relative peace on the border with Israel had been maintained precariously by the presence of the UNEF stationed on the Egyptian side. In the Arab summit conferences of 1964 and 1965, Nasser had counseled restraint, but in 1966 events eluded his control. Palestinian incursions against Israel were......
  • unemployment
    the condition of one who is capable of working, actively seeking work, but unable to find any work. It is important to note that to be considered unemployed a person must be an active member of the labour force and in search of remunerative work....
  • Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (work by Beveridge of Tuggal)
    In Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Beveridge argued that unemployment was in large measure caused by the organization of industry. His revised views, set forth in Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), were strongly influenced by Keynesian economics. Beveridge’s most notable achievement came during World War II, when, at the.....
  • unemployment compensation
    a form of social insurance designed to compensate certain categories of workers for unemployment that is involuntary and short-term. Unemployment insurance programs were created primarily to provide financial assistance to laid-off workers during a period deemed long enough to enable them to find another job or be rehired at their original job. In most countries, workers who ha...
  • unemployment insurance
    a form of social insurance designed to compensate certain categories of workers for unemployment that is involuntary and short-term. Unemployment insurance programs were created primarily to provide financial assistance to laid-off workers during a period deemed long enough to enable them to find another job or be rehired at their original job. In most countries, workers who ha...
  • UNEP (international program)
    organization established in 1972 to guide and coordinate environmental activities within the United Nations (UN) system. UNEP promotes international cooperation on environmental issues, provides guidance to UN organizations, and, through its scientific advisory groups, encourages the international scientific community to participate in formulating policy for many of the UN...
  • Unequal Treaty (Chinese history)
    in Chinese history, any of a series of treaties in which China was forced to concede many of its territorial and sovereignty rights. They were negotiated during the 19th and early 20th centuries between China and foreign imperialist powers, especially Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia, and Japan....
  • UNESCO (international organization)
    specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that was created in 1946 to promote international collaboration in education, science, and culture. Its permanent headquarters are in Paris, France....
  • Unetician A (European culture)
    The first is from the Early Bronze Age, where a remarkable shift in cultural initiative took place. The earliest Bronze Age centre, Unetician A, consisted of a complex of flat inhumation graves with modest grave goods in copper and bronze that was found in Slovakia. During Unetician B this complex continued, spreading into Bohemia and much of Germany and Poland. In this process, the original......
  • Unetician B (European culture)
    ...initiative took place. The earliest Bronze Age centre, Unetician A, consisted of a complex of flat inhumation graves with modest grave goods in copper and bronze that was found in Slovakia. During Unetician B this complex continued, spreading into Bohemia and much of Germany and Poland. In this process, the original centre was complemented by a number of extremely rich graves on its periphery,....
  • Unetician Culture (European culture)
    ...a general chronological framework has been developed that, using the changes in burial rites and metal assemblages, divides the Bronze Age into either Early, Middle, and Late phases or into the Unetician, Tumulus, and Urnfield cultures. Synchronizations of the more detailed local subdivisions, which were based on typology of metal objects and cross-associations, have employed schemes of......
  • uneven parallel bars (gymnastics)
    gymnastics apparatus developed in the 1930s and used in women’s competition. The length and construction are the same as for the parallel bars used in men’s gymnastics. The top bar is 2.4 metres (7.8 feet) above the floor, while the lower bar is 1.65 metres (5.4 feet) high. The apparatus was first used in international competition at the 1936 Olympic Games...
  • unevenly-grained rock (geology)
    Rocks that are unevenly grained, or inequigranular, are generally characterized either by a seriate fabric, in which the variation in grain size is gradual and essentially continuous, or by a porphyritic fabric, involving more than one distinct range of grain sizes. Both of these kinds of texture are common. The relatively large crystals in a porphyritic rock......
  • unexpected hanging paradox (logic)
    A final example might be the paradox of the unexpected hanging, a remarkable puzzle that first became known by word of mouth in the early 1940s. One form of the paradox is the following: A prisoner has been sentenced on Saturday. The judge announces that “the hanging will take place at noon on one of the seven days of next week, but you will not know which day it is until you are told on......
  • Unexpected Man, The (play by Reza)
    ...and Evening Standard awards in London; and a Tony Award in New York for best play. Another hit, L’Homme du hasard (1995; The Unexpected Man), was a two-character play set on a train traveling from Paris to Frankfurt. Following long monologues by a self-absorbed male author and his female seatmate and fan, the...
  • UNFCCC (international treaty)
    The reports of the IPCC and the scientific consensus they reflect have provided one of the most prominent bases for the formulation of climate-change policy. On a global scale, climate-change policy is guided by two major treaties: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 1992 and the associated 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC (named after the city in Japan......
  • UNFICYP (United Nations military force)
    ...in northern Cyprus. In addition, because of the continued tensions between the two sides—which occasionally have flared into violence—the UN has maintained peacekeeping troops in Cyprus (UNFICYP) who police the demilitarized zone that divides the country; the United Kingdom also maintains two sovereign military bases in Cyprus....
  • Unfinished Symphony (work by Schubert)
    ...between a music-loving youth and his father. The autumn of 1822 saw the beginning of yet another unfinished composition—not, this time, destined to obscurity: the Symphony in B Minor (Unfinished), which speaks from Schubert’s heart. Two movements and a half-finished scherzo were completed in October and November 1822. In....
  • Unforgettable with Love (album by Cole)
    ...She eventually overcame her difficulties, and by the end of the decade she had begun singing more jazz-inspired pop. Her comeback was completed in 1991 with the release of Unforgettable with Love, a double album that featured her father’s classics, including Smile, The Very Thought of You, and ......
  • Unforgiven (film by Eastwood [1992])
    ...as did his lean, crisp directorial style. He is known as a director equally adept at presenting deep character studies and fluid action sequences. Eastwood’s revisionist western Unforgiven (1992) won the Academy Award for best picture and the best director award for Eastwood. His noted films of later years include In the Line of Fire (199...
  • Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton, The (work by Nashe)
    ...his picaresque novel The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton; Dido, Queen of Carthage (1594; with Christopher Marlowe); and Nashes Lenten Stuffe (1599). The Unfortunate Traveller is a brutal and realistic tale of adventure narrated with speed and economy. The book describes the travels through Germany and Italy of its rogue hero, Jacke Wilton,......
  • UNFP (political party, Morocco)
    ...taught mathematics before he entered political life. He joined the Istiqlal Party, becoming speaker of the National Consultative Assembly, and in 1959 left the party to found the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP). He was widely considered as a likely president for a possible Republic of Morocco. When Morocco and Algeria had a brief war in 1963, Ben Barka sided with......
  • UNFPA (international fund)
    trust fund under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Established in 1969, the UNFPA is the largest international source of assistance for population programs and the leading United Nations (UN) organization for the implementation of the 1994 Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development. It f...
  • unfree tenure (medieval law)
    Tenures were divided into free and unfree. Of the free tenures, the first was tenure in chivalry, principally grand sergeanty and knight service. The former obliged the tenant to perform some honourable and often personal service; knight service entailed performing military duties for the king or other lord, though by the middle of the 12th century such service was usually commuted for a......
  • unfused tetanus (physiology)
    ...If, however, the pulses are 300 milliseconds apart, the muscle will be relaxing when the second pulse is given, and the tension will appear in waves in phase with the stimulation, causing an unfused tetanus. It is possible to stimulate the muscle at a frequency between these extremes so that the tension developed by the muscle remains constant. This latter type of contraction is called a......
  • Ung Lich (emperor of Annam)
    emperor of Annam (now Vietnam) in 1884–86 who rejected the role of a figurehead in the French colonial regime....
  • Ung må verden ennu være (work by Grieg)
    ...Defeat), a play dealing with the Paris Commune of 1871, was inspired by the Republican defeat in the Spanish Civil War. In 1938 Grieg published what some consider his best novel, Ung må verden ennu være (“The World Must Still Be Young”), which exhibits his political passion and wholehearted identification with the Russians. The novel, set in...
  • Ungaretti, Giuseppe (Italian poet)
    Italian poet, founder of the Hermetic movement (see Hermeticism) that brought about a reorientation in modern Italian poetry....
  • Ungava (peninsula, Quebec, Canada)
    peninsular section of northern Quebec province, Canada, bounded by the Hudson Strait (north), Ungava Bay and Labrador (east), the Eastmain River (south), and the Hudson Bay (west). Physically, Ungava is a part of the Canadian Shield, a rocky, glacial-scoured plateau characterized by innumerable lakes and thin, poorly drained soils. After the Quebec-Newfoundland border was established in 1927, the...
  • Ungava Bay (bay, Quebec, Canada)
    inlet off the Hudson Strait, on the northeast coast of Nord-du-Québec region, northern Quebec province, Canada. The bay is approximately 200 miles (320 km) long, 160 miles (260 km) wide at the mouth, and has a maximum depth of 978 feet (298 m). It is fed by several large rivers, notably the Feuilles, Arnaud, Baleine, and George. Akpatok Island (area 551 square miles [1,427 square km]), at t...
  • Ungava Lake (lake, Quebec, Canada)
    ...of basin formation is that due to meteoritic impact. Meteorite craters are best preserved in arid climates and are often dry for this reason. A few lakes are known in craters, however, including Ungava Lake, in Quebec. In many other cases, it has not been possible to definitely confirm that basins that have the appearance of meteorite craters have, indeed, been produced by meteorite impact.......
  • Ungava-Quebec Crater (crater, Quebec, Canada)
    geologically young crater of meteoritic origin located in the northwestern part of the Ungava Peninsula, northern Quebec province, Canada. First recognized as an impact structure in 1950, the crater is 3.4 km (2.1 miles) in diameter and has a rim standing as much as 160 metres (525 feet) above ground level. Filled by a lake 250 metres (820 feet) deep, it is surrounded by many smaller circular lake...
  • Unge, Wilhelm (Swedish inventor)
    In Sweden about the turn of the century, Wilhelm Unge invented a device described as an “aerial torpedo.” Based upon the stickless Hale rocket, it incorporated a number of design improvements. One of these was a rocket motor nozzle that caused the gas flow to converge and then diverge. Another was the use of smokeless powder based on nitroglycerin. Unge believed that his aerial......
  • “Ungeduld des Herzens” (work by Zweig)
    ...and others. His stories include those in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925; Conflicts). He also wrote a psychological novel, Ungeduld des Herzens (1938; Beware of Pity), and translated works of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Émile Verhaeren. ...
  • Unger, Johann Friedrich (German publisher)
    ...and retailers. Toward the end of the 18th century, three publishers were outstanding—Georg Joachim Göschen in Leipzig; Johann Friedrich Cotta in Tübingen and Stuttgart; and Johann Friedrich Unger in Berlin, all of whom had a share in publishing Schiller and Goethe. Unger also published the magnificent translation of Shakespeare by August von Schlegel (8 vol.,......
  • Ungerleider, Leslie G. (American scientist)
    In the 1980s American cognitive scientists Leslie G. Ungerleider and Mortimer Mishkin formulated the idea that there are two processing streams emanating from V1—a dorsal stream leading to the visual cortex of the parietal lobe and a ventral stream leading to the visual regions of the temporal lobe. The dorsal stream provides the parietal lobe with the position and information needed for......
  • Ungern-Sternberg, Baron Roman von (Russian military leader)
    ...Mongols to sign a “request” to be taken over by China. Almost immediately afterward, defeated anti-Bolshevik troops from Russia began to enter Mongolia. Their most important leader was Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, known as the “Mad Baron,” who defeated the Chinese occupation forces but then treated the Mongols with unfeeling savagery....
  • Ungewitter, Richard (German author)
    ...against the rigid moral attitudes of the late 19th century. The first known nudist club, Freilichtpark (“Free Light Park”), appeared about 1903 near Hamburg and was soon followed by Richard Ungewitter’s seminal work Die Nacktheit (1906; Nakedness), which went through several printings. Nudism spread through Europe after Worl...
  • Unggi (North Korea)
    city, extreme northeastern North Korea. It lies 16 miles (26 km) southwest of the estuary of the Tumen River, which forms North Korea’s boundary with Russia. Until Unggi’s port was opened in 1921, it was a poor village, but it developed rapidly during the Japanese occupation (1910–45) as a transportation junction, connecting with China by rail and with Japan by a sea route. Af...
  • unglazed porcelain (pottery)
    ...for decoration on hard-paste porcelain, which is nonporous. When feldspathic glaze and body are fired together, the one fuses intimately with the other. Porcelain fired without a glaze, called biscuit porcelain, was introduced in Europe in the 18th century. It was generally used for figures. In the 19th century biscuit porcelain was called Parian ware. Some soft-paste porcelains, which......
  • Ungnad, Count Jan (Slavic noble)
    The Serbian and Croatian literary languages are identical; they differ only in the alphabet they use. To further the dissemination of Protestantism among the southern Slavs, Count Jan Ungnad set up a press in 1560 at Urach that issued a translation of the New Testament, in both Glagolitic (1562–63) and Cyrillic (1563) characters. The efforts of the Serbian leader Vuk......
  • unguis (zoology)
    ...hardened corneal growths occur at the end of the digits, growing parallel to the skin surface. True claws—found in reptiles, birds, and mammals—consist of a dorsal scalelike plate (unguis) covering a ventral plate (subunguis), the whole capping the bony tip of a digit. Nails—found only in mammals—consist of a broad and flattened unguis, with the subunguis reduced to....
  • Unguja (Tanzania)
    city and port of the island of Zanzibar, Tanzania. The island’s principal port and commercial centre, it is on the western side of the island behind a well-protected natural deepwater harbour. In 1824 Sultan Saʿīd ibn Sulṭān of Oman established his capital there, shifting it from Muscat on the Arabian Peninsula. During the remainder of the 19th century, the city ...
  • Unguja (island, Tanzania)
    island in the Indian Ocean 22 miles (35 km) off the coast of east-central Africa. In 1964 Zanzibar, together with Pemba Island and some other smaller islands, joined with Tanganyika on the mainland to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Zanzibar island covers 637 square miles (1,651 square km)....
  • Ungulata (hoofed mammal)
    formerly, any hoofed mammal. Although the term is now used more broadly in formal classification as the grandorder Ungulata, in common usage it was widely applied to a diverse group of placental mammals that were characterized as hoofed herbivorous quadrupeds. The feature that united them, the hoof, consists of hornlike dermal (skin) tissue,...
  • ungulate (hoofed mammal)
    formerly, any hoofed mammal. Although the term is now used more broadly in formal classification as the grandorder Ungulata, in common usage it was widely applied to a diverse group of placental mammals that were characterized as hoofed herbivorous quadrupeds. The feature that united them, the hoof, consists of hornlike dermal (skin) tissue,...
  • unguligrade posture (locomotion)
    ...ground during locomotion (e.g., human, baboon, bear), (2) digitigrade, in which only the phalanges (toes, fingers) touch the ground, while the ankle and wrist are elevated (e.g., dog, cat), and (3) unguligrade, in which only a hoof (the tip of one or two digits) touches the ground—a specialization of running animals (e.g., horse, deer)....
  • Ungvár (Ukraine)
    city, western Ukraine. It is situated along the Uzh River just east of the Slovak border. For centuries Uzhhorod has been an important cultural, educational, religious, and economic centre of the Carpathian Mountains region. It was founded in the 8th or 9th century and has long had commercial and military significance. It was under Hungarian control from the 1...
  • Unh (chemical element)
    an artificially produced radioactive element in Group VIb of the periodic table, atomic number 106. In June 1974, Georgy N. Flerov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna, Russia, U.S.S.R., announced that his team of investigators had synthesized and identified element 106. In September of the same year, a group of American researchers headed by ...
  • UNHCR (international organization)
    organization established as the successor to the International Refugee Organization (IRO; 1946–52) by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1951 to provide legal and political protection for refugees until they could acquire nationality in new countries of residence. International refugee assistance was first provided by the ...
  • unhistorical romance (literary genre)
    prolific British author of fantasy, adventure, horror, and suspense tales for both juvenile and adult readers. Perhaps best-known as the inventor of a genre called the “unhistorical romance,” Aiken wrote tales that combine humour and action with traditional mythic and fairy tale elements. Many of these works are set in an invented historical era during the imagined reign of James......
  • Unholy Three, The (film by Browning)
    ...Sr. In 1925 he moved to MGM, where he wrote and directed a series of bizarre, almost surrealistic melodramas, again with the versatile Chaney as his star. Among the team’s best efforts were The Unholy Three (1925), a story of a trio of crooked carnival performers; The Unknown (1927), starring Chaney as an “armless wonder” who plots a grisly revenge against a.....
  • Uni (ancient Egyptian official)
    Merenre elevated his father’s trusted minister, Uni, to the post of governor of Upper Egypt, an unprecedented honour that placed all Upper Egypt under a single official. The king also expanded the authority of the son of his father’s vizier over two nomes (administrative districts). These appointments undid a program of diffusion of government authority that had begun in the 5th dyna...
  • Uni (Roman goddess)
    in Roman religion, chief goddess and female counterpart of Jupiter, closely resembling the Greek Hera, with whom she was identified. With Jupiter and Minerva, she was a member of the Capitoline triad of deities traditionally introduced by the Etruscan kings. Juno was connected with all aspects of the life of women, most particularly married life. Ovid (Fasti, Book V) r...
  • uni-univalent electrolyte (chemistry)
    ...elevation, and osmotic pressure). These studies showed that the number of solute particles was larger than it would be if no dissociation occurred. For example, a 0.001 molal solution of a uni-univalent electrolyte (one in which each ion has a valence, or charge, of 1, and, when dissociated, two ions are produced) such as sodium chloride, Na+Cl-, exhibits......
  • UNIA
    primarily in the United States, organization founded by Marcus Garvey, dedicated to racial pride, economic self-sufficiency, and the formation of an independent black nation in Africa. Though Garvey had founded the UNIA in Jamaica in 1914, its main influence was felt in the principal urban black neighbourhoods of the U.S. North after his arrival in Harlem, in New York City, in 1...
  • União Democrática Nacional (political party, Brazil)
    ...vice presidential elections of 1960 were hotly contested. Jânio Quadros, a maverick politician who had governed São Paulo successfully, won the presidential contest at the head of the National Democratic Union (União Democrática Nacional; UDN), the largest conservative party. João Goulart, the vice president under Kubitschek and a member of Vargas’s PTB...
  • União dos Palmares (Brazil)
    city, northeastern Alagoas estado (state), northeastern Brazil. It lies 37 miles (60 km) inland from Maceió, the state capital, on the Atlantic coast. Founded in the 16th century and called União, it was the scene of a quickly suppressed African slave revolt in 1650. Primarily an agricultural centre featuring sugarcane, th...
  • União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (political organization, Angola)
    Angolan political party that was originally founded to free the nation from Portuguese colonial rule....
  • Uniate church (Roman Catholic church)
    any of a group of Eastern Christian churches that trace their origins to various ancient national or ethnic Christian bodies in the East but have established union (hence Eastern rite churches were in the past often called Uniates) or canonical communion with the Roman Apostolic See and, thus, with the Roman Catholic church. In this union they accept the Roman Catholic faith, ke...
  • uniaxial crystal (physics)
    All crystals in the hexagonal system are classed as optically uniaxial, meaning that light travels through the crystal at different speeds in different directions....
  • unicameral legislature
    A central feature of any constitution is the organization of the legislature. It may be a unicameral body with one chamber or a bicameral body with two chambers. Unicameral legislatures are typical in small countries with unitary systems of government (e.g., Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Israel, and New Zealand) or in very small countries (e.g., Andorra, Dominica, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Malta,......
  • Unicapsula muscularis (species of protozoa)
    ...are ingested by an animal, the spore wall breaks down, releasing the sporoplasm, which migrates to an organ or tissue to feed and develop and ultimately to produce new spores. Representatives are Unicapsula muscularis, the cause of wormy disease in halibut; Myxobolus pfeifferi, the cause of boil disease in barbels; and Myxosoma cerebralis, the cause of twist disease in......
  • UNICEF (international organization)
    special program of the United Nations (UN), devoted to aiding national efforts to improve the health, nutrition, education, and general welfare of children....
  • unicellular organism (biology)
    any member of the kingdom Protista, a group of eukaryotic, predominantly unicellular microscopic organisms. They may share certain morphological and physiological characteristics with animals or plants, or both. The protists comprise what have traditionally been called protozoa, algae, and lower fungi....
  • unicorn (mythological creature)
    mythological animal resembling a horse or a kid with a single horn on its forehead. The unicorn appeared in early Mesopotamian artworks, and it also was referred to in the ancient myths of India and China. The earliest description in Greek literature of a single-horned (Greek: monokerōs; Latin: unicornis) animal was by the historian Ctesias (c. 400 ...
  • unicorn beetle (insect subfamily)
    any of numerous species of beetle, some of which are among the largest beetles on Earth, named for the impressive hornlike structures on the frontal portions of males. These beetles have rounded, convex backs, and their coloration varies from black to mottled greenish gray. Some are shiny, almost metallic, whereas others may be covered with short, fine hairs, giving them a velveteen appearance....
  • unicorn beetle (insect)
    (Dynastes tityus), a large, easily recognized insect of the Dynastinae subfamily of the beetle family Scarabaeidae (order Coleoptera). The unicorn beetle is closely related to the rhinoceros and elephant beetles. Hornlike structures on the thorax (region behind the head) and on the head of the male (usually lacking in the females) make it conspicuous....
  • unicorn fish (Eumecichthys fiski)
    The elongate Eumecichthys fiski, in the crestfish family Lophotidae (order Lampridiformes), is also called unicorn fish....
  • unicorn fish (Naso)
    any of certain exclusively marine fishes belonging to the genus Naso, in the family Acanthuridae (order Perciformes), occurring in the tropical Indo-Pacific region. The 17 species are herbivorous algae eaters. Unicorn fishes have a pair of sharp forward-pointing spines that protrude from the side of the tail shaft, and the fishes also have a long spike, a frontal horn, protruding from the forehead...
  • unicorn plant
    any North American herb of the family Martyniaceae of the flowering plant order Lamiales, and particularly Proboseidea louisianica. There are nine species of unicorn plants, most having large purple or creamy white flowers....
  • unicorn team (driving and coaching)
    ...horses, or a four-in-hand, are harnessed in two pairs, one following the other, and called, respectively, the leaders and the wheelers. Three horses, two wheelers and a single leader, are known as a unicorn team. In Russia and Hungary three horses are driven abreast, the centre horse trotting and the outside horses galloping; such a team is known as a troika....
  • unicornfish (Naso)
    any of certain exclusively marine fishes belonging to the genus Naso, in the family Acanthuridae (order Perciformes), occurring in the tropical Indo-Pacific region. The 17 species are herbivorous algae eaters. Unicorn fishes have a pair of sharp forward-pointing spines that protrude from the side of the tail shaft, and the fishes also have a long spike, a frontal horn, protruding from the forehead...
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