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silicon carbide

(Encyclopedia)silicon carbide, chemical compound, SiC, that forms extremely hard, dark, iridescent crystals that are insoluble in water and other common solvents. Widely used as an abrasive, it is marketed under su...

Zhanjiang

(Encyclopedia)Zhanjiang or Chankiang both: jän-jyäng [key], Cantonese Tsamkong, official Chinese name for the former French territory of Kwangchowan (325 sq mi/840 sq km) on Guangzhou Bay, S Guangdong prov., Chin...

beef

(Encyclopedia)beef, flesh of cattle prepared for food. It has become one of the chief products of the meatpacking industry and is sold either chilled, frozen, or cured. The leading beef consumers, as well as export...

Christie, Dame Agatha

(Encyclopedia)Christie, Dame Agatha, 1890–1976, English detective story writer, b. Torquay, Devon, as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller. Christie's second husband was the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, and she gained ...

Halle, city, Germany

(Encyclopedia)Halle, city, Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany, on the Saale River. It is an industrial center and a major transportation hub. Manufactures include chemica...

Iberians

(Encyclopedia)Iberians, ancient people of Spain. Some scholars have argued that they migrated from Africa in the Neolithic period and again at the end of the Bronze Age, while the archaeological evidence has been i...

Ma, Yo-Yo

(Encyclopedia)Ma, Yo-Yo mä [key], 1955–, American cellist, b. Paris. The son of musicologist Hiao-Tsun Ma, who left China in the 1930s, he was a musical prodigy, giving a public recital in Paris at the age of si...

Riggs, Bobby

(Encyclopedia)Riggs, Bobby (Robert Larimore Riggs), 1918–95, U.S. tennis player, b. Los Angeles. Playing tennis from the age of 11, Riggs won several tournaments in the 1930s and helped the U.S. team win the Davi...

confirmation

(Encyclopedia)confirmation, Christian rite in which the initiation into the church that takes place by baptism is confirmed. In the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Eastern churches, it is a sacrament by which a Christi...

acting

(Encyclopedia)acting, the representation of a usually fictional character on stage or in films. At its highest levels of accomplishment acting involves the employment of technique and/or an imaginative ...
 

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