• Dossena, Alceo (Italian forger)

    forgery: Forgery in the visual arts: The work of the Italian Alceo Dossena belongs in this class. He very competently forged works that were acquired by collectors and museums throughout the world. From 1916 to 1928 he produced hundreds of forgeries created as original expressions of archaic Greek, medieval, and Renaissance sculptors.

  • Dossinia marmorata (plant)

    jewel orchid: sikkimensis, Dossinia marmorata, Ludisia discolor, and Macodes petola are found in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and feature spikes of small white flowers. These species have wide green or brownish green leaves with red or gold veins borne near the base of the plant.

  • Dosso (Niger)

    Dosso, town, southwestern Niger, situated about 80 miles (130 km) southeast of Niger’s capital, Niamey. Dosso is the traditional headquarters of the Zarma people, who are sedentary farmers. The town is connected by road to Niamey in the west and Tahoua in the northeast. There is also an airfield at

  • Dosso Dossi (Italian painter)

    Dosso Dossi was a late Italian Renaissance painter and leader of the Ferrarese school in the 16th century. Very little is known about his early life, and his artistic influences and training have long been open to speculation. His byname comes from the name of the family estate near his place of

  • Dōst Moḥammad Khān (ruler of Afghanistan)

    Dōst Moḥammad Khān was the ruler of Afghanistan (1826–63) and founder of the Bārakzay dynasty, who maintained Afghan independence during a time when the nation was a focus of political struggles between Great Britain and Russia. Dōst Moḥammad was one of a number of sons of Pāyenda Khān, head of the

  • Dostoevsky’s Last Night (novel by Peri Rossi)

    Cristina Peri Rossi: …última noche de Dostoievski (1992; Dostoevsky’s Last Night), Desastres íntimos (1997; Intimate Disasters), and El amor es una droga dura (1999; “Love Is a Strong Drug”).

  • Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhaylovich (Russian author)

    Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-century fiction. Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the

  • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (Russian author)

    Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-century fiction. Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the

  • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mikhaylovich (Russian author)

    Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-century fiction. Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the

  • DOT (United States government)

    U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), executive agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for programs and policies relating to transportation. Established in 1966, it controls the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety

  • Dot Com Blues (album by Smith)

    Jimmy Smith: His 2001 album, Dot Com Blues (a reference to the then ongoing dot-com bubble and bust), marked a departure from his customary jazz style, incorporating blues elements and showcasing collaborations with guest artists that included Etta James and B.B. King. Smith’s last album, Legacy (2005), was released posthumously…

  • dot matrix (technology)

    computer: Output devices: …and graphics, hence the name dot matrix. Another early print technology, daisy-wheel printers, made impressions of whole characters with a single blow of an electromagnetic printhead, similar to an electric typewriter.

  • dot product (mathematics)

    mechanics: Vectors: …scalar product, or sometimes the inner product) is an operation that combines two vectors to form a scalar. The operation is written A · B. If θ is the (smaller) angle between A and B, then the result of the operation is A · B = AB cos θ. The…

  • Dot Records (American company)

    Los Angeles 1950s overview: …emerged to rival the majors—Dot and Liberty.

  • dot-com boom and bust (stock market [1995–2000])

    The dot-com boom of 1995–2000 (and ultimate bust in 2001–2002) was a period of large, rapid, and ultimately unsustainable increases in the stock market—specifically in the valuation of shares in Internet service and technology companies, then commonly referred to as “dot-com” companies, including

  • dot-com bubble (stock market [1995–2000])

    The dot-com boom of 1995–2000 (and ultimate bust in 2001–2002) was a period of large, rapid, and ultimately unsustainable increases in the stock market—specifically in the valuation of shares in Internet service and technology companies, then commonly referred to as “dot-com” companies, including

  • dot-matrix printer (printing device)

    printer: Most impact printers are dot-matrix printers, which have a number of pins on the print head that emerge to form a character. Non-impact printers fall into three main categories: laser printers use a laser beam to attract toner to an area of the paper; ink-jet printers spray a jet…

  • dōtaku (Japanese bronze forms)

    dōtaku, thin elongated bell-shaped bronze forms, evidence of a short-lived bronze culture, localized in the centre of Japan, from the middle of the Yayoi period (c. 300 bce–c. 250 ce) into the Tumulus period (c. 250–c. 500 ce). Dōtaku are sometimes decorated with domestic and hunting scenes

  • Dotcom, Kim (German entrepreneur)

    Megaupload: …computer service created by entrepreneur Kim Schmitz that was shut down in 2012 by the United States government after its founders were charged for violating antipiracy laws. It was based in Hong Kong.

  • Dothan (Alabama, United States)

    Dothan, city, Houston and Dale counties, seat (1903) of Houston county, southeastern Alabama, U.S., about 90 miles (145 km) southeast of Montgomery. Originally settled as Poplar Head in the early 1800s, the name was changed to Dothan (for a biblical location) in 1885. Cotton was the main crop until

  • Dothard v. Rawlinson (law case)

    disparate impact: Evolution of disparate impact theory: …year the Supreme Court, in Dothard v. Rawlinson (1977), addressed Title VII’s “bona fide occupational qualification” exception in sex-discrimination cases. Here a class of women challenged a state’s height and weight requirements for prison guards at male correctional facilities. The requirements excluded approximately 40 percent of all women but only…

  • Dothideales (order of fungi)

    fungus: Annotated classification: Order Dothideales Forms lichens; asci borne in clusters in a locule; included in subclass Dothideomycetidae; example genera include Dothidea, Dothiora, Sydowia, and Stylodothis. Order Hysteriales Found on woody branches of trees; stroma is boat-shaped, opening by a longitudinal slit that renders it apothecium-like; asci borne

  • Dothideomycetes (class of fungi)

    fungus: Annotated classification: Class Dothideomycetes Pathogenic, endophytic, or epiphytic on plants, saprotrophic in soil, parasitic on fungi and animals, or symbiotic with algae to form lichens; spores undergo ascolocular development (in special hyphae pockets); includes subclasses Dothideomycetidae and Pleosporomycetidae; contains 10 orders. Order Capnodiales (sooty molds

  • Doting on Dodder

    Explore other Botanize! episodes and read more about dodder and other parasitic plants. Hello, and welcome to this episode of Botanize! I’m your host, Melissa Petruzzello, Encyclopædia Britannica’s plant and environmental science editor. Thanks for joining in. Today we’re going to be talking about

  • Doto, Giuseppe Antonio (American crime boss)

    Joe Adonis was a major American crime-syndicate boss in New York and New Jersey. Born near Naples, Adonis came to America as a child and in the 1920s became a follower of Lucky Luciano. He was one of the assassins of crime czar Giuseppe Masseria in 1931, leading to Luciano’s supremacy in organized

  • Dotombori (street, Ōsaka, Japan)

    Ōsaka-Kōbe metropolitan area: Street patterns: Dotombori, at the south end of Shinsaibashi-suji, is a crowded theatre and restaurant area.

  • Dotremont, Christian (Belgian author)

    Christian Dotremont was a Belgian poet and energetic cultural figure who is probably best known as one of the founders of the experimental art group, COBRA. Dotremont was influenced by late 1930s Belgian Surrealism. While in Paris during World War II, he cofounded the group La Main à Plume,

  • DOTS (medicine)

    Hiroshi Nakajima: …approach to tuberculosis treatment, the directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS), which had been shown to increase cure rates in India. DOTS required that doctors observe patients while the patients took prescribed tuberculosis medications. It also required the active participation of individual governments and demanded political commitment and government financing for…

  • Dots and dollars: The Fed dot plot, explained

    When the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announces changes to the Fed funds rate target, we all know how significantly it can sway the market’s direction. You want to be on the right side of that movement. Perhaps that’s why the cardinal rule,“Don’t fight the Fed,” remains etched across the

  • Dott, Robert H. (American petrologist)

    sedimentary rock: Classification of sandstones: …that of the American petrologist Robert H. Dott (1964), which is based on the concepts of P.D. Krynine and F.J. Pettijohn. Another popular classification is that of R.L. Folk (1974). Although these classifications were not intended to have tectonic significance, the relative proportions of quartz, feldspar, and fragments are good…

  • dotted manner (printmaking)

    printmaking: Dotted print (criblé): A traditional technique of the goldsmith long before engraving for printing purposes was developed, criblé was also used to make the earliest metal prints on paper. Criblé was a method of dotting the plate with a hand punch; with punch and hammer; with a…

  • dotted print (printmaking)

    printmaking: Dotted print (criblé): A traditional technique of the goldsmith long before engraving for printing purposes was developed, criblé was also used to make the earliest metal prints on paper. Criblé was a method of dotting the plate with a hand punch; with punch and hammer; with a…

  • dotterel (bird)

    dotterel, any of several species of birds of the plover family, Charadriidae (order Charadriiformes), especially the Eurasian dotterel (Eudromias morinellus). The Eurasian dotterel is mottled brown above, with a broad, white eye stripe and a narrow, white band separating its breast, which is gray,

  • Dottin, Deandra (Barbadian cricketer)

    32 Notable Women Cricketers: Deandra Dottin: Deandra Dottin is a Barbadian all-rounder who plays for the West Indies women’s cricket team. She is known for her explosive batting and in 2010 scored the first century in women’s T20I cricket, reaching the mark off a mere 38 balls, a world…

  • Dottore (stock theater character)

    Dottore, stock character of the Italian theatrical form known as the commedia dell’arte, who was a loquacious caricature of pedantic learning. The Dottore’s professional affiliation was imprecise. He was at times a legal scholar, ready with advice for any occasion, whose bungled and inept courtroom

  • Doty, James Duane (American entrepreneur)

    Madison: It was founded by James Duane Doty, a former federal district judge and a land speculator who held large holdings in the area, in 1836 (a year of frenzied land speculation in the newly created Territory of Wisconsin) and was named for President James Madison, who had died that…

  • dou (Chinese architecture)

    Chinese architecture: The Zhou dynasty (1046–256 bce): …showing a spreading block (dou) placed upon a column to support the beam above more broadly, and in depictions of curved arms (gong) attached near the top of the columns, parallel to the building wall, extending outward and up to help support the beam; however, the block and arms…

  • dou (Chinese vessel)

    dou, type of ancient Chinese bronze vessel used to contain food. The dou is usually a circular bowl supported on a short stem rising from a flaring base. The rim has two ring-shaped handles at opposite sides of the bowl, and another shallow bowl serves as a lid. While there may be a predecessor

  • Dou Jiande (Chinese rebel)

    China: Foreign affairs under Yangdi: … in the area around Luoyang, Dou Jiande in the northeast, Xue Ju in the far northwest, and Li Yuan (who remained nominally loyal but had established a local position of great power) in Shanxi. At the beginning of 617, Li Yuan inflicted a great defeat on the eastern Turks and…

  • Dou Xian (Chinese general)

    Ban Gu: …the staff of the general Dou Xian and accompanied him in successful campaigns against the northern Xiongnu tribes. The following victory inscription composed by Ban Gu was carved in stone some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) beyond the frontier:

  • Dou’e yuan (play by Guan Hanqing)

    Chinese literature: Drama: His Dou’e yuan (“Injustice Suffered by Dou’e”) deals with the deprivations and injustices suffered by the heroine, Dou’e, which begin when she is widowed shortly after her marriage to a poor scholar and culminate in her execution for a crime she has not committed. Wang Shifu,…

  • Dou, Gerard (Dutch painter)

    Gerrit Dou was a Dutch Baroque painter, leading artist of the school of Leiden, especially known for his domestic genre paintings and portraits. Dou was first trained by his father, a glazier and glass engraver. From 1628 to 1631 he studied with Rembrandt, adopting the master’s choice of subject

  • Dou, Gerrit (Dutch painter)

    Gerrit Dou was a Dutch Baroque painter, leading artist of the school of Leiden, especially known for his domestic genre paintings and portraits. Dou was first trained by his father, a glazier and glass engraver. From 1628 to 1631 he studied with Rembrandt, adopting the master’s choice of subject

  • Douai (France)

    Douai, town, northern France, in the Nord département, Hauts-de-France région. It is situated in flat country on the Scarpe River, 24 miles (39 km) south of Lille and 13 miles southwest of the Belgian border. Douai was once a coal-mining centre with related chemical and engineering works; now its

  • Douai, Merlin de (French jurist)

    Philippe-Antoine, Count Merlin was one of the foremost jurists of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. As a deputy for the town of Douai in the revolutionary Constituent Assembly of 1789, he was instrumental in the passage of important legislation abolishing feudal and seignorial

  • Douai-Reims Bible (Roman Catholic Bible)

    Douai-Reims Bible, English translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible produced by Roman Catholic scholars in exile from England at the English College in Douai (then in the Spanish Netherlands but later part of France). The New Testament translation was published in 1582 at Reims, where the English

  • Douala (Cameroon)

    Douala, city and chief port of Cameroon. It is situated on the southeastern shore of the Wouri River estuary, on the Atlantic Ocean coast about 130 miles (210 km) west of Yaoundé. Douala served as the capital of the German Kamerun protectorate from 1884 to 1902. It again served as the capital of

  • Douala (people)

    Duala, Bantu-speaking people of the forest region of southern Cameroon living on the estuary of the Wouri River. By 1800 the Duala controlled Cameroon’s trade with Europeans, and their concentrated settlement pattern developed under this influence. Their system of chieftaincy was partly founded on

  • Douanier, Le (French painter)

    Henri Rousseau was a French painter who is considered the archetype of the modern naive artist. He is known for his richly colored and meticulously detailed pictures of lush jungles, wild beasts, and exotic figures. After exhibiting with the Fauves in 1905, he gained the admiration of avant-garde

  • Douarnenez (France)

    Douarnenez, town, Finistère département, Bretagne (Brittany) région, northwestern France. It lies at the mouth of Pouldavid Estuary on Douarnenez Bay of the Atlantic Ocean, northwest of the city of Quimper. Douarnenez is associated in Breton folklore with the legendary city of Ys, which was

  • Douay (France)

    Douai, town, northern France, in the Nord département, Hauts-de-France région. It is situated in flat country on the Scarpe River, 24 miles (39 km) south of Lille and 13 miles southwest of the Belgian border. Douai was once a coal-mining centre with related chemical and engineering works; now its

  • Douban (Chinese web site)

    The Best Movies of All Time: The popular: IMDb and Douban: …at the top-rated films on Douban, a Chinese site for rating and discussing movies, books, and music. However, the influence of Hollywood is still very much present, with only one Chinese movie making the top 10.

  • double (baseball)

    baseball: Getting on base: …to reach first base; the double, in which the batter reaches second; the triple, which sees the runner reach third base; and the home run, a hit that enables the batter to circle all the bases and score a run. A fair ball that flies over the outfield fence is…

  • double acrostic (puzzle)

    acrostic: Double acrostics are puzzles constructed so that not only the initial letters of the lines but in some cases also the middle or last letters form words. In the United States, the Double Crostic puzzle, devised by Elizabeth Kingsley for the Saturday Review in 1934,…

  • double action (weaponry)

    small arm: Revolvers: …ejection of spent cartridges and double-action cocking. By linking the trigger to the hammer-cocking and cylinder-revolving mechanisms, double action permitted a pistol to be fired with a simple pull of the trigger. This mechanism was first introduced on a cap-and-ball revolver, the English Beaumont-Adams of 1855, but it was quickly…

  • double agent (espionage)

    Aldrich Ames: …one of the most successful double agents for the Soviet Union and Russia.

  • Double Asteroid Redirection Test (United States space mission)

    asteroid: Spacecraft exploration: The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was the first experiment in planetary defense, the possible redirection of a dangerous asteroid away from a collision with Earth. On September 26, 2022, DART collided with the asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits the larger asteroid Didymos. Dimorphos orbited Didymos…

  • double bass (musical instrument)

    double bass, stringed musical instrument, the lowest-pitched member of the orchestra, sounding an octave lower than the cello. It has two basic designs—one shaped like a viol (or viola da gamba) and the other like a violin—but there are other designs, such as that of a guitar. The double bass

  • double bond (chemical bonding)

    double bond, type of covalent bond in which two pairs of electrons (four electrons total) are shared between two atoms. It is represented by two parallel lines (=) in structural formulas, such as H2C=CH2 in ethylene (also called ethene). Double bonds are crucial in organic chemistry and biological

  • double bridle (riding equipment)

    horsemanship: Bits: The double bridle is used for advanced schooling. It consists of a jointed snaffle and a straight bit placed together in the mouth, first the snaffle, then the bit, both functioning independently and attached to separate reins. The mouthpiece of the bit can have a port…

  • double bypass (surgery)

    coronary artery bypass: …though in the case of double bypass surgery one of the internal mammary arteries, which supply blood to the chest wall, can be diverted to supply the heart muscle. In some instances a vein from the wrist may be used.

  • double chant (vocal music)

    Anglican chant: The double chant (two successive verses set to different melodic formulas) traditionally dates from about 1700, but Robert Crowley’s psalter (1549) contains what is virtually the same thing. Triple and even quadruple forms also exist.

  • double coconut (plant)

    coco de mer, (Lodoicea maldivica), native palm of the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean. The flowers are borne in enormous fleshy spadices (spikes), the male and female on distinct plants. Coco de mer fruits, among the largest known, take about 10 years to ripen; they have a fleshy and fibrous

  • Double Concerto (work by Carter)

    Elliott Carter: The Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano, and two chamber orchestras (1961), which won rare praise from Igor Stravinsky, displayed Carter’s interest in unusual instrumentation and canonic texture (based on melodic imitation). The conflict generated between the two orchestral groups and the great difficulty of the concerto…

  • Double Concerto (work by Martinů)

    Bohuslav Martinů: The Double Concerto for two string orchestras (1940) is a powerful work expressing Czech suffering after the partition of Czechoslovakia (1938). His Memorial to Lidice (1943) is a short symphonic poem commemorating Czechs killed by the Nazis during their destruction of the village of Lidice in…

  • double criminality (law)

    extradition: Another common principle is double criminality, which stipulates that the alleged crime for which extradition is being sought must be criminal in both the demanding and the requested countries. Under the principle of specificity, the demanding state can prosecute the extraditee only for the offense for which the extradition…

  • double cross (genetics)

    origins of agriculture: Maize, or corn: The double cross was the basic technique used in developing modern hybrid maize and has been used by commercial firms since. Jones’s invention was to use four inbred lines instead of two in crossing. Simply, inbred lines A and B made one cross, lines C and…

  • double cross hybrid (genetics)

    origins of agriculture: Maize, or corn: The double cross was the basic technique used in developing modern hybrid maize and has been used by commercial firms since. Jones’s invention was to use four inbred lines instead of two in crossing. Simply, inbred lines A and B made one cross, lines C and…

  • Double Crostic (puzzle)

    acrostic: In the United States, the Double Crostic puzzle, devised by Elizabeth Kingsley for the Saturday Review in 1934, had an acrostic in the answers to the clues giving the author and title of a literary work; the letters, keyed by number to blanks like those of a crossword puzzle, spelled…

  • double curtal (musical instrument)

    wind instrument: The Renaissance: …its bass (sometimes called the double curtal in England and the Choristfagott in Germany) soon became the most important size, particularly at the beginning of the Baroque period, when it was needed for a bass whenever higher winds were scored. German church composers of the 17th century normally used the…

  • double dactyls (literature)

    double dactyls, a light-verse form consisting of eight lines of two dactyls each, arranged in two stanzas. The first line of the poem must be a jingle, often “Higgledy-piggledy,” “Jiggery-pokery,” or “Pocketa-pocketa”; the second line must be a name; and the last lines of each stanza are truncated

  • Double Dare (American television game show)

    Alex Trebek: Jeopardy!: …such game shows as CBS’s Double Dare (1976–77) and The $128,000 Question (1977–78) and NBC’s The New High Rollers (1979–80).

  • double diffraction system (optics)

    optics: Filtering: Maréchal gave the descriptive title double diffraction to this type of two-lens system.

  • double displacement (chemistry)

    organometallic compound: Double displacement: The synthesis of organometallic compounds by double displacement involves organometallic (MR) and binary halide (EX, where E is a metal or metalloid and X is a halogen) starting materials. It provides a convenient synthetic procedure that is widely used in the laboratory and…

  • Double Dutch (work by Shonibare)

    Yinka Shonibare: Prominent pieces: In paintings such as Double Dutch (1994), he created a large work by painting a rectangle on a wall and placing on it a grid of several small stretchers covered with the Dutch wax-printed fabric ubiquitous in his art. He then began using these textiles to create costumes in…

  • double Dutch (game)

    double Dutch, children’s game in which the player must time jumps between two jump ropes twirling in opposite directions. In the 1930s, during the Depression era, children often jumped rope because the game required only a used clothesline to be played. By the late 1950s, however, a number of

  • Double Dynamite (film by Cummings [1951])

    Irving Cummings: …he made the strained comedy Double Dynamite, starring Jane Russell, Frank Sinatra, and Groucho Marx. Cummings subsequently retired from directing.

  • Double Eagle II (balloon)

    Maxie Anderson: …to the building of the Double Eagle II. On August 11 it was launched from Presque Isle, Maine, and landed near Miserey, France, on August 17.

  • Double Eagle V (balloon)

    Ben L. Abruzzo: …nonstop balloon flight, in the Double Eagle V.

  • double effect, doctrine of (ethics)

    ethics: Natural law ethics: …situation in which the so-called doctrine of double effect would apply. If a pregnant woman, for example, is found to have a cancerous uterus, the doctrine of double effect allows a doctor to remove it, notwithstanding the fact that such action would kill the fetus. This allowance is made not…

  • Double Falsehood (play)

    Double Falsehood, tragicomedy in five acts presented by Lewis Theobald at Drury Lane Theatre in 1727. According to Theobald, it was based on a lost play by William Shakespeare (and, scholars now believe, John Fletcher) called Cardenio. The play was probably first performed (as Cardenio) in 1613,

  • Double Falsehood; or, The Distressed Lovers (play)

    Double Falsehood, tragicomedy in five acts presented by Lewis Theobald at Drury Lane Theatre in 1727. According to Theobald, it was based on a lost play by William Shakespeare (and, scholars now believe, John Fletcher) called Cardenio. The play was probably first performed (as Cardenio) in 1613,

  • Double Fantasy (album by Lennon and Ono)

    John Lennon: The Beatles breakup, solo career, and marriage to Yoko Ono: … (1970) through his half of Double Fantasy (1980)—reflects Ono’s belief in art without artifice. Whether or not they actually eschewed artifice, that was one impression they strove to create.

  • double fertilization (biology)

    double fertilization, in flowering plant reproduction, the fusion of the egg and sperm and the simultaneous fusion of a second sperm and two polar nuclei that ultimately results in the formation of the endosperm (the food-storage tissue) of the seed. This is called double fertilization because the

  • Double Fifth Festival (Chinese holiday)

    Dragon Boat Festival, prominent and festive Chinese holiday that originated at least 1,500 years ago and features dragon boat races and rice dumplings. It is one of the three “festivals of the living,” along with the Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Known as Duanwu Jie in Mandarin and

  • double flower (plant anatomy)

    Asteraceae: Flowers: These “double-flowered” forms do not survive competition in nature, but they are valued and perpetuated horticulturally because of their showier flower heads. The “daisy-flowered” chrysanthemums, with only a single marginal row of ray flowers, have the normal type of radiate head, but the more commonly cultivated…

  • Double Fudge (book by Blume)

    Judy Blume: Forever and other YA and children’s books: Superfudge (1980), Fudge-a-Mania (1990), and Double Fudge (2002). Between 2007 and 2009 she continued the story of The Pain and the Great One (1984) with a series of four chapter books. Like Blume’s books for older audiences, her books for younger readers contain language, situations, and concerns that ring true…

  • double fugue (music)

    fugue: Varieties of the fugue: In a double fugue two subjects may receive simultaneous exposition; the result is similar to a simple fugue with a countersubject, as is the case in the opening chorus of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (1727; Passio secundum Matthaeum). More often, in a double fugue the…

  • double glazing (construction)

    art conservation and restoration: Glass and other vitreous materials: Double-glazing can be quite successful in some instances for protecting stained-glass windows from the damaging effects of exterior (and even interior) environments. The process involves placing a clear pane of glass over the original stained glass with a suitable space for air circulation to prevent…

  • double harp (musical instrument)

    harp: , the double harp, with two rows of strings, and the Welsh triple harp, with three rows. They also include the chromatic harp, invented in the late 19th century by the Pleyel firm of Paris, with two crossing sets of strings (like an X), and its U.S.…

  • double helix (genetics)

    James Watson: Research: …a molecular model for DNA—a double helix, which can be likened to a spiraling staircase or a twisting ladder. The DNA double helix consists of two intertwined sugar-phosphate chains, with the flat base pairs forming the steps between them. Watson and Crick’s model also shows how the DNA molecule could…

  • Double Helix, The (work by Watson)

    James Watson: Later work: He later wrote The Double Helix (1968), an informal personal account of the DNA discovery and the roles of the people involved in it, which aroused some controversy.

  • double hernia (physiology)

    hernia: …bilaterally, it is called a double hernia. A femoral hernia lies on the inner side of the large femoral blood vessels of the thigh. An umbilical hernia protrudes through the navel.

  • Double Hook, The (novel by Watson)

    Canadian literature: Modern period, 1900–60: Sheila Watson’s enigmatic and mythic The Double Hook (1959) and Ethel Wilson’s Swamp Angel (1954), about a Vancouver housewife’s bid for personal freedom, present quest journeys against the striking backdrop of British Columbia’s interior. Elizabeth Smart’s incantatory novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945) is a…

  • double hull (ship part)

    tanker: …but the smallest ships have double hulls or some suitable equivalent. (In a double-hulled ship, the sides and bottom consist of two layers separated by a space sufficient to reduce the chance that an incident breaching one layer will breach the other.) After 1996 all new tankers were delivered with…

  • double hybrid (genetics)

    origins of agriculture: Maize, or corn: The double cross was the basic technique used in developing modern hybrid maize and has been used by commercial firms since. Jones’s invention was to use four inbred lines instead of two in crossing. Simply, inbred lines A and B made one cross, lines C and…

  • Double Indemnity (novel by Cain)

    Double Indemnity, novel by James M. Cain that was first published as an eight-part serial in Liberty magazine in 1936 and later appeared both in the collection Three of a Kind and as a stand-alone novel in 1943. It became the basis for the quintessential film noir of the same title (1944). Cain’s

  • Double Indemnity (film by Wilder [1944])

    Double Indemnity, American film noir, released in 1944, that is considered the quintessential movie of its genre. It follows the traditional noir plot of a man undone by a femme fatale. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.) The film was adapted by director Billy Wilder and

  • double indemnity rider

    insurance: Special riders: Under the double indemnity rider, if death occurs through accident, the insurance payable is double the face amount.

  • double iron (tool)

    hand tool: Plane: Now called the double iron, it is a feature of all but the smallest of modern planes.