• DICTION (computer-aided text-analysis program)

    Roderick P. Hart: …a computer-aided text-analysis program called DICTION to assist in his work. The program measures a text’s certainty (number of words indicating “resoluteness, inflexibility, and completeness, and a tendency to speak ex cathedra”), activity (words of “movement, change, the implementation of ideas and the avoidance of inertia”), optimism (words that endorse…

  • Diction: A Quartet (short stories by Ozick)

    Cynthia Ozick: Diction: A Quartet, a collection of four short stories, was published in 2008. The novel Foreign Bodies (2010) was inspired by Henry James’s The Ambassadors. In Antiquities (2021), a retiree looks back on his youth, including his time at boarding school.

  • Dictionarium Britannicum (work by Bailey)

    dictionary: From 1604 to 1828: Bailey’s imposing Dictionarium Britannicum of 1730 was used by Johnson as a repository during the compilation of the monumental dictionary of 1755.

  • Dictionarium linguae Latinae et Anglicanae (work by Thomas)

    dictionary: From 1604 to 1828: …Latin-English dictionary by Thomas Thomas, Dictionarium linguae Latinae et Anglicanae (1588). But the third source is most remarkable. In 1599 a Dutchman known only as A.M. translated from Latin into English a famous medical work by Oswald Gabelkhouer, The Boock of Physicke, published at Dort, in the Netherlands. As he…

  • Dictionarium seu linguae latinae thesaurus (work by Estienne)

    Robert I Estienne: …1531 he completed his great Dictionarium seu linguae latinae thesaurus, a Latin dictionary that marks an epoch in the history of lexicography, not only for Latin but also for all other languages. Francis I of France made him king’s printer for Hebrew and Latin works in 1539; in 1540 he…

  • dictionary (reference work)

    dictionary, reference book that lists words in order—usually, for Western languages, alphabetical—and gives their meanings. In addition to its basic function of defining words, a dictionary may provide information about their pronunciation, grammatical forms and functions, etymologies, syntactic

  • dictionary catalog (library science)

    library: Catalog systems: The first is the dictionary catalog, in which author, title, subject, and any other entries are filed in a single alphabetical sequence. This form is popular in the United States and in public libraries generally and probably presents the least amount of difficulty for the general or casual reader.…

  • Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe (work by Salesbury)

    William Salesbury: His Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe (1547), the first work of its kind, appeared in a facsimile edition in 1877. His translation of the New Testament (1567), based on the Greek version, was prepared in collaboration with Richard Davies, bishop of St. David’s, Abergwili, Carmarthenshire.

  • Dictionary of American Biography (edition by Malone)

    Dumas Malone: He edited the Dictionary of American Biography from 1929 to 1936 and the Political Science Quarterly from 1953 to 1958 and served as director of the Harvard University Press from 1936 to 1943. Malone’s masterwork is Jefferson and His Time, a comprehensive six-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson consisting…

  • Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles, A (compilation by Craigie and Hulbert)

    A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles (DAE), four-volume dictionary designed to define usage of words and phrases in American English as it differed from usage in England and other English-speaking countries, as well as to show how the cultural and natural history of the United

  • Dictionary of Americanisms, A (work by Mathews)

    A Dictionary of Americanisms, two-volume dictionary of words and expressions that originated in the United States or that were first borrowed into the English language in the United States. Edited by the American scholar Mitford M. Mathews and published in 1951, the dictionary was based on

  • Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States (work by Bartlett)

    John Russell Bartlett: …linguistics with his pioneer work, Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States (1848). It went through four editions and was translated into Dutch and German.

  • Dictionary of Birds, A (book by Newton)

    Alfred Newton: …probably the most important is A Dictionary of Birds (1893–96), which grew from numerous articles on birds that he contributed to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. His article “Ornithology” as amended in the 11th edition is still considered a valuable source of information on the history of ornithology…

  • Dictionary of Modern English Usage, A (work by Fowler)

    dictionary: Specialized dictionaries: Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), ably reedited in 1965 by Sir Ernest Gowers. It represents the good taste of a sensitive, urbane litterateur. It has many devotees in the United States and also a number of competitors, such as A Dictionary of Contemporary American…

  • Dictionary of Music and Musicians (reference work)

    Sir George Grove: …music famous for his multivolume Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

  • Dictionary of National Biography (British dictionary)

    A. F. Pollard: …the editorial staff of the Dictionary of National Biography, to which he contributed about 500 entries, mainly on figures in the Tudor period. During that period, before the Dictionary was completed (through the first supplement), he completed two biographical volumes, England Under Protector Somerset (1900) and Henry VIII (1902).

  • Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (anthology by Baldwin)

    James Mark Baldwin: …philosophers and psychologists in his Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, 3 vol. (1901–05), the final volume of which was a 1,200-page bibliography by Benjamin Rand. Associated with Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (1903–09), he then spent five years in Mexico City as an adviser to the National University of Mexico. During…

  • Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (work by Brewer)

    encyclopaedia: Other topics: …first important handbook is the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1870) by the English clergyman and schoolmaster Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1810–97), supplemented with Brewer’s Reader’s Handbook (1879). Other important works include the Dizionario letterario Bompiani degli autori (1956–57; “Bompiani’s Literary Dictionary of Authors”), the Dizionario letterario Bompiani delle opere (1947–50;…

  • Dictionary of the American Language, A (work by Webster)

    dictionary: From 1604 to 1828: …he titled the largest one A Dictionary of the American Language. He brought out his small dictionary for schools, the Compendious, in 1806 but then engaged in a long course of research into the relation of languages, in order to strengthen his etymologies. At last, in 1828, at age 70,…

  • Dictionary of the English Language, A (work by Johnson)

    A Dictionary of the English Language, the famous dictionary of Samuel Johnson, published in London in 1755; its principles dominated English lexicography for more than a century. This two-volume work surpassed earlier dictionaries not in bulk but in precision of definition. (Read H.L. Mencken’s

  • Dictionary of the English Language, A (work by Worcester)

    dictionary: Since 1828: Worcester’s climactic edition of 1860, A Dictionary of the English Language, gave him the edge in the “war,” and the poet and critic James Russell Lowell declared: “From this long conflict Dr. Worcester has unquestionably come off victorious.” The Merriams, however, brought out their answer in 1864, popularly called “the…

  • Dictionary of the Irish Language (Irish dictionary)

    Dictionary of the Irish Language, authoritative dictionary of the Irish language that continues, starting with the letter D, the work of Kuno Meyer’s Contributions to Irish Lexicography (1906–07), which covered A–C. Based, according to its subtitle, on Old and Middle Irish materials, it began

  • Dictionary of the Malayan Language (work by Marsden)

    William Marsden: His Dictionary and Grammar of the Malayan Language, begun in 1786, were published in 1812 and form the basis of all subsequent Sumatran linguistics. Marsden’s scholarly work earned him many honours and distinctions.

  • Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, A (dictionary by Craigie)

    dictionary: Scholarly dictionaries: plan, Sir William Craigie, undertook A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue himself, covering the period from the 14th to the 17th century in Scottish speech. Enough material was amassed under his direction so that editing could begin in 1925 (publication, however, did not begin until 1931), and before his…

  • Dictionary of the Scots Language (online dictionary)

    Scottish National Dictionary: …on the Internet as the Dictionary of the Scots Language in 2004.

  • Dictiones (work by Ennodius)

    Magnus Felix Ennodius: …important source for the historian; Dictiones, a collection of model speeches which reveal the continuance of the traditional rhetorical education and give a valuable description of the school of the grammarian Deuterius in Milan; epistles on a wide range of subjects (including some addressed to Boethius, to whom he was…

  • Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française (French dictionary)

    Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française, (French: “Alphabetical and Analogical Dictionary of the French Language”), scholarly historical dictionary of the French language, which supplies for each entry etymology, definition, antonyms, synonyms, and cross-references.

  • Dictionnaire de la langue française (French dictionary)

    Dictionnaire de la langue française, monumental French dictionary compiled by Maximilien-Paul-Émile Littré, a French lexicographer. Begun in 1844 and published in four volumes from 1863 to 1873, with a supplement issued in 1877, it contained many quotations from works of literature written in the

  • Dictionnaire des arts et des sciences, Le (work compiled by Corneille)

    encyclopaedia: Encyclopaedic dictionaries: …and the immediate follow-up by Le Dictionnaire des arts et des sciences (1694) by the writer Thomas Corneille (the younger brother of the playwright Pierre Corneille) were sufficient to indicate the growing public interest in a more modern form of encyclopaedia. This indication was confirmed by the successful publication of…

  • Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes (work by Barbier)

    Antoine-Alexandre Barbier: His Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes (1806–09; “Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous Works”) is still a standard library reference. He helped found the libraries of the Louvre museum, and under Louis XVIII he was administrator of the king’s private libraries until he was abruptly dismissed…

  • Dictionnaire historique et critique (work by Bayle)

    Pierre Bayle: ) was a philosopher whose Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697; “Historical and Critical Dictionary”) was roundly condemned by the French Reformed Church of Rotterdam and by the French Roman Catholic church because of its numerous annotations deliberately designed to destroy orthodox Christian beliefs.

  • Dictionnaire Littré (French dictionary)

    Dictionnaire de la langue française, monumental French dictionary compiled by Maximilien-Paul-Émile Littré, a French lexicographer. Begun in 1844 and published in four volumes from 1863 to 1873, with a supplement issued in 1877, it contained many quotations from works of literature written in the

  • Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (work by Viollet-le-Duc)

    Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc: …information and extensive design analysis: Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (1854–68; “Analytical Dictionary of French Architecture from the XIth to the XVIth Century”) and the Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l’époque carlovingienne à la Rénaissance (1858–75; “Analytical Dictionary of French Furniture from the Carlovingians…

  • Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier francais de l’époque carlovingienne à la Rénaissance (work by Viollet-le-Duc)

    Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc: …the XVIth Century”) and the Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l’époque carlovingienne à la Rénaissance (1858–75; “Analytical Dictionary of French Furniture from the Carlovingians to the Renaissance”). Running to 16 volumes, these two works provided the vital visual and intellectual inspiration required to sustain the Gothic Revival movement. He…

  • Dictionnaire universel (work by Jesuit fathers)

    encyclopaedia: The level of writing: …the other hand, the contemporary Dictionnaire universel of the Jesuit fathers of Trévoux had a popularity among the orthodox that caused it to run through six editions and then gradually to expand from three to eight volumes between 1704 and 1771.

  • Dictionnaire universel des arts et sciences (work by Furetière)

    encyclopaedia: Encyclopaedias and politics: …his prospectus (1675) for his Dictionnaire universel, found his privilege to publish cancelled by the French government at the request of the Académie Française, which accused him of plagiarizing its own dictionary. The Leipzig book trade, fearing that publication of Johann Heinrich Zedler’s huge Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexikon (1732–50; “Great Complete…

  • dictynid (arachnid family)

    spider: Annotated classification: Family Dictynidae About 560 species common in temperate areas. Cribellum; 3 tarsal claws; tarsi lack trichobothria and brush of setae; small in size; make irregular webs under leaves or in branches of herbs. Family Clubionidae (sac spiders) More than 530 species; common and widespread. Hunting spiders;

  • Dictynidae (arachnid family)

    spider: Annotated classification: Family Dictynidae About 560 species common in temperate areas. Cribellum; 3 tarsal claws; tarsi lack trichobothria and brush of setae; small in size; make irregular webs under leaves or in branches of herbs. Family Clubionidae (sac spiders) More than 530 species; common and widespread. Hunting spiders;

  • Dictynna (Cretan goddess)

    Britomartis, Cretan goddess sometimes identified with the Greek Artemis. According to Callimachus in Hymn 3 (3rd century bc), Britomartis was a daughter of Zeus (king of the gods) and lived in Crete; she was a huntress and a virgin. Minos, king of Crete, fell in love with her and pursued her for

  • Dictynna (work by Valerius Cato)

    Publius Valerius Cato: …poet Helvius Cinna praised his Dictynna (“Diana”), which seems to have been an erudite short epic (what modern scholars call an epyllion) that probably influenced subsequent poets. Lydia, which may have been a collection of amorous poems, was praised by the Neoterian poet Ticida.

  • Dictyocaulus (nematode genus)

    lungworm: …and those of the genus Dictyocaulus that live in sheep and cattle. Many species of lungworms are of veterinary importance as well as of significance to human health. Members of the genus Angiostrongylus, for example, are known to be pathogenic in humans. The rat lungworm (A. cantonensis) normally occurs as…

  • Dictyocha (algae genus)

    algae: Annotated classification: …common in diatomite deposits; includes Dictyocha, Pedinella, and Pseudopedinella. Class Eustigmatophyceae Mostly small, pale green, and spherical; fewer than 15 species; Eustigmatos and Nannochloropsis.

  • Dictyochales (order of algae)

    algae: Annotated classification: Order Dictyochales (silicoflagellates) Typically with siliceous skeletons like spiny baskets enclosing the cells; flagella bases attach almost directly to nucleus; silicoflagellate skeletons common in diatomite deposits; includes Dictyocha, Pedinella, and Pseudopedinella.

  • Dictyochophyceae (class of algae)

    algae: Annotated classification: Class Dictyochophyceae Predominantly marine flagellates, including silicoflagellates that form skeletons common in diatomite deposits; fewer than 25 described species. Order Pedinellales When pigmented, has 6 chloroplasts in a radial arrangement; flagella bases attached almost directly to nucleus; includes Apedinella, Actinomonas, Mesopedinella

  • Dictyoclostus (fossil brachiopod genus)

    Dictyoclostus, genus of extinct brachiopods, or lamp shells, that were common invertebrate forms in the shallow seas of North America from the Carboniferous to the Permian periods (between 359 million and 251 million years ago). Dictyoclostus often grew to large size. Its distinctive shell is

  • Dictyophora (fungus genus)

    stinkhorn: Phallus, Mutinus, Dictyophora, Simblum, and Clathrus.

  • Dictyophorus reticulatus (insect)

    short-horned grasshopper: Major genera and species: In North America the eastern lubber grasshopper (Romalea microptera) is 5–7 cm long and has large red wings bordered in black. The western lubber grasshopper (Brachystola magna), also called the buffalo grasshopper because of its size, has much smaller, pinkish wings. The slender grasshopper (Leptysma marginicollis), found in the southern…

  • dictyostele (stele)

    fern: Vascular tissues: …common ferns possess a “dictyostele,” consisting of vascular strands interconnected in such a manner that, in any given cross section of stem, several distinct bundles can be observed. These are separated by regions filled with parenchyma cells known as leaf gaps. There are, however, numerous “siphonostelic” ferns, in which…

  • Dictyostelium discoideum (organism)

    animal social behavior: Social interactions involving cooperative breeding and eusociality: …as the “social amoeba” (Dictyostelium discoideum). Clones of Dictyostelium form a multicellular fruiting body called a plasmodium. Superficially, the plasmodium resembles a slug, but it is essentially an aggregation of free-living, haploid, amoeba-like, cells that will later grow a sterile stalk. The stalk raises the spores off the ground…

  • Dictys Cretensis (author)

    Dictys Cretensis, author of a pseudo-chronicle of the Trojan War. Dictys was supposed to have accompanied the Cretan leader Idomeneus from Knossos to the siege of Troy and to have written a pro-Greek account of the Trojan War. His manuscript was said to have been “discovered” during the 1st century

  • Dicuil (Irish monk, grammarian, and geographer)

    Dicuil was a monk, grammarian, and geographer whose work is important to the history of science and is a testament to Irish learning in the 9th century. Much of Dicuil’s astronomical knowledge was gained in calculating dates for religious festivals. Completed in 825, his De mensura orbis terrae

  • dicumarol (chemical compound)

    heterocyclic compound: Six-membered rings with one heteroatom: …its derivative dicoumarin (dicumarol, or discoumarol), a blood anticoagulant, are products of living organisms.

  • dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (chemical compound)

    carboxylic acid: Conversion to acid derivatives: …amide, the most important being dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCC):

  • dicyclomine (drug)

    atropine: …on the central nervous system; dicyclomine exerts direct relaxant effects on the gastrointestinal tract and is used in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome; and oxybutynin acts on the smooth muscles of the urinary bladder and is used in the treatment of overactive bladder.

  • dicyclopentadienyliron (chemical compound)

    ferrocene, the earliest and best known of the so-called sandwich compounds; these are derivatives of transition metals in which two organic ring systems are bonded symmetrically to the metal atom. Its molecular formula is (C5H5)2Fe. First prepared in 1951 by the reaction of sodium cyclopentadienide

  • dicyemid (invertebrate)

    dicyemid, any member of the order Dicyemida (phylum Rhombozoa) of multicellular wormlike parasites of various marine invertebrates. See

  • Dicyemida (invertebrate)

    dicyemid, any member of the order Dicyemida (phylum Rhombozoa) of multicellular wormlike parasites of various marine invertebrates. See

  • dicynodont (fossil reptile group)

    therapsid: …was that of the herbivorous dicynodonts (two-tuskers), in which upper canines were retained but the other teeth were replaced by a horny bill. Among carnivorous therapsids, gorgonopsians and therocephalians were characteristic of the Permian, and cynodonts and bauriamorphs were advanced Triassic representatives. A few therapsids were still present in the…

  • Dicynodontia (fossil reptile group)

    therapsid: …was that of the herbivorous dicynodonts (two-tuskers), in which upper canines were retained but the other teeth were replaced by a horny bill. Among carnivorous therapsids, gorgonopsians and therocephalians were characteristic of the Permian, and cynodonts and bauriamorphs were advanced Triassic representatives. A few therapsids were still present in the…

  • Did a Calendar Change Cause Riots in England?

    Imagine that you are a member of Britain’s House of Lords. The date is February 25, 1750—in Britain, at least. In most of continental Europe, the year is 1751. A bit confused? The year is 1751 according to the Gregorian calendar, but Protestant Britain chose to stick with the older Julian calendar

  • Did Anyone Escape from Alcatraz?

    There are no known successful escapes from Alcatraz. While inmates were able to break out of the prison in both 1937 and 1962, there is no credible evidence that they reached the mainland. Instead, the escapees are believed to have drowned. Before closing in 1963, Alcatraz was considered escape

  • Did Anyone Really Think the Titanic was Unsinkable?

    You probably know the story of the great irony of the Titanic. The ship hailed as “unsinkable” sank after it struck an iceberg on its very first trip across the Atlantic Ocean. In hindsight, it seems almost silly that anyone would assume that a ship weighing more than 50,000 tons (when fully laden)

  • Did Dinosaurs Really Have Feathers?

    Science is learning more and more about the versatility of form in dinosaurs with each great find in China, the Americas, Antarctica, and elsewhere. During their heyday in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, dinosaurs evolved to fill niches in most ecosystems. Some were large, some were

  • Did Duchess Anastasia Survive Her Family’s Execution?

    The 1956 movie Anastasia offered a more hopeful ending to the decades of mystery that followed the execution of Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in 1918. In the movie, his youngest daughter, Anastasia, is suffering from amnesia and goes by the name Anna. Ingrid Bergman played Anna,

  • Did Elvis Presley Join the Army?

    Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll,” was drafted into the U.S. Army in early 1958. This was a moment of true grief for his fans. Like much of what Presley did at the height of his success, his entry into the army was treated as a significant cultural event. Despite his superstar status, he

  • Did Europeans Really Think the World Would End in the Year 1000?

    The idea that early medieval Europeans were expecting the world to end when the year 1000 arrived has been contentious historically, and it is difficult to definitively determine its accuracy. Most modern historians consider this claim to be erroneous or exaggerated; some, however, believe that it

  • Did George Washington Really Say, “I Can’t Tell a Lie”?

    In the words of Henry Lee’s eulogy, George Washington was "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." His accomplishments were titanic: commander of the victorious Continental Army during the American Revolution, first president of the United States, “Father of His

  • Did Humans Live at the Same Time as Dinosaurs?

    TV shows such as The Flintstones depict humans and dinosaurs living together in harmony. But that’s just fiction, right? Actually, not quite. The dinosaurs the earliest humans lived among were not the huge lumbering lizards we most commonly think of when we see the word. Those had been extinct for

  • Did Humans Live With Saber-Toothed Cats?

    Yes, humans lived during the same time period as saber-toothed cats. Now extinct, saber-toothed cats existed from the Eocene through the Pleistocene Epoch (56 million to 11,700 years ago). The most widely known is the genus Smilodon, a cat about the size of a modern African lion and more commonly

  • Did Joseph McCarthy cause the Red Scare of the 1950s?

    Joseph McCarthy was a junior Republican senator from Wisconsin still in his first term when he delivered the incendiary Lincoln Day speech that rocketed him to political stardom. Tensions between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union had been at a rolling boil since the end of

  • Did Jules Verne Invent the Submarine?

    Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, 1870) contains two of his most memorable creations, the mysterious Captain Nemo and a marvelous submarine, the Nautilus. This submarine is 70 metres (230 feet) long and armour-plated, capable of sinking any ship,

  • Did Lucille Times Boycott Buses Before Rosa Parks?

    On December 1, 1955, 42-year-old Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in defiance of the law. Today Parks’s act of resistance—as well as the subsequent boycott—persists as one of the key moments of the civil

  • Did Marie-Antoinette Really Say “Let Them Eat Cake”?

    “Let them eat cake” is the most famous quote attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution. As the story goes, it was the queen’s response upon being told that her starving peasant subjects had no bread. Because cake is more expensive than bread, the anecdote has

  • Did Martin Luther Marry a Nun?

    Yes, Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation and a former Augustinian hermit, married Katharina von Bora, a former Cistercian nun. Their love story began in 1523, when Katharina and eight other nuns dramatically fled their convent, smuggled out in a fish cart, after being inspired by Luther’s

  • Did Mary Shelley Really Have a Piece of Her Husband’s Heart?

    The myth: Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein (1818) and arguably the inventor of science fiction, kept the preserved heart of her late husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, in her writing desk for the rest of her life. It’s audacious. It’s wild. It’s romantic, in a Gothic kind of way. But

  • Did Mozart Write “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”?

    The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is remembered for his precociousness, his prolific output, and his beautiful and memorable melodies. With all due respect to the famous opening bars of Eine kleine Nachtmusik, probably the most familiar melody associated with Mozart is known to English speakers

  • Did Nero Really Fiddle as Rome Burned?

    According to his biographer Suetonius, the Roman emperor Nero "practiced every sort of obscenity,” ranging from incest to cruelty to animals to homicide. Nero was such a bad guy, in fact, that he may very well have been the first Antichrist in the Christian tradition. But did Nero actually fiddle

  • Did the Beatles Really Say They Were More Popular than Jesus?

    In March 1966 Maureen Cleave, a reporter and friend of Beatles member John Lennon, published a profile in the London Evening Standard: “How does a Beatle live? John Lennon lives like this.” In the profile the 25-year-old Lennon discussed his strained relationship with his father, the toys he bought

  • Did the Vikings Discover America?

    Did the Vikings discover America? It’s a question that requires some unpacking. To begin with, there’s the problem of the Eurocentric perspective of the word discover, which looks at the encounter with the New World from the vantage point of guys on ships and ignores the fact that indigenous people

  • Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind? (song by Sebastian)

    the Lovin’ Spoonful: …(1965), “Daydream” (1966), and “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?” (1966)—and the uncharacteristically boisterous “Summer in the City” (1966). Chief songwriter Sebastian (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica, and Autoharp) and Yanovsky (lead guitar) came from a folk background; Boone (bass) and Butler (drums) had played rock and…

  • Did You Hear About the Morgans? (film by Lawrence [2009])

    Hugh Grant: Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love Actually: He next appeared in Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), a comedy about a married couple who enter a witness-protection program.

  • Didachē (Christian theological literature)

    Didachē, the oldest surviving Christian church order, probably written in Egypt or Syria in the 2nd century. In 16 short chapters it deals with morals and ethics, church practice, and the eschatological hope of Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time and presents a general program for instruction

  • didactic (the arts)

    didactic, of literature or other art, intended to convey instruction and information. The word is often used to refer to texts that are overburdened with instructive or factual matter to the exclusion of graceful and pleasing detail so that they are pompously dull and erudite. Some literature,

  • didactic (the arts)

    didactic, of literature or other art, intended to convey instruction and information. The word is often used to refer to texts that are overburdened with instructive or factual matter to the exclusion of graceful and pleasing detail so that they are pompously dull and erudite. Some literature,

  • didactic literature

    nonfictional prose: Reality and imagination: …of issues may be ponderously didactic and still belong within the literary domain. For centuries, in many nations, in Asiatic languages, in medieval Latin, in the writings of the humanists of the Renaissance, and in those of the Enlightenment, a considerable part of literature has been didactic. The concept of…

  • Didactica Opera Omnia (work by Comenius)

    John Amos Comenius: Social reform of John Amos Comenius: …published them as a collection, Didactica Opera Omnia. He devoted his remaining years to completing his great work, Consultation. He managed to get parts of it published, and when he was dying in 1670 he begged his close associates to publish the rest of it after his death. They failed…

  • didactive film (theater)

    theatre: The influence of Piscator: What he called didactive film presented objective information and up-to-the-minute facts as well as historical ones; it gave the spectator facts about the subject of the production. Dramatic film contributed to the development of the action and served as a “substitute” for the live scene; where live scenes…

  • Didahii (work by Anthimus)

    Anthimus of Iberia: Anthimus wrote in Romanian the Didahii (“Sermons”), a collection of moral exhortations containing historically important descriptions critical of the luxurious life of the Walachian boyars (aristocracy). The Didahii also is a unique source document on 17th-century Romanian social life.

  • Didascalia Apostolorum (work on ecclesiastical law)

    Apostolic Constitutions: …are an adaptation of the Didascalia Apostolorum, written in Syria about ad 250. They deal with Christian ethics, the duties of the clergy, the eucharistic liturgy, and various church problems and rituals.

  • Didascalicon (work by Hugh of Saint-Victor)

    Hugh of Saint-Victor: …prolific writer, Hugh wrote the Didascalicon, a remarkably comprehensive early encyclopaedia, as well as commentaries on the Scriptures and on the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius. The edition of Hugh’s work by the canons of Saint-Victor (1648) was reprinted in J.-P. Migne’s Patrologiae Cursus Completus (Series Latina), 1844–64.

  • didascaly (literature)

    didascaly, the instruction or training of the chorus in ancient Greek drama. The word is from the Greek didaskalía, “teaching or instruction.” The Greek plural noun didaskaliai (“instructions”) came to refer to records of dramatic performances, containing names of authors and dates, in the form of

  • Didaskalia kai parainesis (work by Arsenius the Great)

    Arsenius the Great: His principal works included the Didaskalia kai parainesis (“Instruction and Exhortation”), which was written as a guideline for monks and is evidence, according to 6th-century historians, that he was an abbot or spiritual leader of a religious community. His commentary on the Gospel According to Luke, Eis ton peirastēn nomikon…

  • didaskaloi (teacher)

    Christianity: The operations of the Holy Spirit: The charismatic teacher (didaskalos), on the other hand, still appears. Filled with the spirit of intelligence or knowledge of the Holy Spirit, he carries out his teaching office, which does not necessarily need to be attached to an academic position. Many Free Church and ecclesiastical reform movements owe…

  • Diddley, Bo (American musician)

    Bo Diddley was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who was one of the most influential performers of rock music’s early period. He was raised mostly in Chicago by his adoptive family, from whom he took the surname McDaniel, and he recorded for the legendary blues record company Chess as

  • Diddy (American rapper, record producer, and clothing designer)

    Sean Combs is an American rapper, record producer, actor, and clothing designer who founded an entertainment empire in the 1990s. Beginning in 2023, he was the subject of several lawsuits accusing him of rape, physical abuse, racketeering, and sex trafficking, culminating in his arrest in New York

  • Didelot, Charles (French dancer)

    Charles Didelot was a Swedish-born French dancer, choreographer, and teacher whose innovative work anticipated the Romantic ballet. Following his debut in 1790 at the Paris Opera with the ballerina Madeleine Guimard, he later turned to choreography, creating several celebrated ballets, including La

  • Didelot, Charles-Louis (French dancer)

    Charles Didelot was a Swedish-born French dancer, choreographer, and teacher whose innovative work anticipated the Romantic ballet. Following his debut in 1790 at the Paris Opera with the ballerina Madeleine Guimard, he later turned to choreography, creating several celebrated ballets, including La

  • Didelphidae (marsupial, Didelphidae family)

    marsupial: Classification: Family Didelphidae (American opossums)70 or more species in 12 genera. Order Paucituberculata (shrew, or rat, opossums)5 species in 1 family.Family Caenolestidae5 species in 3 genera.

  • Didelphimorphia (marsupial order)

    opossum: Classification: Order Didelphimorphia (opossums) 103 or more species in 1 family. Family Didelphidae (American opossums) 103 or more species in 19 genera found in Central and South America, including the Virginia opossum, which ranges as far north as southern Canada. Many species with unusual adaptations. Subfamily Caluromyinae

  • Didelphis albiventris (marsupial)

    opossum: Opossums of Latin America: …three species of white-eared opossums: D. albiventris in eastern Brazil and south through eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina; D. imperfecta in Venezuela and the Guianas; and D. pernigra, found in the Andes from western Venezuela south into Bolivia.