anemometer

An anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed, and is a common weather station instrument. The term is derived from the Greek word anemos, meaning wind. The first known description of an anemometer was given by Leon Battista Alberti around 1450.

Anemometers can be divided into two classes: those that measure the wind's speed, and those that measure the wind's pressure; but as there is a close connection between the pressure and the speed, an anemometer designed for one will give information about both.

machan

A bird hide (or hide) is a shelter, often camouflaged, that is used to observe wildlife, especially birds, at close quarters. Although hides were once built chiefly as a hunting aids, they are now commonly found in parks and wetlands for the use of bird watchers, ornithologists and other observers who do not want to disturb wildlife as it is being observed.

A typical bird hide resembles a garden shed, with small openings, shutters, or windows built into at least one side to enable observation.

Variant types of bird hide include:

• the tower hide, which has multiple storeys and allows observations over large areas
• the bird blind, which is a screen similar to one wall of a typical hide, with or without a roof for shelter
• the machan, a covered platform erected to observe birds and wildlife in high trees or on cliffs, particularly in India where it was originally used by tiger-hunters.

balaclava

A balaclava, also known as a balaclava helmet or ski mask, is a form of headgear that covers the whole head, exposing only part of the face. Often only the eyes or eyes and mouth are left exposed. The name "balaclava" comes from the town of Balaklava, near Sevastopol in Crimea, Ukraine. During the Crimean War, knitted balaclavas were sent over to the British troops to help protect them from the bitter cold weather. However, according to Richard Rutt, the name 'balaclava helmet' did not first appear in print during the Crimean War, but only much later, in 1881. This type of headgear was also known in the 19th century as an Uhlan cap or a Templar cap. In modern American English,when made for those serving in the armed forces, they are usually known as 'helmet liners'. They are traditionally knitted from wool, and can be rolled up into a hat to cover just the crown of the head.

lintel

Post and lintel (or Post and beam) is a simple architrave where a horizontal member (the lintel—or header) is supported by two vertical posts at either end. This form is commonly used to support the weight of the structure located above the openings in a bearing wall created by windows and doors.

Presque-isle

Presque-isle (from the French presqu'île, meaning almost an island) is a geographical term denoting a piece of land which is closer to being an island than most peninsulas because of its being joined to the mainland by an extremely narrow neck of land.

wing box

The wing box of an airplane is the structural component from which the wings extend. The section of the fuselage between the wing roots. This is the strongest structural area of the aircraft, and suffers the most frequent shear stresses. Modern (post 1955) aircraft often locate the main landing gear near the wing roots to take advantage of the structural strength they afford.

Yuletide

Yule or Yuletide ("Yule-time") is a winter festival that was initially celebrated by the historical Germanic people as a pagan religious festival, though it was later absorbed into, and equated with, the Christian festival of Christmas. The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January on a date determined by the lunar Germanic calendar. The festival was placed on December 25 when the Christian calendar (Julian calendar) was adopted. Scholars have connected the celebration to the Wild Hunt.

canard

In aeronautics, canard (French for duck) is an airframe configuration of fixed-wing aircraft in which the forward surface is smaller than the rearward, the former being known as the "canard", while the latter is the main wing. In contrast a conventional aircraft has a small horizontal stabilizer behind the main wing.^[1][2][3]

Some early fixed-wing aircraft such as the Brazilian Santos-Dumont 14-bis and French Canard Voisin had tail-first configuration which were seen by observers to resemble a flying duck — hence the name.

amphibrach

An amphibrach is a metrical foot used in Latin and Greek prosody. It consists of a long syllable between two short syllables. The word comes from the Greek αμφίβραχυς, amphíbrakhys, "short on both sides".

In English accentual-syllabic poetry, an amphibrach is a stressed syllable surrounded by two unstressed syllables. It is the main foot used in the construction of the limerick, as in "There once was / a girl from / Nantucket." It was also used by the Victorians for narrative poetry, e.g. Samuel Woodworth's "The Old Oaken Bucket" beginning "How dear to / my heart are / the scenes of / my childhood." W.H. Auden's "Oh Where Are You Going" is a more recent and slightly less metrically-regular example. The amphibrach is also often used in ballads and light verse, such as the hypermetrical lines of Sir John Betjeman's "Meditation on the A30."

Amphibrachs are a staple meter of Russian poetry. A common variation in an amphibrachic line, in both Russian and English, is to end the line with an iamb, as Thomas Hardy does in "The Ruined Maid": "Oh did n't / you know I'd / been ru in'd / said she".

Some books by Dr. Seuss contain many lines written in amphibrachs, such as these from If I Ran the Circus:

All ready / to put up / the tents for / my circus.

I think I / will call it / the Circus / McGurkus.

And NOW comes / an act of / Enormous / Enormance!

No former / performer's / performed this / performance!

trochee

A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. Trochee comes from the Greek τροχός, trokhós, wheel, and choree from χορός, khorós, dance; both convey the "rolling" rhythm of this metrical foot.

Anal

Anal is a Kuki-Chin-Naga language of India and Myanmar, part of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It has 13,853 speakers in India (2001 census). Its dialects are Laizo and Malshom.

Tarsorrhaphy

Tarsorrhaphy is a surgical procedure in which the eyelids are partially sewn together to narrow the opening (i.e. palpebral fissure).

Haleakalā

Haleakalā, or the East Maui Volcano, is a massive shield volcano that forms more than 75% of the Hawaiian Island of Maui.

Early Hawaiians applied the name Haleakalā ("house of the sun") to the general mountain. Haleakalā is also the name of a peak on the south western edge of Kaupō Gap. In Hawaiian folklore, the depression at the summit of Haleakalā was home to the grandmother of the demigod Māui. According to the legend, Māui's grandmother helped him capture the sun and force it to slow its journey across the sky in order to lengthen the day.

décret

décret m.

1. decree

Sawzall

A reciprocating saw is a type of saw in which the cutting action is achieved through a push and pull reciprocating motion of the blade.

The term reciprocating saw is commonly assigned to a type of saw used in construction and demolition work. This type of saw, also known as a recipro saw, Sabre Saw, or Sawzall (a trademark of the Milwaukee Electric Tool Company) has a large blade resembling that of a Jigsaw and a handle oriented to allow the saw to be used comfortably on vertical surfaces. The typical style of this saw has a foot at the base of the blade, also similar to a jigsaw. The user rests this foot against the surface being cut so that the tendency of the blade to push away from or pull towards the cut as the blade travels through its cycle can be countered.

superincumbent

superincumbent

Lying or resting on something else.

corbel

In architecture a corbel (or console) is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or parapet, has been used since Neolithic times. It is common in Medieval architecture and in the Scottish baronial style as well as in the Classical architectural vocabulary, such as the modillions of a Corinthian cornice and in ancient Chinese architecture.

The word "corbel" comes from Old French and derives from the Latin corbellus, a diminutive of corvus (a raven) which refers to the beak-like appearance.^[1] Similarly, the French refer to a bracket-corbel, usually a load-bearing internal feature, as corbeau (a crow). A cul-de-lampe is a kind of bracket-corbel supporting a vault; the term is also used for a corbel with a tapering base. Italians use mensola, the Germans, Kragstein.^[1] The usual word in modern French for a corbel in the context of Classical architecture is modillon.

Irie

Irie, in Rastafarian vocabulary, refers to positive emotions or feelings, or anything that is good. Specifically it refers to high emotions and peaceful vibrations. This is a phonetical representation of "all right".

Berberine

Berberine is a quaternary ammonium salt from the protoberberine group of isoquinoline alkaloids. It is found in such plants as Oregon grape, Barberry, Tree Turmeric.

Berberine is strongly yellow colored, which is why in earlier times Berberis species were used to dye wool, leather and wood. Wool is still today dyed with berberine in northern India. Under ultraviolet light, berberine shows a strong yellow fluorescence.

millennium

A millennium (plural millenniums or millennia) is a period of time equal to one thousand years (1,000) (from the Latin phrase mille, thousand, and annus, year), often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system.

For example, a millennium could start at the beginning of the year 289 and finish at the beginning of the year 1289.

Christian side hug

The Christian side hug is a satirical term for a display of affection in which a person hugs another by putting one arm around their shoulders, rather than both arms around them, thus minimizing the chance of inadvertent sexual contact.

Gob

Gob may refer to:

Gob, a British slang term meaning "Mouth" derived from the Irish word of the same meaning.

entropy

In information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. In this context, the term usually refers to the Shannon entropy, which quantifies the expected value of the information contained in a message, usually in units such as bits. Equivalently, the Shannon entropy is a measure of the average information content one is missing when one does not know the value of the random variable. The concept was introduced by Claude E. Shannon in his 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication".

Shannon's entropy represents an absolute limit on the best possible lossless compression of any communication, under certain constraints: treating messages to be encoded as a sequence of independent and identically-distributed random variables, Shannon's source coding theorem shows that, in the limit, the average length of the shortest possible representation to encode the messages in a given alphabet is their entropy divided by the logarithm of the number of symbols in the target alphabet.

A fair coin has an entropy of one bit. However, if the coin is not fair, then the uncertainty is lower (if asked to bet on the next outcome, we would bet preferentially on the most frequent result), and thus the Shannon entropy is lower. Mathematically, a coin flip is an example of a Bernoulli trial, and its entropy is given by the binary entropy function. A long string of repeating characters has an entropy rate of 0, since every character is predictable. The entropy rate of English text is between 1.0 and 1.5 bits per letter, or as low as 0.6 to 1.3 bits per letter, according to estimates by Shannon based on human experiments.

Hoi polloi

Hoi polloi (Ancient Greek: οἱ πολλοί), an expression meaning "the many", or in the strictest sense, "the majority" in Greek, is used in English to denote "the masses" or "the people", usually in a derogatory sense. Synonyms for "hoi polloi" include "... commoners, great unwashed, minions, multitude, plebeians, proletariat, rank and file, Riff Raff, the common people, the herd, the many, the plebs, the proles, the peons, the working class".

Historicity

Historicity may mean:

• the quality of being part of recorded history, as opposed to prehistory
• the quality of being part of history as opposed to being an historical myth or legend,

rhombicosidodecahedron

In geometry, the rhombicosidodecahedron, or small rhombicosidodecahedron, is an Archimedean solid, one of thirteen convex isogonal nonprismatic solids constructed of two or more types of regular polygon faces.

It has 20 regular triangular faces, 30 square faces, 12 regular pentagonal faces, 60 vertices and 120 edges.

The name rhombicosidodecahedron refers to the fact that the 30 square faces lie in the same planes as the 30 faces of the rhombic triacontahedron which is dual to the icosidodecahedron.

It can also be called an expanded or cantellated dodecahedron or icosahedron, from truncation operations on either uniform polyhedron.

Barsoom

Barsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote close to 100 swashbuckling action adventure stories in various genres in the first half of the 20th century, and is now best known as the creator of the character Tarzan. The first Barsoom tale was serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in 1912, and published as a novel as A Princess of Mars in 1917. Ten sequels followed over the next three decades, further extending his vision of Barsoom and adding other characters.

The world of Barsoom is a romantic vision of a dying Mars, based on now outdated scientific ideas made popular by Astronomer Percival Lowell in the early 20th century. While depicting many outlandish inventions, and advanced technology, it is a savage, 'frontier' world, of honor, noble sacrifice and constant struggle, where martial prowess is paramount, and where many races fight over dwindling resources. It is filled with lost cities, heroic adventures and undiscovered ancient secrets.

Anaglyph

Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with glasses where the two lenses are different (usually chromatically opposite) colors, such as red and cyan. Images are made up of two color layers, superimposed, but offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect. Usually the main subject is in the center, while the foreground and background are shifted laterally in opposite directions. The picture contains two differently filtered colored images, one for each eye. When viewed through the "color coded" "anaglyph glasses", they reveal an integrated stereoscopic image. The visual cortex of the brain fuses this into perception of a three dimensional scene or composition.

Indulgent

Indulgent
Disposed or prone to indulge, humor, gratify, or give way to one's own or another's desires, etc., or to be compliant, lenient, or forbearing; showing or ready to show favor; favorable; indisposed to be severe or harsh, or to exercise necessary restraint: as, an indulgent parent; to be indulgent to servants.

Jatropha

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the family Euphorbiaceae. The generic name is derived from the Greek words ἰατρός (iatros), meaning "physician," and τροφή (trophe), meaning "nutrition," hence the common name physic nut. Mature plants produce separate male and female flowers. As with many members of the family Euphorbiaceae, Jatropha contains compounds that are highly toxic.

fount

fount:

1. something from which water flows
2. a device from which poultry may drink
3. (figuratively) that from which something flows or proceeds

   He is a real fount of knowledge!

Pentalobe

Pentalobe:

A fastener interface with five rounded lobes.

Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:

• What is knowledge?
• How is knowledge acquired?
• How do we know what we know?

Propædia

The one-volume Propædia is the first of three parts of the 15th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica, the other two being the 12-volume Micropædia and the 17-volume Macropædia. The Propædia is intended as a topical organization of the Britannica's contents, complementary to the alphabetical organization of the other two parts. Introduced in 1974 with the 15th edition, the Propædia and Micropædia were intended to replace the Index of the 14th edition; however, after widespread criticism, the Britannica restored the Index as a two-volume set in 1985. The core of the Propædia is its Outline of Knowledge, which seeks to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge; however, the Propædia also has several appendices listing the staff members, advisors and contributors to all three parts of the Britannica.

Coverb

Coverb is a term in theoretical linguistics most often applied in languages with serial verb construction, but also for complex predicates consisting of two verbs with one of them being an auxiliary verb contributing different kinds of information like modality, direction or aktionsart. It fulfills a similar function as adpositions would in many Indo-European languages like Dutch or Russian. Coverbs exist in a number of east and south-east Asian languages (e.g. Chinese), as well as west African languages (e.g. Yoruba).

Coverbs are differentiated from converbs, which are non-finite verb forms used to express subordination.

*Editor's note: I have no idea what any of this means.

Womyn

Womyn is one of a number of alternative spellings of the word "women" used by some feminist writers. There are many alternative spellings, including "wimmin", "womban" and "wom!n". Writers who use the alternative spellings see them as an expression of female independence and a repudiation of traditions that define females by reference to a male norm.

Precarity

Precarity is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term has been specifically applied to either intermittent work or, more generally, a confluence of intermittent work and precarious existence.

Britpop

Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. The movement developed as a reaction against various musical and cultural trends in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the grunge phenomenon from the United States. In the wake of the musical invasion into the United Kingdom of American grunge bands, new British groups such as Suede and Blur launched the movement by positioning themselves as opposing musical forces, referencing British guitar music of the past and writing about uniquely British topics and concerns. These bands were soon joined by others including Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass, Sleeper and Elastica.

Adhocracy

Adhocracy is a type of organization that operates in opposite fashion to a bureaucracy. The term was first popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler, and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations (particularly online organizations), further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.

palimpsest

palimpsest (plural palimpsests)

1. A manuscript or document that has been erased or scraped clean, for reuse of the paper, parchment, vellum, or other medium on which it was written. Many historical texts have been recovered using ultraviolet light and other technologies to read the erased writing.

Praxis

Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted or practiced, embodied and/or realized. "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. This has been a popular topic in the field of philosophy, as Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and many others, have written about this topic. It has meaning in political, educational, and spiritual realms.

Counoise

Counoise is a dark-skinned wine grape grown primarily in the Rhône valley region of France. Counoise adds a peppery note and good acidity to a blended red wine, but does not have much depth of colour or tannin. There were 638 hectares (1,580 acres) of Counoise in France in 2000.

Counoise is one of the grapes allowed into the blend of Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine. In 2004 only 0.5% of the appellation's surface was planted with Counoise. Some producer which favour the variety use about 5% of it in their blends, and account for most of the plantations. One such producer is Château de Beaucastel, which is noted for using all the 13 allowed varieties.

Loc. cit.

Loc. cit. (Latin, short for loco citato, meaning "in the place cited") is a footnote or endnote term used to repeat the title and page number for a given author. Loc. cit. is used in place of ibid. when the reference is not only to the work immediately preceding, but also refers to the same page. Loc. cit. is also used instead of op. cit. when reference is made to a work previously cited and to the same page in that work. As such, loc. cit. is never followed by volume or page numbers.

Jejemon

Jejemon (Tagalog pronunciation: [ˈdʒɛdʒɛmon]) is a pop culture phenomenon in the Philippines. According to the Urban Dictionary a Jejemon is a person "who has managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility." The Philippine Daily Inquirer describes Jejemons as a "new breed of hipster who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own sub-culture and fashion."

Raggare

Raggare (a Swedish word roughly corresponding to the English term "pick-up artist", i.e., a person seeking sexual contact with someone) is a subculture found mostly in Sweden and parts of Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Austria. Raggare are closely related to the greaser subculture and are known for their love of hot rod cars and 1950s American pop culture.

Aflockalypse

Aflockalypse: A term coined to denote mass die-offs of birds in late 2010.

vomitorium

A vomitorium (plural: vomitoria, slang: vom) is a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, through which crowds can exit at the end of a performance

lithopedion

A lithopedion or stone baby, is a rare phenomenon which occurs most commonly when a fetus dies during an abdominal pregnancy, is too large to be reabsorbed by the body, and calcifies on the outside, shielding the mother's body from the dead tissue of the baby and preventing infection. Lithopedia may occur from 14 weeks gestation to full term. It is not unusual for a stone baby to remain undiagnosed for decades, and it is often not until a patient is examined for other conditions or a proper examination is conducted that includes an X-ray, that a stone baby is found. The oldest reported case is that of a 94 year old woman, whose lithopedion has been present for upwards of 60 years.

Bitumen

Bitumen is a mixture of organic liquids that are highly viscous, black, sticky, entirely soluble in carbon disulfide, and composed primarily of highly condensed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Naturally occurring or crude bitumen is a sticky, tar-like form of petroleum that is so thick and heavy that it must be heated or diluted before it will flow. At room temperature, it has a consistency much like cold molasses.^[1] Refined bitumen is the residual (bottom) fraction obtained by fractional distillation of crude oil. It is the heaviest fraction and the one with the highest boiling point, boiling at 525 °C (977 °F).

compiler

A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program.

Stuckism

Stuckism is an international art movement that was founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. The first group of thirteen British artists has since expanded, as of September 2010, to 209 groups in 48 countries.

The Stuckists have staged shows and gained media attention for outspoken comments and demonstrations, particularly outside Tate Britain against the Turner Prize, sometimes dressed in clown costumes. They have also stated their opposition to the Charles Saatchi-patronised Young British Artists. After exhibiting mainly in small galleries in Shoreditch, London, they were given their first show in a major public museum in 2004, the Walker Art Gallery, as part of the Liverpool Biennial.

Neko

A catgirl is a female with cat ears, a cat tail, or other feline characteristics on an otherwise human body. Catgirls may be found in Japanese anime and manga where they are more commonly referred to as Neko (猫, literally cat) or Nekomimi (猫耳, literally cat ear(s)), in cosplay activities both in Japan and around the world, in video games, and in online virtual world communities such as the Nekos of Second Life

Sabrage

Sabrage is a technique for opening a champagne bottle with a sabre, used for ceremonial occasions. The saber is slid along the body of the bottle toward the neck. The force of the blade hitting the lip breaks the glass to separate the collar from the neck of the bottle. The cork and collar remain together after separating from the neck.

This technique became popular in France when the army of Napoleon visited many of the aristocratic domains. It was just after the French Revolution and the saber was the weapon of choice of Napoleon's fearsome cavalry (the Hussars). Napoleon's spectacular victories across all Europe gave them plenty of reason to celebrate. During these parties the cavalry would open the Champagne with their sabers. Napoleon probably encouraged this and is known to have said: "Champagne! In victory one deserves it; in defeat one needs it."

Transureteroureterostomy

Transureteroureterostomy (TUU) is a urinary reconstruction technique that is used to join one ureter to the other across the midline

ISOFIX

ISOFIX is the international standard for attachment points for child safety seats in passenger cars. A similar system is also known as LATCH ("Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children") in the United States and LUAS ("Lower Universal Anchorage System") or Canfix in Canada

Devanagari

Devanagari, also called Nagari (Nāgarī, the name of its parent writing system), is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, does not have distinct letter cases, and is recognizable (along with closely related scripts like that of Bengali) by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together.

Romusha

Romusha (労務者, Rōmusha^?, "laborer") were forced laborers during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War II. The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between four and 10 million romusha were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia. Only 52,000 were repatriated to Java, meaning that there was a death rate of 80%.

Bundestag

The Bundestag (Federal Diet) is the lower unicameral house of the parliament of Germany, established by the German Grundgesetz of 1949 as the successor to the earlier Reichstag. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag.

fibroblast

A fibroblast is a type of cell that synthesizes the extracellular matrix and collagen, the structural framework (stroma) for animal tissues, and plays a critical role in wound healing. Fibroblasts are the most common cells of connective tissue in animals.

Lutein

Lutein (pronounced /ˈluːti.ɨn/ or /ˈluːtiːn/, from Latin luteus meaning "yellow") is a xanthophyll and one of 600 known naturally-occurring carotenoids. Found in green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale, lutein is employed by organisms as an antioxidant and for blue light absorption. Lutein is also found in egg yolks, animal fats, and the retina (zeaxanthin predominates at the macula lutea while lutein predominates elsewhere in the retina).

Swaging

Swaging (pronunciation note below) is a forging process in which the dimensions of an item are altered using a die or dies, into which the item is forced. Swaging is usually a cold working process; however, it is sometimes done as a hot working process.

The term swage can apply to the process of swaging (verb), or to a die or tool used for swaging (noun).

mandrel

A mandrel is a steel rod or linked ball inserted into the tube while it is being bent to give the tube extra support to reduce wrinkling and breaking the tube during this process.

Platonism

Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism.



The central concept of Platonism is the Theory of Forms: the transcendent, perfect archetypes, of which objects in the everyday world are imperfect copies. The highest form is the Form of the Good, the source of all other forms, which could be known by reason. In the 3rd century BC, Arcesilaus adopted skepticism, which became a central tenet of the school until 90 BC when Antiochus added Stoic elements, rejected skepticism, and began a period known as Middle Platonism. In the 3rd century AD, Plotinus added mystical elements, establishing Neoplatonism, in which the summit of existence was the One or the Good, the source of all things; in virtue and meditation the soul had the power to elevate itself to attain union with the One. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought, and many Platonic notions were adopted by the Christian church which understood Platonic forms as God's thoughts, whilst Neoplatonism became a major influence on Christian mysticism.

Lawa

Lawa (Lao: ລະວ້າ, Thai: ลั๊วะ or ละว้า) are an ethnic group in Laos (where they are considered among the Lao Theung) and northern Thailand. They lived there before Thai people arrived. Today they live often in their traditional way of life, often professing animism.

Chip Butty

A chip sandwich, chip barm, chip cob, chip butty, chip muffin (in British English), piece-n-chips (in Scottish English), hot chip sandwich (in Australian English), or french fry sandwich (in North American English) is a sandwich made with bread or bread roll (usually white and buttered) and chips, often with some sort of sauce such as tomato sauce (i.e. ketchup) or brown sauce.^[1] It was originally considered a working-class meal, served in pubs. The chip butty is a vegetarian-friendly dish (except when the chips are, as was traditional in a British chip shop, fried in lard or dripping).

hypohemia

hypohemia is a fictional condition afflicting Mr. Burns on The Simpsons, in which the body naturally runs out of blood. It is akin to a real condition called hypovolemia.

Burakumin

Burakumin (部落民, Literal translation: "small settlement people") are a Japanese social minority group. The burakumin are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō, the Ryukyuans of Okinawa and Japanese residents of Korean and Chinese descent.

The burakumin are descendants of outcast communities of the feudal era, which mainly comprised those with occupations considered "tainted" with death or ritual impurity (such as executioners, undertakers, workers in slaughterhouses, butchers or tanners), and traditionally lived in their own secluded hamlets and ghettos.

Hyperion

Hyperion (Greek Ὑπερίων, "The High-One") was one of the twelve Titan gods of Ancient Greece, which were later supplanted by the Olympians. He was the brother of Cronus. He was also the lord of light, and the titan of the east. He was the son of Gaia (the physical incarnation of Earth) and Uranus (literally meaning 'the Sky'), and was referred to in early mythological writings as Helios Hyperion (Ἥλιος Υπερίων), 'Sun High-one'.