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  • Pastrone, Giovanni (Italian director and producer)
    pioneer Italian motion picture director and producer....
  • pastry (food)
    stiff dough made from flour, salt, a relatively high proportion of fat, and a small proportion of liquid. It may also contain sugar or flavourings. Most pastry is leavened only by the action of steam, but Danish pastry is raised with yeast. Pastry is rolled or patted out into thin sheets to line pie or tart pans and to enclose fillings. Poultry, tenderloin of beef and other cuts of meat, and p...
  • Pastry War (Mexican history)
    (1838–39), brief and minor conflict between Mexico and France, arising from the claim of a French pastry cook living in Tacubaya, near Mexico City, that some Mexican army officers had damaged his restaurant. A number of foreign powers had pressed the Mexican government without success to pay for losses that some of their nationals claimed they had suffe...
  • Pastukhov, Mount (mountain, Russia)
    The largest modern-day optical telescopes are the 6-metre (236-inch) reflector on Mount Pastukhov, in the Caucasus Mountains in the Soviet Union, and the 5-metre (200-inch) Hale telescope on Palomar Mountain, near San Diego, Calif., U.S. Also noteworthy is the revolutionary Multiple Mirror Telescope atop Mount Hopkins, near Tucson; it has an aperture of 4.5 m (177 inches)....
  • pasture (agriculture)
    Pasture grasses and legumes, both native and cultivated, are the most important single source of feed for ruminants such as cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. During the growing season they furnish most of the feed for these animals at a cost lower than for feeds that need to be harvested, processed, and transported. Hundreds of different grasses, legumes, bushes, and trees are acceptable as......
  • Pasture, Rogier de la (Flemish painter)
    Flemish painter who, with the possible exception of Jan van Eyck, was the most influential northern European artist of his time. Though most of his work was religious, he produced secular paintings (now lost) and some sensitive portraits....
  • Pastures, The (building, North Luffenham, Leicestershire, England, United Kingdom)
    ...their theories to the design of simple, well-built houses, such as Broadleys, near Windermere, Westmorland (1898); his own home, The Orchard, Chorley Wood, Hertfordshire (1899–1900); and The Pastures, North Luffenham, Leicestershire (1901). The interiors of his nature-related, cottage-style buildings were characteristically long and low, with clean lines, the exteriors distinctive......
  • pasul (Judaism)
    ...ritual bathing (mikvah), and the ritual ram’s horn (shofar). When applied to food, kosher is the opposite of terefah (“forbidden”); when applied to other things, it is the opposite of pasul (“unfit”)....
  • Pasul Buzău (pass, Romania)
    pass connecting Brașov with Buzău, southeastern Romania, over the Buzău Mountains, in the Eastern Carpathians. It follows the valley of the Buzău River for most of its distance. A road crosses the pass, and there are short, nonconnecting rail branches from Brașov and Buzău....
  • Pasul Surduc (pass, Romania)
    pass, southwestern Romania. The Jiu River flows through the pass between the Vâlcan (west) and the Parâng (east) mountains, in the Transylvanian Alps (Southern Carpathians). The pass connects the Petroşani Depression (upper Jiu Valley) with the Plain of Oltenia. A road and the Bumbeşti–Livezeni railway line, opened in 1947, follow the pass by means of 30 tunnels ...
  • Pāśupata (Hindu sect)
    perhaps the earliest Hindu sect to worship the god Shiva as the supreme deity; it gave rise in turn to numerous subsects that flourished in Gujarat and Rajasthan, at least until the 12th century, and also travelled to Java and Cambodia. The sect takes its name from Pashupati, an epithe...
  • Paśupatinātha (temple, Nepal)
    ...River, just east of Kāthmāndu. Regarded as the holiest place in Nepal, it is the site of an ancient Śaivite (i.e., devoted to the Hindu god Śiva) temple of Paśupatinātha (Pashupatinath). The temple is built in pagoda style with gilt roof, and the banks of the Bāghmati are paved for several hundred yards. There are numerous other......
  • Pasur River (river, Bangladesh)
    distributary of the Padma River (Ganges [Ganga] River), southwestern Bangladesh. It leaves the Madhumati River (there called the Baleswar) northeast of Khulna city and flows some 110 miles (177 km) southward past the port at Mongla and through the swampy Sundarbans r...
  • Pasuruan (Indonesia)
    city, Jawa Timur (East Java) provinsi (province), Java, Indonesia, on Madura Strait. The Dutch first established a fort at Pasuruan in 1707. It was the capital of a residency from 1811 to 1934, which, by transferring to Malang in 1934, precipitated the industrial decline of the town, with much of its trade being diverted to Probolinggo to the southeast. The ...
  • Pasvanoğlu of Vidin (Ottoman leader)
    ...in Rumelia (the Balkan section of the empire) played an important part in Ottoman affairs, often defying the central authority. Of these Ali Paşa of Jannina (now in Greece), Pasvanoğlu of Vidin (now in Bulgaria), and İsmail Bey of Seres (now Sérrai, Greece) maintained their own private armies, levied taxes, and dispensed justice. The ʿayn of......
  • Pasvanoğlu, Osman (Ottoman leader)
    ...in Rumelia (the Balkan section of the empire) played an important part in Ottoman affairs, often defying the central authority. Of these Ali Paşa of Jannina (now in Greece), Pasvanoğlu of Vidin (now in Bulgaria), and İsmail Bey of Seres (now Sérrai, Greece) maintained their own private armies, levied taxes, and dispensed justice. The ʿayn of......
  • Pat (region, Pakistan)
    ...with groves of date palms, and thickly populated. The chief crops are wheat, gram, cotton, sugarcane, and dates. Sheep and cattle are raised for export of wool and hides. East of Bahawalpur is the Pat, or Bar, a tract of land considerably higher than the adjoining valley. It is chiefly desert irrigated by the Sutlej inundation canals and yields crops of wheat, cotton, and sugarcane. Farther......
  • pat (geology)
    ...state, central India, extending over Jashpur Tahsil (northeastern Raigarh district) and forming part of the Choṭa Nāgpur Plateau. The pāts are a complex of small, flat-topped plateaus and hills, separated from each other by fault scarps and river valleys. To the north the Upper Pāts (known locally as......
  • pat (plant)
    either of two species of Corchorus plants—C. capsularis, or white jute, and C. olitorius, including both tossa and daisee varieties—belonging to the hibiscus, or mallow family (Malvaceae), and their fibre. The latter is a bast fibre; i.e., it is obtained from the inner bast tissue of the bark of the plant’s stem. Jute fibre’s prim...
  • Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (film by Peckinpah)
    In 1973 he appeared in director Sam Peckinpah’s film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and contributed to the soundtrack, including “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Writings and Drawings, an anthology of his lyrics and poetry, was published the next year. In 1974 he toured for the first time in eight years, reconvening with the Band (by this time popular ar...
  • Patagona gigas (bird)
    All hummingbirds are small, and many are minute. Even the largest, the giant hummingbird (Patagona gigas) of western South America, is only about 20 cm (8 inches) long, with a body weight of about 20 g (23 ounce), less than that of most sparrows. The smallest species, the bee hummingbird (Mellisuga, sometimes Calypte, helenae) of Cuba and......
  • Patagonia (region, Argentina)
    semiarid scrub plateau that covers nearly all of the southern portion of mainland Argentina. With an area of about 260,000 square miles (673,000 square kilometres), it constitutes a vast area of steppe and desert that extends south from latitude 37° to 51° S. It is bounded, approximately, by the Patagonian Andes to the west, the Colorado River to the north (except ...
  • Patagonia Ice Cap (geological formation, South America)
    ...to form ice sheets on the shallow shelf areas of the Arctic Ocean. Glaciers and small ice caps formed in the Alps and in the other high mountains of Europe and Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, the Patagonia Ice Cap developed in the southern Andes, and ice caps and larger valley glaciers formed in the central and northern Andes. Glaciers also developed in New Zealand and on the higher mountains...
  • Patagonian Andes (mountains, South America)
    The Patagonian Andes rise north of the Strait of Magellan. Numerous transverse and longitudinal depressions and breaches cut this wild and rugged portion of the Andes, sometimes completely; many ranges are occupied by ice fields, glaciers, rivers, lakes, or fjords. The crests of the mountains exceed 10,000 feet (Mount Fitzroy reaching 11,073 feet) north to latitude 46° S but average only......
  • Patagonian conure (bird)
    ...“dwarf parrot”; from Central America, it is 24 cm (about 10 inches) long and mostly green, with orange forehead, dull-blue crown, and blue in the wings. The large (to 50 cm [20 inches]) Patagonian conure, or burrowing parrot, Cyanoliseus patagonus, nests colonially in cliff holes in temperate regions of Chile and Argentina. ...
  • Patagonian cypress (Fitzroya cupressoides)
    (species Fitzroya cupressoides), coniferous tree that is the only species of the genus Fitzroya, of the cypress family (Cupressaceae), native to southern Chile and southern Argentina. In the wild it grows to become one of the oldest and largest trees in the world. The alerce is thought to be a southern relative of the giant sequoia of North America. The oldest known alerce is believ...
  • Patagonian Desert (desert, South America)
    South American Indians who formerly inhabited the Patagonian plains from the Strait of Magellan to the Negro River. They were divided into northern and southern branches. Each division had its own dialect; the northerners have been classified as horse nomads, the southerners as foot people. They became famous in European literature for their great stature and physical strength....
  • Patagonian Indian (people)
    Most approaches to Patagonia from the sea were hampered by inhospitable coastal cliffs and by high tides. With the Pampas Indians acting as a buffer against Europeans to the north, the Patagonian Indians thus remained unmolested until the mid-19th century, when European settlements encroached and warfare erupted. The Indian wars in northern Patagonia and the southern and western Pampas......
  • Patagonian mara (rodent)
    either of two South American rodents in the genus Dolichotis of the cavy family, the Patagonian mara (D. patagonum) or the Chacoan mara (D. salinicola)....
  • Patagonian seedsnipe (bird)
    ...flock on tundra and pampas from the Falkland Islands to southern Argentina and Ecuador. The smallest (15 centimetres or 6 inches) and most widely distributed species is the least, pygmy, or Patagonian seedsnipe (Thinocorus rumicivorus). It covers its eggs with sand when it leaves the nest. The largest (about 30 cm, or 12 in.) is Gay’s seedsnipe (Attagis gayi), which nests.....
  • Patagonian Theatre (theatre, London, United Kingdom)
    ...to burlesque heroic tragedy in 1758 and sentimental comedy in 1773. In a similar vein, the dramatist Charles Dibdin presented a satiric puppet revue in 1775, and a group of Irish wits ran the Patagonian Theatre in London from 1776 to 1781 with a program of ballad operas and literary burlesques. In France there was a great vogue for the puppet theatre among literary men during the second......
  • Patagonian weasel (mammal)
    Weasels belong to the family Mustelidae, and there are three weasel genera in addition to Mustela. The Patagonian weasel (Lyncodon patagonicus) is a larger mustelid of the South American Pampas. It is about 30–35 cm (12–14 inches) long, excluding the 6–9-cm (2.5–3.5-inch) tail. This weasel is grayish with dark......
  • Patala (ancient city, India)
    On reaching Patala, located at the head of the Indus delta, he built a harbour and docks and explored both arms of the Indus, which probably then ran into the Rann of Kutch. He planned to lead part of his forces back by land, while the rest in perhaps 100 to 150 ships under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan with naval experience, made a voyage of exploration along the Persian Gulf. Local......
  • Pāṭaliputra (India)
    capital of Bihār state, northern India. It lies about 290 miles (470 km) northwest of Calcutta....
  • Pātan (Nepal)
    town, central Nepal, in the Kāthmāndu Valley near the Bāghmati River, about 3 miles (5 km) southeast of Kāthmāndu. According to Nepalese chronicles, Lalitpur was founded by King Varadeva in ad 299. Some scholars believe that it was the capital of the Licchavi, Thakuri, and Malla dynasties; this theory, however, is now disputed. When Prithvi...
  • Patan (India)
    town, northern Gujarat state, west-central India. It is situated on the Saraswati River in the lowlands between the Aravalli Range and the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) . Once capital of the Chavada and Solanki dynasties (720–1242), it was sacked in 1024 by Maḥmūd of Ghazna. Patan is a commercial centre for agricultural produce; industries include cotton milling, weaving, embroide...
  • Pātan-Somnāth (ancient city, India)
    ancient ruined city, southwestern Gujarāt state, west-central India. It is the site of the temple of Śiva (Shiva) as Somanātha (which means “lord of the soma,” a sacred intoxicating drink, and, by extension, “lord of the Moon”). The temple was sacked by the Turkic Muslim invader Maḥmud of Ghazna in ad 1...
  • Patángoro (people)
    Indian people of western Colombia, apparently extinct since the late 16th century. They spoke a language of the Chibchan family. The Patángoro were agricultural, raising corn (maize), sweet manioc (yuca), beans, avocados, and some fruit. Land was cleared by slash-and-burn methods, and planting was done with digging sticks by the sisters of the man who owned the field. Fishing was an importa...
  • Patani (Thailand)
    town, southern Thailand, on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. The town is located at the mouth of the Pattani River. Pattani was an independent Muslim city-state, ruling a large portion of the surrounding region until the 16th century, when it became a vassal state of Siam (now Thailand). After 1800 it was divided into seven smaller units, which were incorporated as Siamese provinces in the e...
  • Patañjali (Hindu author, mystic, and philosopher)
    author or one of the authors of two great Hindu classics: the first, Yoga-sūtras, a categorization of Yogic thought arranged in four volumes with the titles “Psychic Power,” “Practice of Yoga,” “Samādhi” (transcendental state induced by trance), and “Kaivalya” (liberation); and the second, the ...
  • “Patapoufs et filifers” (work by Maurois)
    ...picture of prehistoric life by J.-H. Rosny (pseudonym of J.-H.-H. Boex) appeared in 1911 and has proved so durable that in 1967 an English translation, The Quest for Fire, appeared. Patapoufs et filifers, by André Maurois, a gentle satire on war, has lasted (Eng. trans. Pattypuffs and Thinifers, 1948; reissued 1968). His fantastic Le Pays des 36,000......
  • Patapsco Female Institute (school, Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, United States)
    In 1841 Phelps became principal and her husband business manager of the Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland. In her 15 years at that school, Phelps created an institution of high academic standards, with a curriculum rich in the sciences, mathematics, and natural history and designed in particular to train highly qualified teachers. The polite attainments that passed for...
  • Patarene (medieval reform group)
    member of a medieval group of lay craftsmen, tradesmen, and peasants organized in Milan about 1058 to oppose clerical concubinage and marriage; the group later widened its attack to oppose generally the papacy’s moral corruption and temporal powers. The Patarine movement was so called because, under the leadership of Arialdus (Arialdo), a deacon of Milan, its members used to assemble in the...
  • pataria (medieval reform group)
    member of a medieval group of lay craftsmen, tradesmen, and peasants organized in Milan about 1058 to oppose clerical concubinage and marriage; the group later widened its attack to oppose generally the papacy’s moral corruption and temporal powers. The Patarine movement was so called because, under the leadership of Arialdus (Arialdo), a deacon of Milan, its members used to assemble in the...
  • Patarines (medieval reform group)
    member of a medieval group of lay craftsmen, tradesmen, and peasants organized in Milan about 1058 to oppose clerical concubinage and marriage; the group later widened its attack to oppose generally the papacy’s moral corruption and temporal powers. The Patarine movement was so called because, under the leadership of Arialdus (Arialdo), a deacon of Milan, its members used to assemble in the...
  • Patarino (medieval reform group)
    member of a medieval group of lay craftsmen, tradesmen, and peasants organized in Milan about 1058 to oppose clerical concubinage and marriage; the group later widened its attack to oppose generally the papacy’s moral corruption and temporal powers. The Patarine movement was so called because, under the leadership of Arialdus (Arialdo), a deacon of Milan, its members used to assemble in the...
  • Patarkatsishvili, Arkady Shalovich (Georgian businessman)
    Georgian oligarch who made a fortune in labyrinthine business dealings during the post-Soviet period of privatization of state-owned industries in Russia; he was instrumental in the 2003 Rose Revolution, which brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power in Georgia, but finally came to oppose Saakashvili. Patarkatsishvili became a regional director of Boris Berezovsky’s LogoVAZ car-distribution net...
  • Patarkatsishvili, Badri (Georgian businessman)
    Georgian oligarch who made a fortune in labyrinthine business dealings during the post-Soviet period of privatization of state-owned industries in Russia; he was instrumental in the 2003 Rose Revolution, which brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power in Georgia, but finally came to oppose Saakashvili. Patarkatsishvili became a regional director of Boris Berezovsky’s LogoVAZ car-distribution net...
  • patas monkey (primate)
    long-limbed and predominantly ground-dwelling primate found in the grass and scrub regions of West and Central Africa and southeast to the Serengeti plains....
  • Patassé, Ange-Félix (president of Central African Republic)
    ...he allowed other parties to form and slate their own candidates for the presidency. Although he ran for president, Kolingba was rejected by the voters during the first round of balloting. Instead, Ange-Félix Patassé, a former prime minister, became the first democratically elected president since independence as the leader of the Central African People’s Liberation Movement...
  • Patau’s syndrome (pathology)
    human chromosomal disorder that results from an extra (third) copy of chromosome 13. Infants born with this disorder have profound mental retardation and severe developmental malformations that include a small head, a cleft palate and lip, tiny eyes and eye openings, extra digits on hands and feet (polydactyly), clenched fingers, central nervous system abnormalities, and defect...
  • Patavium (Italy)
    city, Veneto region, northern Italy, on the River Bacchiglione, west of Venice. The Roman Patavium, founded, according to legend, by the Trojan hero Antenor, it was first mentioned in 302 bc, according to the Roman historian Livy, who was born there (59 bc). The town prospered greatly and, in the 11th–13th century, was a leading Italian commune...
  • Patawomeck (American Indian tribe)
    Sir Samuel Argall, a mariner who had taken West back to England, returned to the colony and became acquainted with Japazeus, the chief of the Patawomeck tribe. The Patawomeck were located along the Potomac River, beyond Chief Powhatan’s empire. In March 1613 Argall chanced to learn that Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas was staying with Japazeus. Argall resolved to kidnap her and ransom...
  • Patay, Battle of (Hundred Years’ War)
    The French and English armies came face to face at Patay on June 18, 1429. Joan promised success to the French, saying that Charles would win a greater victory that day than any he had won so far. The victory was indeed complete; the English army was routed and with it, finally, its reputation for invincibility....
  • patch box (clothing accessory)
    small, usually rectangular, sometimes oval box used mostly as a receptacle for beauty patches, especially in the 18th century. During the days of Louis XV, black patches of gummed taffeta were popular with fashionable women (and sometimes men) who wanted to emphasize the beauty or whiteness of their skin....
  • patch-clamp technique (biology)
    German physicist, winner with Bert Sakmann in 1991 of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their research into basic cell function and for the development of the patch-clamp technique, a laboratory method that can detect the very small electrical currents produced by the passage of ions through the cell membrane....
  • Patch of Blue, A (film by Green [1965])
    Other Nominees...
  • patch reef (geology)
    ...reef patches, some of them elongated into ribbon reefs. The third category of reefs consists of atolls, which are like circular barrier reefs but without their central landmass. Finally, there are patch reefs, which have irregular tablelike or pinnacle features. Smaller patches occur inside atoll lagoons. Larger patches occur as isolated parts of larger developments of any of the other three......
  • patch test (medicine)
    controlled application of biological or chemical substances to the skin in order to detect if the subject has an allergic hypersensitivity to one of them. The test was originally developed to test new chemical compounds for their allergic potential on animals but has since become widely used to diagnose allergies in humans. Patch testing is usually done on the skin of the upper...
  • Patchen, Kenneth (American artist)
    American experimental poet, novelist, painter, and graphic designer....
  • Patchett, Ann (American author)
    American author whose novels often portrayed the intersecting lives of characters from disparate backgrounds....
  • Patchett, Jean (American model)
    American model (b. Feb. 16, 1926, Preston, Md.—d. Jan. 22, 2002, La Quinta, Calif.), became a photographic icon during the 1950s and appeared on over 40 magazine covers. Her defining images were the ones in which Irving Penn captured her seated in a café chewing pensively on a string of pearls and the Erwin Blumenfeld Jan. 1, 1950, Vogue cover, which featured her perfectly pen...
  • patchwork (decorative arts)
    the process of joining strips, squares, triangles, hexagons, or other shaped pieces of fabric (also called patches), by either hand or machine stitching, into square blocks or other units. It is one of the primary construction techniques of quilting and is often combined with appliqué. In constructing the quilt top the pieced blocks may be stitched toge...
  • PATCO (American organization)
    In August 1981, 13,000 members of the national union of air traffic controllers, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO)—one of the few unions to endorse Reagan in the 1980 election—walked off their jobs, demanding higher pay and better working conditions. As federal employees, the PATCO members were forbidden by law to strike, and Reagan, on the advice of......
  • pâté (French cuisine)
    (French: “paste”), in French cuisine, a filled pastry, analogous to the English pie. The term pâté is also used, with modifiers, to denote two other distinct preparations: pâté en terrine, a meat, game, or fish mixture wrapped in suet or other animal fat or lining and cooked in a deep oval or oblong dish, without pastry, and served cold; and p...
  • Pate (Kenya)
    ...masonry pillars. Chinese imports arrived in ever larger quantities, and there are signs that eating bowls were beginning to come into more common use. Mombasa became a very substantial town, as did Pate, in the Lamu islands. The ruling classes of these towns were Muslims of mixed Arab and African descent who were mostly involved in trade; beneath them were African labourers who were often......
  • pâté de foie gras (European cuisine)
    ...meat goose is the Toulouse. In Great Britain, geese of just under one year of age are popularly roasted as Christmas fare. A by-product of goose-meat production especially important in Europe is pâté de foie gras, a paste made from the enlarged and fatted livers of force-fed geese. Goose feathers and down provide high-quality insulation in quilts and pillows and, more recently,......
  • pâte-de-riz (glass)
    ...not produced after 1840). In the mid-19th century, opaline was made in more vivid colours, in imitation of Bohemian glass. It was also produced in the form of crystal, semicrystal, glass, and pâte-de-riz (glass made by firing glass powder in a mold), the latter a Bohemian innovation. Sky blue—a colour invented in Bohemia in 1835—was copied at Baccarat and Saint-Louis...
  • pâté en croûte (French cuisine)
    ...pâté en terrine, a meat, game, or fish mixture wrapped in suet or other animal fat or lining and cooked in a deep oval or oblong dish, without pastry, and served cold; and pâté en croûte, a meat, game, or fish filling cooked in a crust and served hot or cold. It is from pâté en terrine, more properly abbreviated......
  • pâté en terrine (French cuisine)
    ...in French cuisine, a filled pastry, analogous to the English pie. The term pâté is also used, with modifiers, to denote two other distinct preparations: pâté en terrine, a meat, game, or fish mixture wrapped in suet or other animal fat or lining and cooked in a deep oval or oblong dish, without pastry, and served cold; and pâté en......
  • pâte feuilletée (food)
    ...with butter, lard, or vegetable shortening so that the fat is broken into bits. A minimum of liquid is used, and the pastry is handled as little as possible. The extreme of flaky pastry is pâte feuilletée, which is formed by folding and refolding a butter-filled pastry to form hundreds of layers of flour and butter that rise in the oven to 12 times the height of the......
  • pâte-sur-pâte (pottery)
    (French: “paste on paste”), method of porcelain decoration in which a relief design is created on an unfired, unglazed body by applying successive layers of white slip (liquid clay) with a brush. The technique was first employed by the Chinese in the 18th century. It was introduced in Europe in about 1850 at Sèvres, where it was perfected by Marc-L...
  • Pategi (Nigeria)
    town, Kwara state, west-central Nigeria. It lies on the south bank of the Niger River opposite the town of Mureji and the mouth of the Kaduna River. Founded in the late 16th century by the king of the Nupe peoples, the town, the name of which means “small hill,” became the capital of the Pategi emirate in 1898. Idrisu Gana, the leader of the Kede (a subgroup of the Nupe), had given ...
  • Patel, Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai (Indian statesman)
    Indian barrister and statesman, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress during the struggle for Indian independence. During the first three years of Indian independence after 1947, he served as deputy prime minister, minister of home affairs, minister of information, and minister of states....
  • Patella (gastropod)
    ...and toxoglossate radulae. Many limpets, which scrape algae directly from rock surfaces, have a docoglossate radula, with the marginals greatly reduced in number. When the radula is extruded, in Patella, for example, several rows of denticles on the lower odontophoral margin are pressed against the surface. There is no elevation of single rows and no lateral movement of the few......
  • patella (bone)
    ...rounded ends, or condyles, of the femur and tibia that meet at the knee are massive. The rounded ends of the tibia move forward and backward on the corresponding ends of the femur; the kneecap, or patella, rests upon the ends of the femur and serves to prevent the tibia from moving too far forward when the leg is bent. The articulating (meeting) surfaces of the femur and tibia condyles are......
  • Patella vulgata (snail)
    ...most cling to rocks near shore. A common American species is the Atlantic plate limpet (species Acmaea testudinalis) of cold waters; the common species of Britain and northern Europe is Patella vulgata. Keyhole limpets, of the prosobranch family Fissurellidae, have a slit or hole at the apex of the shell....
  • Patellacea (gastropod superfamily)
    ...waters along rocky shores of western North America, Japan, Australia, and South Africa; keyhole limpets (Fissurellidae) in intertidal rocky areas.Superfamily Patellacea (Docoglossa)Conical-shelled limpets, without slits or holes, found in rocky shallow waters (Acmaeidae and......
  • patellar reflex (medical test)
    sudden kicking movement of the lower leg in response to a sharp tap on the patellar tendon, which lies just below the kneecap. One of the several positions that a subject may take for the test is to sit with knees bent and with one leg crossed over the other so that the upper foot hangs clear of the floor. The sharp tap on the tendon slightly stretches the quadriceps, the complex of muscles at the...
  • Patellariales (order of fungi)
    ...a longitudinal slit that renders it apothecium-like; asci borne among pseudoparaphyses; example genera include Hysterium and Hysteropatella.Order Patellariales (incertae sedis; not placed in any subclass)Parasitic and saprobic; flask-shaped (perithecium-like) fruiting bo...
  • Patellidae (gastropod family)
    ...areas.Superfamily Patellacea (Docoglossa)Conical-shelled limpets, without slits or holes, found in rocky shallow waters (Acmaeidae and Patellidae).Superfamily TrochaceaSmall to large spiral shells in shallow to deep ocean waters, often brightly coloured, with o...
  • Patelliformia (gastropod superfamily)
    ...The following superfamilies, though not grouped into formal orders and suborders, are listed in order of increasing specialization.)Superfamily PatelliformiaBrackish water or marine limpets with (Siphonariidae) gill-like structures or with a lung (Gadinidae).Superfamily......
  • Patenier, Joachim de (Flemish painter)
    painter, the first Western artist known to have specialized in landscape painting. Little is known of his early life, but his work reflects an early knowledge of the painting of Gerard David, the last of the Early Netherlandish painters. He may have studied under Hieronymus Bosch, the painter of fantastic allegories and landscapes....
  • patent (law)
    a government grant to an inventor of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention, usually for a limited period. Patents are granted for new and useful machines, manufactured products, and industrial processes and for significant improvements of existing ones. Patents also are granted for new chemical compounds, foods, and medicinal products, as well as for the processes...
  • patent anchor (nautical device)
    The stockless anchor (Figure 2), which was patented in England in 1821, came into wide use principally because of its ease of handling and stowing. The crown, arms, and flukes of a stockless anchor are cast in one piece and can pivot slightly from side to side on the shank. The flukes are long and heavy, and have projecting shoulders at their base that catch on the seabed. As more drag is......
  • Patent Cooperation Treaty (1970)
    ...in 1883 and amended several times since, it gave inventors who filed an application in one member country the benefit of that first filing date for applications in other member states. The 1970 Patent Cooperation Treaty simplified the filing of patent applications on the same invention in different countries by providing centralized filing procedures and a standardized application format.......
  • patent ductus arteriosus (pathology)
    congenital heart defect characterized by the persistence of the ductus arteriosus, a channel that shunts blood between the pulmonary artery and the aorta. Normally, after birth the pulmonary artery carries blood depleted of oxygen and laden with carbon dioxide from the right ventricle (lower chamber) of the heart to the lungs, where the exce...
  • patent flour
    The purest flour, selected from the purest flour streams released in the mill, is often called patent flour. It has very low mineral (or ash) content and is remarkably free from traces of branny specks and other impurities. The bulk of the approximately 72 percent released is suited to most bread-making purposes, but special varieties are needed for some confectionery purposes. These varieties......
  • patent law (law)
    a government grant to an inventor of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention, usually for a limited period. Patents are granted for new and useful machines, manufactured products, and industrial processes and for significant improvements of existing ones. Patents also are granted for new chemical compounds, foods, and medicinal products, as well as for the processes...
  • patent leather
    ...slippers. Reptile leathers (alligator, lizard, and snake) are used in women’s and some men’s shoes. Cordovan (a small muscle layer obtained from horsehide) is a heavy leather used in men’s shoes. Patent leather, usually made from cattle hide, is given a hard, glossy surface finish. Suede is made from any of several leathers (calf, kid, or cattle hide) by buffing the inner s...
  • patent log (navigational instrument)
    As early as 1688 an English instrument maker, Humphry Cole, invented the so-called patent log, in which a vaned rotor was towed from the stern, and its revolutions were counted on a register. Logs of this kind did not become common until the mid-19th century, when the register was mounted on the aft rail, where it could be read at any time; another Englishman, Thomas Walker, introduced......
  • patent-note hymnal (music)
    American hymnal incorporating many folk hymns and utilizing a special musical notation. The seven-note scale was sung not to the syllables do–re–mi–fa–sol–la–ti but to a four-syllable system carried with them by early English colonists: fa–sol–la–fa–sol–la–mi. Differently shaped note heads were used for each of the...
  • patent sail
    ...upon in 1807 by Sir William Cubitt, who combined Meikle’s shutters with Hooper’s remote control by hanging varying weights on the adjustment chain, thus making the control automatic. These so-called patent sails, however, found acceptance only in England and northern Europe....
  • patent theatre (English theatre)
    any of several London theatres that, through government licensing, held a monopoly on legitimate dramatic production there between 1660 and 1843. In reopening the theatres that had been closed by the Puritans, Charles II issued Letters Patent to Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant giving them exclusive right to form two acting companies. Killigrew establish...
  • Patents and Designs Act (United Kingdom [1907])
    ...for important legislation: the Merchant Shipping Act (1906), improving seamen’s living conditions, but also endangering their lives by raising the Plimsoll line on newly constructed ships; the Patents and Designs Act (1907), preventing foreign exploitation of British inventions; and the Port of London Act (1908), setting up the Port of London Authority. He also earned a high reputation b...
  • pater (kinship)
    ...This distinction is particularly common in the case of fathers, and to accommodate it anthropologists have developed separate kinship terms: a “genitor” is a biological father, and a “pater” is a social one. ...
  • pater (Mithraism)
    ...were organized in seven grades: corax, Raven; nymphus, Bridegroom; miles, Soldier; leo, Lion; Perses, Persian; heliodromus, Courier of (and to) the Sun; pater, Father. To each rank belonged a particular mask (Raven, Persian, Lion) or dress (Bridegroom). The rising of the Mithraist in grade prefigured the ascent of the soul after death. The series...
  • Pater Noster (Christianity)
    (Latin: “Our Father”), prayer taught by Jesus to his disciples, and the principal prayer used by all Christians in common worship. It appears in two forms in the New Testament, the shorter version in Luke 11:2–4 and the longer version, part of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:9–13. In both contexts it is offered as a model of h...
  • pater patratus (ancient Roman priest)
    ...injured by another state, four fetials were sent out to seek redress. One member, the verbenarius, carried herbs gathered from the Arx on the Capitoline Hill. Another member, called the pater patratus, served as the group’s representative. Upon reaching the border of the offending state, the pater patratus first announced his mission and addressed a prayer to Jupiter...
  • pater patriae (ancient Roman title)
    in ancient Rome, a title originally accorded (in the form parens urbis Romanae, or “parent of the Roman city”) to Romulus, Rome’s legendary founder. It was next accorded to Marcus Furius Camillus, who led the city’s recovery after its capture by the Gauls (c. 390 bc)....
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