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Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
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  • Mass (work by Bernstein)
    ...the French composer Francis Poulenc, and the British composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, and William Walton. A kind of troped Ordinary is the American Leonard Bernstein’s Mass....
  • mass (Roman Catholicism)
    the celebration of the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic church. The term mass is derived from the rite’s Latin formula of dismissal, Ite, missa est (“Go, it is ended”). According to Roman Catholic teaching, the mass is a memorial in which the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ are sacramentally reenacted; it is a true sacrifice ...
  • mass (music)
    in music, the setting, either polyphonic or in plainchant, of the liturgy of the Eucharist. The term most commonly refers to the mass of the Roman Catholic church, whose Western traditions used texts in Latin from about the 4th century to 1966, when the use of the vernacular was mandated. The Anglican mass, commonly called communion service, contains the same elements but has u...
  • mass (art)
    ...building, particularly one that is isolated from other architecture, does not create a space. It occupies the space of nature. Thus, it may be experienced as sculpture, in terms of the play of masses in a void. The aesthetics of masses, like that of spaces, is rooted in one’s psychology. When a tall tree or a mountain is called majestic and a rocky cliff menacing, human attributes are......
  • mass (society)
    The public and crowd should be distinguished from the “mass.” Members of a mass exhibit similar behaviour, simultaneously, but with a minimum of interaction. Masses include a wide range of groups. They include, for instance, people simultaneously reading the newspaper advertisement for a department store sale and simultaneously converging on the store with similar objects in mind;......
  • mass (physics)
    in physics, quantitative measure of inertia, a fundamental property of all matter. It is, in effect, the resistance that a body of matter offers to a change in its speed or position upon the application of a force. The greater the mass of a body, the smaller the change produced by an applied force. By international agreement the standard unit of mass, with which the masses of al...
  • mass action (psychology)
    ...Minnesota, where his prolific research on brain function gained him a professorship in 1924. His monograph Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence (1929) contained two significant principles: mass action and equipotentiality. Mass action postulates that certain types of learning are mediated by the cerebral cortex (the convoluted outer layer of the cerebrum) as a whole, contrary to the.....
  • mass action, law of (chemistry)
    law stating that the rate of any chemical reaction is proportional to the product of the masses of the reacting substances, with each mass raised to a power equal to the coefficient that occurs in the chemical equation. This law was formulated over the period 1864–79 by the Norwegian scientists Cato M. Guldberg and Peter Waage but is now of only histori...
  • Mass and the Lord’s Supper, The (work by Lietzmann)
    ...precision and depth of judgment, even when he overturned long-held opinions. He shed new light on the evolution of the eucharistic communion service with his Messe und Herrenmahl (1926; The Mass and the Lord’s Supper), which detected a possible fusion of two distinct types of 1st- and 2nd-century prayer services. His extensive research on St. Peter and St. Paul provided ins...
  • mass bullfight
    ...the ban and accommodated that which it clearly could not stop, though it did insist on certain modifications to reduce the number of slain bullfighters, such as stopping the common practice of mass bullfights (the release for battle of dozens of bulls at the same time). In fact, corridas became such a routine part of Spanish life that they were eventually held during fiestas in......
  • mass burn system
    Waste-to-energy plants operate as either mass burn or refuse-derived fuel systems. A mass burn system uses all the refuse, without prior treatment or preparation. A refuse-derived fuel system separates combustible wastes from noncombustibles such as glass and metal before burning. If a turbine is installed at the plant, both steam and electricity can be produced in a process called......
  • mass, centre of (physics)
    The word particle has been used in this article to signify an object whose entire mass is concentrated at a point in space. In the real world, however, there are no particles of this kind. All real bodies have sizes and shapes. Furthermore, as Newton believed and is now known, all bodies are in fact compounded of smaller bodies called atoms. Therefore, the science of mechanics must deal not......
  • mass, conservation of (physics)
    principle that the mass of an object or collection of objects never changes, no matter how the constituent parts rearrange themselves. Mass has been viewed in physics in two compatible ways. On the one hand, it is seen as a measure of inertia, the opposition that free bodies offer to forces: trucks are harder to move and to stop than less massive cars. On the other hand, mass is...
  • mass culture
    ...in the United States, there began to be both greater social mobility and fewer blatant class differences as expressed in clothes, behaviour, and speech. A “mass society” began to share mass pleasures. Apparent homogeneity, both vertically within societies and horizontally between them, was accelerated by the cinema, radio, and television, each offering attractive role models to be...
  • mass defect (physics)
    The observed atomic mass is slightly less than the sum of the masses of the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up the atom. The difference, called the mass defect, is accounted for during the combination of these particles by conversion into binding energy, according to an equation in which the energy (E) released equals the product of the mass (m) consumed and the square......
  • mass driver
    Another Earth-to-space transportation concept is called a mass driver. A mass driver is an electromagnetic accelerator, probably miles in length, that would use pulsed magnetic fields to accelerate payloads to orbital or near-orbital velocity. The advantage of a mass driver is that the accelerating device and its source of energy remain on Earth for reuse, rather than accompanying a spacecraft......
  • mass extinction (biology)
    Although extinction is an ongoing feature of the Earth’s flora and fauna (the vast majority of species ever to have lived are extinct), the fossil record reveals the occurrence of a number of mass extinctions, each involving the demise of vast numbers of species. One such mass extinction occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period, some 66,000,000 years ago, when the dinosaurs and much of ...
  • mass flow (plant physiology)
    Mass-flow hypotheses include the pressure-flow hypothesis, which states that flow into sieve tubes at source regions (places of photosynthesis or mobilization and exportation of storage products) raises the osmotic pressure in the sieve tube; removal of sugars from sieve tubes in sink regions—i.e., those in which sugars are removed or......
  • mass fractionation (physics)
    Physical and/or chemical processes affect differently the isotopes of an element. When the effect is systematic, increasing or decreasing steadily as mass number increases, the new pattern of isotopic abundances is said to be mass fractionated with respect to some standard pattern. For small fractionations—a few percent or less—the normal isotopic ratio......
  • mass function (physics)
    ...the orbit plane and the plane of the sky cannot be determined. If spectra from both members are observed, mass ratios can be found. If one spectrum alone is observed, only a quantity called the mass function can be derived, from which is calculated a lower limit to the stellar masses. If a spectroscopic binary is also observed to be an eclipsing system, the inclination of the orbit and......
  • Mass in B Minor (composition by Bach)
    ...were adapted to sacred words and reused in the Christmas Oratorio. The Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass in B Minor, written in 1733, were also dedicated to the elector, but the rest of the Mass was not put together until Bach’s last years. On his visits ...
  • Mass in C Major (composition by Mozart)
    ...Mozart’s early masses tend to be brief (because of the taste and dictates of his archbishop patron), yet the fugal choruses sometimes dispel this impression by their very excellence, as in the Mass in C Major, K. 317 (1779; Coronation Mass). The unfinished Mass in C Minor, K. 427, abounds in magnificent choral music....
  • Mass in D Minor (work by Bruckner)
    ...all Richard Wagner. Kitzler’s production of Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser in Linz in 1863 made an enormous impression on Bruckner. The first of his three choral-orchestral masses, the Mass in D Minor (1864), crowns this period of rigorous, self-imposed training and slow growth to maturity....
  • mass media (communications)
    ...information—about goods for sale, about schedules and timetables, about innumerable activities upon which an efficient daily life depends—must be published regularly and reliably in the press, whoever may be in power. This means that newspapers must not be unduly delayed in their appearance; it also means that if they are to continue to appear they must be profitable....
  • mass movement (geology)
    bulk movements of soil and rock debris down slopes in response to the pull of gravity, or the rapid or gradual sinking of the Earth’s ground surface in a predominantly vertical direction. Formerly, the term mass wasting referred to a variety of processes by which large masses of crustal materials are moved by gravity from one place to another. More recently, the term mass movement has been ...
  • mass number (physics)
    in nuclear physics, the sum of the numbers of protons and neutrons present in the nucleus of an atom. The mass number is commonly cited in distinguishing among the isotopes of an element, all of which have the same atomic number (number of protons) and are represented by the same literal symbol; for example, the two best known isotopes of uranium (those with mass numbers 235 and 238) are designat...
  • Mass of Bolsena (painting by Raphael)
    ...related to this is the “Liberation of St. Peter,” in which light and darkness serve to symbolize the historic events of the pontificate. The third great fresco in this room, the “Mass of Bolsena,” shows the Pope kneeling, rather than enthroned, in commemoration of his veneration of the corporale (communion cloth) of Bolsena in the cathedral of Orvieto. In......
  • Mass, Ordinary of the (music)
    The Ordinary. The Ordinary of the mass employs texts that remain the same for every mass. Those sung by the choir are, in the Latin mass, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus (sometimes divided into Sanctus and Benedictus), and Agnus Dei, although the intonations of Gloria and Credo are sung by the celebrant....
  • mass production (industry)
    application of the principles of specialization, division of labour, and standardization of parts to the manufacture of goods. Such manufacturing processes attain high rates of output at low unit cost, with lower costs expected as volume rises. Mass production methods are based on two general principles: (1) the division ond specialization of human labour; and (2) the use of tools, machinery, and ...
  • mass selection (biology)
    Types of selection are individual or mass selection, within and between family selection, sibling selection, and progeny testing, with many variations. Within family selection uses the best individual from each family for breeding. Between family selection uses the whole family for selection. Mass selection uses records of only the candidates for selection. Mass selection is most effective when......
  • mass society
    ...in the United States, there began to be both greater social mobility and fewer blatant class differences as expressed in clothes, behaviour, and speech. A “mass society” began to share mass pleasures. Apparent homogeneity, both vertically within societies and horizontally between them, was accelerated by the cinema, radio, and television, each offering attractive role models to be...
  • mass spectrograph
    ...are identified by the sorting of gaseous ions in electric and magnetic fields according to their mass-to-charge ratios. The instruments used in such studies are called mass spectrometers and mass spectrographs, and they operate on the principle that moving ions may be deflected by electric and magnetic fields. The two instruments differ only in the way in which the sorted charged......
  • mass spectrometer
    The mass spectrometer is an analytical instrument that bombards molecules with a stream of electrons in a chamber at extremely low pressure to produce a stream of charged fragments that differ in mass (see the article mass spectrometry). The population of the fragments and the ratio of mass to charge is characteristic of the target molecule. Each fragment is deflected differently in a magnetic......
  • mass spectrometry
    analytic technique by which chemical substances are identified by the sorting of gaseous ions in electric and magnetic fields according to their mass-to-charge ratios. The instruments used in such studies are called mass spectrometers and mass spectrographs, and they operate on the principle that moving ...
  • mass spectroscope
    ...the way in which the sorted charged particles are detected. In the mass spectrometer they are detected electrically, in the mass spectrograph by photographic or other nonelectrical means; the term mass spectroscope is used to include both kinds of devices. Since electrical detectors are now most commonly used, the field is typically referred to as mass spectrometry....
  • mass spectroscopy
    analytic technique by which chemical substances are identified by the sorting of gaseous ions in electric and magnetic fields according to their mass-to-charge ratios. The instruments used in such studies are called mass spectrometers and mass spectrographs, and they operate on the principle that moving ...
  • mass spectrum
    ...of the various ion species present, Thomson replaced the photographic plate with a metal sheet in which was cut a parabolic slit. By varying the magnetic field, he was able to scan through a mass spectrum and measure a current corresponding to each separated ion species. Thus he may be credited with the construction of the first mass spectrograph and the first mass spectrometer....
  • mass stranding (animal behaviour)
    ...difficulty out of water and usually die. These cases are known (alive or dead) as single strandings. Sometimes up to several hundred toothed whales swim ashore, and this phenomenon is known as a mass stranding....
  • Mass Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions, The (work by Luxemburg)
    ...in the struggle, and was imprisoned. From these experiences emerged her theory of revolutionary mass action, which she propounded in Massenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaften (1906; The Mass Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions). Luxemburg advocated the mass strike as the single most important tool of the proletariat, Western as well as Russian, in attaining a......
  • mass transfer (physics)
    The rate at which these substances are transported in the phloem can be measured in various ways—e.g., as velocities in distance traveled per unit time or as mass transfer in (dry) weight transported per unit time. Velocities appear to be graded—i.e., some molecules move faster than others within the same channel. Peak velocities of molecules usually are of the order of 100 to 300......
  • mass transit
    the movement of people within urban areas using group travel technologies such as buses and trains. The essential feature of mass transportation is that many people are carried in the same vehicle (e.g., buses) or collection of attached vehicles (trains). This makes it possible to move people in the same travel corridor with greater efficiency, which can lead to lower costs to carry each pe...
  • mass transportation
    the movement of people within urban areas using group travel technologies such as buses and trains. The essential feature of mass transportation is that many people are carried in the same vehicle (e.g., buses) or collection of attached vehicles (trains). This makes it possible to move people in the same travel corridor with greater efficiency, which can lead to lower costs to carry each pe...
  • mass wasting (geology)
    bulk movements of soil and rock debris down slopes in response to the pull of gravity, or the rapid or gradual sinking of the Earth’s ground surface in a predominantly vertical direction. Formerly, the term mass wasting referred to a variety of processes by which large masses of crustal materials are moved by gravity from one place to another. More recently, the term mass movement has been ...
  • mass-communication city (sociology)
    The industrial city, consonant with the rise and consolidation of capitalism in the western European and North American core nations, appears to be rapidly giving way to what has been termed the mass-communications city in the advanced industrial nations. Cities such as New York, London, Tokyo, and other metropoles increasingly perform a primary cultural role as centres of managerial control,......
  • mass-energy (physics)
    With the advent of the special theory of relativity by Einstein in 1905, the notion of mass underwent a radical revision. Mass lost its absoluteness. The mass of an object was seen to be equivalent to energy, to be interconvertible with energy, and to increase significantly at exceedingly high speeds near that of light (about 3 × 108 metres per second, or 186,000 miles per......
  • mass-energy, conservation of (physics)
    ...laws, that of energy and that of mass (the latter particularly the outcome of countless experiments involving chemical change), is in this view perfectly true, but together they constitute a single conservation law, which may be expressed in two equivalent ways—conservation of mass, if to the total energy E is ascribed mass E/c2, or conservation of......
  • mass-energy equation (physics)
    relationship between mass (m) and energy (E) in the special theory of relativity of Albert Einstein, embodied by the formula E = mc2, where c equals 300,000 km (186,000 miles) per second—i.e., the speed of light....
  • mass-energy equivalence (physics)
    With the advent of the special theory of relativity by Einstein in 1905, the notion of mass underwent a radical revision. Mass lost its absoluteness. The mass of an object was seen to be equivalent to energy, to be interconvertible with energy, and to increase significantly at exceedingly high speeds near that of light (about 3 × 108 metres per second, or 186,000 miles per......
  • mass-to-charge ratio (science)
    This is the analytical method in which ions or ionic fragments of an analyte are separated based on mass-to-charge ratios (m/z). Most mass spectrometers have four major components: an inlet system, an ion source, a mass analyzer, and a detector. The inlet system is used to introduce the analyte and to convert it to a gas at reduced pressure. The gaseous analyte flows from the......
  • Massa (Italy)
    city, Toscana (Tuscany) regione, north-central Italy. Massa lies in the Frigido Valley at the foot of the Apuan Alps near the Ligurian coast, just southeast of Carrara and La Spezia. Mentioned in the 9th century, it was a possession of the bishops of Luni and passed through numerous hands before falling to the Malaspina family in 1421. It became the seat of the principate...
  • Massa le-Erez Yisrael, Ha- (work by Bertinoro)
    ...on the way, from Italy to Palestine. The letters, written to Bertinoro’s father and brother during the period 1488–90, have been published under the titles Darkhei Ẓiyyon and HaMassa le-Ereẓ Yisrael and translated into several languages. He lived in Jerusalem almost continuously after 1488, acting as spiritual head of the Jewish community there....
  • Massachuset (people)
    North American Indian tribe that in the 17th century may have numbered 3,000 individuals living in more than 20 villages distributed along what is now the Massachusetts coast. Members of the Algonquian language family, the Massachuset cultivated corn (maize) and other vegetables, gathered wild plants, and hunted and fished. The people moved seasonally between fixed sites to expl...
  • Massachusetts (state, United States)
    constituent state of the United States of America. It was one of the original 13 states and is one of the 6 New England states lying in the northeastern corner of the country. Massachusetts (officially called a commonwealth) is bounded to the north by Vermont and New Hampshire, to the east and southeast by the Atl...
  • Massachusetts Agricultural College (university system, Massachusetts, United States)
    state university system consisting of five coeducational campuses at Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth (in North Dartmouth), Lowell, and Worcester. The main campus, at Amherst, provides a comprehensive array of courses within 10 colleges, schools, and faculties. It offers more than 80 bachelor’s degree p...
  • Massachusetts at Amherst, University of (university, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States)
    state university system consisting of five coeducational campuses at Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth (in North Dartmouth), Lowell, and Worcester. The main campus, at Amherst, provides a comprehensive array of courses within 10 colleges, schools, and faculties. It offers more than 80 bachelor’s degree p...
  • Massachusetts Bank (American bank)
    major American commercial bank with branch and representative offices in the United States and abroad. It is the principal subsidiary of the Bank of Boston Corporation....
  • Massachusetts Bay (inlet, Massachusetts, United States)
    inlet of the North Atlantic Ocean, extending southward for about 60 miles (100 km) from Cape Ann to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S. It includes Nahant, Boston, Plymouth, and Cape Cod bays and Gloucester and Salem harbours. The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway enters the bay through the Cape Cod Canal and rea...
  • Massachusetts Bay Colony (American history)
    one of the original English settlements in present Massachusetts, settled in 1630 by a group of about 1,000 Puritan refugees from England under Governor John Winthrop. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company had obtained from Charles a charter empowering the company to trade and colonize in New England between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. Omitted from the charter was the usu...
  • Massachusetts Bay Company (American history)
    Boston was settled in 1630 by English Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company, who, for religious and political reasons, put the Atlantic Ocean between themselves and the Church of England. Ostensibly founded as a commercial venture, the Massachusetts Bay Company, under its governor, John Winthrop, brought its charter—which it regarded as authorization to set up a self-governing......
  • Massachusetts business trust
    The second class comprises the English unit trust and the European fonds d’investissements or Investmentfonds, which fulfill the same functions as American mutual funds; the Massachusetts business trust (now little used but providing a means of limiting the liability of participants in a business activity like the limited partnership); the foundation (fondation, Stiftung...
  • Massachusetts Commonwealth (American organization)
    ...settlers in Maine chafed under Massachusetts rule, but the merchants of the coastal towns resisted the separation movement until the War of 1812, when popular resentment against the failure of the Massachusetts Commonwealth to protect the District of Maine against British raids tipped the scales in favour of separation. Maine entered the Union as a free state (i.e., one where slavery was not......
  • Massachusetts, flag of (United States state flag)
    ...
  • Massachusetts Government Act (Great Britain [1774])
    ...the spring of 1774, with hardly any opposition, Parliament passed a series of measures designed to reduce Massachusetts to order and imperial discipline. The port of Boston was closed, and, in the Massachusetts Government Act, Parliament for the first time actually altered a colonial charter, substituting an appointive council for the elective one established in 1691 and conferring extensive......
  • Massachusetts Indian Bible (religious literature)
    ...the first New Testament in any language of the Americas belongs to John Eliot, a Puritan missionary, who made it accessible to the Massachusetts Indians in 1661. Two years later he brought out the Massachusetts Indian Bible, the first Bible to be printed on the American continent....
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (university, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States)
    privately controlled coeducational institution of higher learning famous for its scientific and technological training and research. It was chartered by the state of Massachusetts in 1861 and became a land-grant college in 1863. William Barton Rogers, MIT’s founder and first president, had worked for years to organize an institution of higher learning d...
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory (laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States)
    ...at the University of Birmingham. In 1940 the British generously disclosed to the United States the concept of the magnetron, which then became the basis for work undertaken by the newly formed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Radiation Laboratory at Cambridge. It was the magnetron that made microwave radar a reality in World War II....
  • Massachusetts Metaphysical College (American institution)
    ...lost element of healing.” It was not until her years in Boston (1882–89), however, that the movement began to grow, largely through the healing work performed by Eddy’s students from the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, which she chartered in 1881. By the end of the 1880s, almost 100 Christian Science congregations had formed, mostly in the Atlantic states and the Midwes...
  • Massachusetts Spy (American newspaper)
    radical anti-British printer and journalist who published the Massachusetts Spy in Boston from 1770 to 1802. (The paper continued publication until 1904.)...
  • Massachusetts, University of (university system, Massachusetts, United States)
    state university system consisting of five coeducational campuses at Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth (in North Dartmouth), Lowell, and Worcester. The main campus, at Amherst, provides a comprehensive array of courses within 10 colleges, schools, and faculties. It offers more than 80 bachelor’s degree p...
  • Massacoe (Connecticut, United States)
    town (township), Hartford county, north-central Connecticut, U.S., on the Farmington River. The area, originally called Massacoe, was settled in 1660 as part of Windsor. The community was separately incorporated in 1670 and named either for Simondsbury, England, or for Simon Wolcott, an early pioneer. The settlers fled during King Philip’s War...
  • Massacre at Chios, The (painting by Delacroix)
    ...Byron and other Romantic poets of his time, and he also drew subjects from Dante, William Shakespeare, and medieval history. In 1824, however, he exhibited at the Salon the Massacre at Chios, a large canvas depicting the dramatic contemporary massacre of Greeks by Turks on the island of Chios. The nature of his talent is evident in the unity he achieved in his......
  • Massacre at Paris, The (play by Marlowe)
    ...in deciding how fully the extant text of The Jew of Malta represents Marlowe’s original play, for it was not published until 1633. But The Jew can be closely associated with The Massacre at Paris (1593), a dramatic presentation of incidents from contemporary French history, including the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, and with The Troublesome Raigne and...
  • Massacre Island (island, Alabama, United States)
    island in the Gulf of Mexico, at the entrance to Mobile Bay off the southwest coast of Alabama, U.S., about 30 miles (50 km) south of Mobile. Included in Mobile county, the island is about 15 miles (25 km) long....
  • Massacre of the Innocents (engraving by Raimondi)
    Raimondi’s best engravings, such as “Massacre of the Innocents,” were done during the first years after he had attached himself to Raphael. In these he retains Raphael’s idealized figures, but, in the parts where he was left to himself (the rounding and shading, the background and landscape), he managed his burin with all the skill and freedom he had gained by the imita...
  • Massacre Under the Triumvirate (work by Caron)
    ...of the Seasons,” with its depiction of parties, picnics, and orchestras; the Artemis series; and “History of the Kings of France.” (2) Paintings on the theme of massacre, such as “Massacre Under the Triumvirate,” recalling the bloodshed of the Wars of Religion. (3) Fantasy and magic, as in “Astrologers Studying an Eclipse” and “Augustus an...
  • Massacres du Septembre (French history)
    mass killing of prisoners that took place in Paris from September 2 to September 6 in 1792—a major event of what is sometimes called the “First Terror” of the French Revolution....
  • Massaesyli (people)
    Its native inhabitants, seminomadic pastoralists of Berber stock, were known to the Romans as the Mauri (i.e., Moors) and the Massaesyli. From the 6th century bc the Phoenicians and Carthaginians also settled at points along the coast. The Massaesyli became part of Masinissa’s Numidian kingdom in 203 bc, after the defeat of their ruler Syphax, who had been...
  • massage (medicine)
    in medicine, systematic and scientific manipulation of body tissues, performed with the hands for therapeutic effect on the nervous and muscular systems and on systemic circulation. It was used more than 3,000 years ago by the Chinese. Later, the Greek physician Hippocrates used friction in the treatment of sprains and dislocations and kneading to treat constipation. Early in t...
  • massager (food processing)
    ...flavourings, spices, and salt. Tumbling and massaging are gentle methods that produce a uniform meat mixture. A tumbler is a slowly rotating drum that works the meat into a smooth mixture. A massager is a large mixing chamber that contains a number of internal paddles. Cured turkey products (i.e., treated with sodium nitrite), such as turkey ham and turkey pastrami, are often......
  • Massagetae (people)
    ...of modern Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes, he founded a city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai, a people of the Śaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of 328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his campaigns. Later in the same year he......
  • Massagetai (people)
    ...of modern Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes, he founded a city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai, a people of the Śaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of 328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his campaigns. Later in the same year he......
  • Massalia (France)
    city, capital of Bouches-du-Rhône département, southern France, and also the administrative and commercial capital of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, one of France’s fastest growing régions. Located west of the French Riviera, Marseille is one of t...
  • Massamba-Débat, Alphonse (president of Republic of the Congo)
    Corruption, incompetence, mass disapproval, general strikes, and lack of French support led to Youlou’s ouster in 1963. His successor, Alphonse Massamba-Débat, shifted policies to the left, notably by founding the National Revolutionary Movement (Mouvement National de la Révolution; MNR) as the sole party. The country sought assistance from the Soviet Union and the People...
  • Massangano (Angola)
    ...kingdom intervened on Dias de Novais’s behalf and rescued his forces, who then waged war against Ndongo. During this conflict, the Portuguese established an important inland fort on the Cuanza at Massangano, which served as a base for the capture of slaves for use in Brazil....
  • Massanutten Mountain (mountain, Virginia, United States)
    ...in Virginia. The valley, approximately 150 miles (240 km) long and about 25 miles (40 km) wide, is often considered to extend southward to the James River and thus to include Rockbridge county. Massanutten Mountain extends northeastward from a point east of Harrisonburg for some 50 miles (80 km), rising to more than 3,000 feet (914 metres) and dividing the north and south forks of the......
  • “Massaʿot” (work by Benjamin of Tudela)
    rabbi who was the first known European traveler to approach the frontiers of China and whose account of his journey, Massaʿot (The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 1907), illuminates the situation of Jews in Europe and Asia in the 12th century....
  • Massaro, Salvatore (American musician)
    American musician, among the first guitar soloists in jazz and an accompanist of rare sensitivity....
  • Massarot ha-massarot (work by Levita)
    ...the manuscript brought him offers of professorships from church prelates, princes, and the king of France, Francis I. He declined all of them, however. Another Masoretic work, Massarot ha-massarot (1538; “Tradition of Tradition”), remained a subject of debate among Hebraists for nearly three centuries....
  • massasauga (reptile)
    small North American rattlesnake of the family Viperidae, found in prairies, swamps, and woodlands from the Great Lakes to Arizona. It is typically 45 to 75 cm (18 to 30 inches) long....
  • Massasoit (Wampanoag chief)
    (b. c. 1590, near present Bristol, R.I., U.S.—d. 1661, near Bristol), Wampanoag Indian chief who throughout his life maintained peaceful relations with English settlers in the area of the Plymouth Colony, Mass....
  • Massawa (Eritrea)
    port city, Eritrea, in the Bay of Massawa on the Red Sea. It is connected to Asmara, the national capital, on the hinterland plateau (40 miles [64 km] west-southwest) by road, railroad, air, and aerial tramway. The town rests on the islands of Tawlad (Taulud) and Massawa (the site of the modern harbour) and on the Gerar and Abdel Kader peninsulas, which are linked to each other by causeways. Mass...
  • “Masse und Macht” (work by Canetti)
    In 1938 Canetti immigrated to England, devoting his time to research on mass psychology and the allure of fascism. His major work, Masse und Macht (1960; Crowds and Power), is an outgrowth of that interest, which is also evident in Canetti’s three plays: Hochzeit (1932; The Wedding), Komödie der Eitelkeit (1950; Comedy of Vanity), and Die....
  • “Masse-Mensch” (work by Toller)
    In confinement Toller wrote Masse-Mensch (1920; Man and the Masses, 1923), a play that brought him widespread fame. Books of lyrics added to his reputation. In 1933, immediately before the accession of Hitler, he emigrated to the United States. Also in that year he brought out his vivid autobiography, Eine Jugend in Deutschland (I Was a German, 1934)....
  • Massena (New York, United States)
    village and town (township), St. Lawrence county, northern New York, U.S., 76 miles (122 km) southwest of Montreal, Canada. It is the location of the headquarters of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, which operates and maintains the U.S. part of the seaway between Lake Erie and Montreal, a...
  • Masséna, André, duc de Rivoli, prince d’Essling (French general)
    leading French general of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars....
  • Massenet, Jules-Émile-Frédéric (French composer)
    leading French opera composer of his generation, whose music is admired for its lyricism, sensuality, occasional sentimentality, and theatrical aptness....
  • “Massenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaften” (work by Luxemburg)
    ...in the struggle, and was imprisoned. From these experiences emerged her theory of revolutionary mass action, which she propounded in Massenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaften (1906; The Mass Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions). Luxemburg advocated the mass strike as the single most important tool of the proletariat, Western as well as Russian, in attaining a......
  • Masseria, Giuseppe (American crime boss)
    leading crime boss of New York City from the early 1920s until his murder in 1931....
  • Masseria, Joe (American crime boss)
    leading crime boss of New York City from the early 1920s until his murder in 1931....
  • Masses, The (American magazine)
    American monthly journal of arts and politics, socialist in its outlook. It was known for its innovative treatment of illustration and for its news articles and social criticism....

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