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Woman’s National Liberal Union
In 1890, after several years of growing friction within the National Woman Suffrage Association, Gage broke away to found the Woman’s National Liberal Union, of which she was thereafter president. That organization was more radical than the older suffrage groups, and it reflected in particular her belief that the established churches were a major bulwark of male supremacist teaching, a view...
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Woman’s National Press Association (American organization)
...White House—she became personally close to the Lincoln family—and later she was among the first to be admitted to the congressional press gallery. She was elected first president of the Woman’s National Press Association upon its organization in 1882. In later years she became a noted Washington hostess. In 1906 a collection of her columns was published in volume form as ...
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Woman’s Peace Party (American organization)
American organization that was established as a result of a three-day peace meeting organized by Jane Addams and other feminists in response to the beginning of World War I in Europe in 1914. The conference, held in January 1915 in Washington, D.C., brought together women from diverse organizations who unanimously agreed on most issues under discussion, including the call for li...
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woman’s tongue tree (plant)
...(silk tree, or mimosa tree), native to Asia and the Middle East, grows to about 9 m (30 feet) tall, has a broad, spreading crown, and bears flat pods about 12 cm (5 inches) long. A. lebbek (siris, or woman’s-tongue tree), native to tropical Asia and Australia, grows about 24 m tall and bears pods 23–30 cm long. A. lophantha (plume albizia), native to Australia, grows...
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womb (anatomy)
an inverted pear-shaped muscular organ of the female reproductive system, located between the bladder and rectum. It functions to nourish and house the fertilized egg until the unborn child, or offspring, is ready to be delivered....
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womb envy (psychology)
...theory. She argued instead that the source of much female psychiatric disturbance is located in the very male-dominated culture that had produced Freudian theory. She introduced the concept of womb envy, suggesting that male envy of pregnancy, nursing, and motherhood—of women’s primary role in creating and sustaining life—led men to claim their superiority in other fields....
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wombat (marsupial)
any of three large terrestrial species of Australian marsupials. Like woodchucks, wombats are heavily built and virtually tailless burrowers with small eyes and short ears. Wombats, however, are larger, measuring 80 to 120 cm (31 to 47 inches) long. Chiefly nocturnal and strictly herbivorous, they eat grasses and, in the case of the common wombat (...
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women
From precolonial times to the early 21st century, the role and status of women in Nigeria have continuously evolved. However, the image of a helpless, oppressed, and marginalized group has undermined their proper study, and little recognition has been granted to the various integral functions that Nigerian women have performed throughout history....
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Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (United States naval organization)
military unit, established on July 30, 1942, as the U.S. Navy’s corps of female members. During World War II some 100,000 WAVES served in a wide variety of capacities, ranging from performing essential clerical duties to serving as instructors for male pilots-in-training. Initially, they did not serve overseas. Several thousand WAVES also participated in the Korean War. The corps continued ...
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Women and Economics (work by Gilman)
In 1898 Perkins published Women and Economics, a manifesto that attracted great attention and was translated into seven languages. In a radical call for economic independence for women, she dissected with keen intelligence much of the romanticized convention surrounding contemporary ideas of womanhood and motherhood. Her notions of redefining domestic and child-care chores as social......
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Women Are Not Roses (work by Castillo)
...the experience of the erotic. Castillo’s work draws on the sometimes contradictory political influences of militant ethnic and economic struggles and feminist and lesbian perspectives. Women Are Not Roses (1984), for example, explores the difficulties of poor and working-class women who must choose between devoting their energies to erotic relationships or to class struggle....
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Women as Lovers (book by Jelinek)
A polemical feminist, Jelinek often wrote about gender oppression and female sexuality. In the satiric Die Liebhaberinnen (1975; Women as Lovers, 1994), she described the entrapment and victimization of women within a dehumanizing and patriarchal society. Her semiautobiographical novel Die Klavierspielerin (1983; ......
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Women at the Ecclesia (play by Aristophanes)
In Women at the Ecclesia (c. 392 bc; Greek Ekklēsiazousai) the women of Athens dress up as men, take over the Ecclesia (the Athenian democratic assembly), and introduce a communistic system of wealth, sex, and property. It is not one of Aristophanes’ more appealing plays....
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Women at the Thesmophoria (play by Aristophanes)
...or adulterous, or all three at once. Misogyny is altogether too simple an explanation here, although Euripides’ reputation in his own day was that of a woman hater, and a play by Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria, comically depicts the indignation of the Athenian women at their portrayal by Euripides....
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Women Beware Women (play by Middleton)
Middleton’s social concerns are also powerfully to the fore in his great tragedies, Women Beware Women (c. 1621) and The Changeling (1622), in which the moral complacency of men of rank is shattered by the dreadful violence they themselves have casually set in train, proving the answerability of all men for their actions despite the.....
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Women, Churching of (Christian rite)
...celebrating childbirth, ranging from baby “showers” to pregnancy rites to rites observed at the actual time of childbirth and, as exemplified by Baptism and the fading Christian rite of Churching of Women, a ceremony of thanksgiving for mothers soon after childbirth. These rites involve the parents as well as the child and in some societies include the couvade, which in its......
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Women in Love (film by Russell [1970])
...French Dressing (1963) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967) that Russell completed while working for the BBC were both successful, but it was Women in Love (1969), based on D.H. Lawrence’s novel, that established his reputation as a major film director. The visual beauty of this film and its tasteful handling of erotic scenes won....
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Women in Love (work by Lawrence)
During World War I Lawrence and his wife were trapped in England and living in poverty. At this time he was engaged in two related projects. The first was a vein of philosophical writing that he had initiated in the “Foreword” to Sons and Lovers and continued in “Study of Thomas Hardy” (1914) and later works. The other, more important project was an......
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Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (painting by Delacroix)
...to Paris. After Morocco his drawing and paint handling became freer and his use of colour even more sumptuous. The first fruits of his Moroccan impressions are collected in Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (1834), in which three sumptuously costumed Arab women and their surroundings are portrayed in a blaze of exquisitely warm colour harmonies. Delacroix’s...
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Women of All Red Nations (American organization)
American organization, founded in 1974, that developed out of a group of women supporting the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the early 1970s. Though both men and women were involved in AIM’s activism, only the former were severely punished for their participation in militant acts against federal authorities. Realizing that they were essentially being ignored because th...
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Women of Belfast (work by McWilliam)
...the Chelsea School of Art (1946–47) and at the Slade (1947–66). His work was seldom overtly political, but in 1972–73 he made a series of powerful bronzes, Women of Belfast, in response to the bombing of the Abercorn restaurant in Belfast. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1959 and was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in.....
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Women of Brewster Place, The (television miniseries)
...Walker’s 1982 novel The Color Purple. Her critically acclaimed performance led to other roles, including a performance in the television miniseries The Women of Brewster Place (1989). Winfrey formed her own television production company, Harpo Productions, Inc., in 1986, and a film production company, Harpo Films, in 1990. The companie...
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Women of Brewster Place, The (novel by Naylor)
...of younger novelists, especially Toni Cade Bambara, whose novel The Salt Eaters (1980) won the American Book Award, and Gloria Naylor, whose novel The Women of Brewster Place (1982) won a National Book Award for best first novel in 1983....
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Women of Russia (political party, Russia)
...such as Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko (Apple) party, found themselves unable to secure a firm base outside the intelligentsia. One of the most intriguing parties that formed in the 1990s was the Women of Russia party, which captured 8 percent of the vote in the 1993 State Duma election, though its level support had dropped by about three-fourths by the end of the decade. In 2001 a number o...
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Women Strike for Peace (American organization)
organization that evolved out of an international protest against atmospheric nuclear testing held on November 1, 1961. On that day between 12,000 and 50,000 women in various nations demonstrated to protest nuclear testing and to voice concern, in particular, about the hazards posed by such testing to children’s health. In the United States some 1,500 women marched in Washington, D.C., to m...
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Women Voters, League of
nonpartisan American political organization that has pursued its mission of promoting active and unhampered participation in government since its establishment in 1920....
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Women’s Alliance (Icelandic organization)
...feminist movement may seem uniquely strong in Iceland. A woman, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, served as president of the republic for four terms (1980–96), enjoying great popularity. A Women’s Alliance has been represented in the parliament since 1983. However, the Icelandic president typically is not influential in politics, and the Women’s Alliance has yet to parti...
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Women’s Armed Services Integration Act (United States law)
law enacted in 1948 that permitted women to serve as full members of the U.S. armed forces....
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Women’s Army Corps
U.S. Army unit created during World War II to enable women to serve in noncombat positions. Never before had women, with the exception of nurses, served within the ranks of the U.S. Army. With the establishment of the WACs, more than 150,000 did so....
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women’s basketball (sports)
U.S. Army unit created during World War II to enable women to serve in noncombat positions. Never before had women, with the exception of nurses, served within the ranks of the U.S. Army. With the establishment of the WACs, more than 150,000 did so.......
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Women’s Cricket Association
In 1926 the Women’s Cricket Association was founded, and in 1934–35 it sent a team to Australia and New Zealand. Australia paid a return visit in 1937, and, since World War II, tours have increased. The International Women’s Cricket Council was formed in 1958 by Australia, England, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and South Africa and later included India, Denmark, and several We...
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Women’s Educational and Industrial Union of Boston
independent international research and educational organization founded at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, U.S., in 1888. It was established by the Women’s Educational Association of Boston, the Boston Society of Natural History, and other organizations and was modeled on the Naples Zoological Station (1872) in Italy. The laboratory’s summer research program played a vital role in further...
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Women’s Educational Association of Boston
independent international research and educational organization founded at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, U.S., in 1888. It was established by the Women’s Educational Association of Boston, the Boston Society of Natural History, and other organizations and was modeled on the Naples Zoological Station (1872) in Italy. The laboratory’s summer research program played a vital role in further...
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Women’s Equality Day (American holiday)
annual event in the United States, observed on August 26 since its inception in 1971, marking women’s advancements toward equality with men. August 26, 1970, marked the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted American women full suffrage. On that anniversary the National Organization for Women (NOW) called upon women nationwide to ...
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Women’s Health Study
annual event in the United States, observed on August 26 since its inception in 1971, marking women’s advancements toward equality with men. August 26, 1970, marked the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted American women full suffrage. On that anniversary the National Organization for Women (NOW) called upon women nationwide to ......
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Women’s History
annual event in the United States, observed on August 26 since its inception in 1971, marking women’s advancements toward equality with men. August 26, 1970, marked the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted American women full suffrage. On that anniversary the National Organization for Women (NOW) called upon women nationwide to .........
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Women’s International Bowling Congress (international sports organization)
In 1901 the ABC started its national tournament. The Women’s International Bowling Congress (WIBC) was organized in 1916 and conducted annual national championships from 1917. While the ABC and WIBC are autonomous organizations, each billing itself as the “world’s largest” men’s or women’s sports organization, respectively, they share a number of functions...
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Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (international organization)
organization whose opposition to war dates from World War I, which makes it the oldest continuously active peace organization in the United States. It encompasses some 100 branches in the United States and has other branches in approximately 50 countries. Philadelphia is the site of the U.S. headquarters, and Geneva is the home of the international headquarters. ...
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Women’s International Tennis Association (international sports organization)
...had become a big-money sport. Both male and female players formed guilds—the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), which in 1986 became the Women’s International Tennis Association (WITA). Previous player unions had been ineffective, but the ATP showed itself a potent political force when the majority of its members...
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women’s Kabuki (Japanese arts)
...normally had the patronage of the nobility; but their appeal was directed toward ordinary townspeople, and the themes of their dramas and dances were taken from everyday life. The popularity of onna (“women’s”) Kabuki remained high until it was officially banned in 1629 by the shogun (military ruler), who thought that the prostitution practiced by many of the dancers...
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Women’s Land Army (United States federal organization)
U.S. federally established organization that from 1943 to 1947 recruited and trained women to work on farms left untended owing to the labour drain that arose during World War II....
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women’s liberation movement (political and social movement)
diverse social movement, largely based in the United States, seeking equal rights and opportunities for women in their economic activities, their personal lives, and politics. It is recognized as the “second wave” of the larger feminist movement. While first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women...
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women’s magazine
Women’s magazines frequently reflect the changing view of women’s role in society. In the 18th century, when women were expected to participate in social and political life, those magazines aimed primarily at women were relatively robust and stimulating in content; in the 19th, when domesticity became the ideal, they were inclined to be insipid and humourless. After about 1880, magaz...
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women’s movement (political and social movement)
diverse social movement, largely based in the United States, seeking equal rights and opportunities for women in their economic activities, their personal lives, and politics. It is recognized as the “second wave” of the larger feminist movement. While first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women...
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Women’s National Basketball Association (American sports organization)
American basketball player who was the first Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). In the WNBA’s inaugural season (1997), Cooper led the league in scoring while leading her team, the Houston Comets, to the championship. She was named MVP of both the regular season and the play-offs that year....
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Women’s National Indian Association (American organization)
...personally written by Quinton calling for a new federal Indian policy that would provide Indians with education, equality before the law, and land parcels. By 1883 Quinton and Bonney had formed the Women’s National Indian Association (WNIA), which with several other Indian rights associations led a comprehensive campaign for Indian policy reform. In 1887 Congress enacted the Dawes Genera...
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Women’s National Loyal League (American organization)
organization formed on May 14, 1863, by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton that sought to end the American Civil War through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that abolished slavery. To this end they organized a Mammoth Petition that urged Congress to emancipate all slaves. Headed by Stanton, the league claimed some 5,000 members, many of whom wer...
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Women’s Political Union (American organization)
...public demonstrations. Older and more conservative suffragist leaders feared a backlash, but the new vigour of the movement produced results. In 1910 the Equality League’s name was changed to the Women’s Political Union, and in 1916 it was merged with the Congressional Union (later the National Woman’s Party) under Alice Paul....
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Women’s Prison Association and Home (American organization)
...house (later the Isaac T. Hopper Home, named for her father) for discharged women prisoners. She continued to be active in the female department long after its reorganization as the independent Women’s Prison Association and Home in 1853. In 1859 she became president of the German Industrial School. She was also a frequent visitor to the New York City children’s asylum on Randall...
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Women’s Professional Basketball League (American sports organization)
...stars have been heavily recruited by colleges, but the players frequently found that there was no opportunity for them to play beyond the college level. Leagues were occasionally formed, such as the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WPBL); begun in 1978, the WPBL lasted only three years. Eventually filling the void was the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). Alig...
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Women’s Question, Its Historical Development and Its Economic Aspect, The (work by Braun)
Perhaps her most important book was Die Frauenfrage, ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung und wirtschaftliche Seite (1901; “The Women’s Question, Its Historical Development and Its Economic Aspect”), in which she argued that capitalism, by employing women in industry, destroyed the family and thus made Socialism inevitable....
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Women’s Rights Convention (United States history)
woman suffrage meeting, held September 6–7, 1853, in New York City, that earned its popular label owing to the numerous disruptions to it by protesters....
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women’s rights movement (political and social movement)
diverse social movement, largely based in the United States, seeking equal rights and opportunities for women in their economic activities, their personal lives, and politics. It is recognized as the “second wave” of the larger feminist movement. While first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women...
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Women’s Social and Political Union (British organization)
...activist Emmeline Pankhurst and a sister of Sylvia Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst advocated the use of militant tactics to win the vote for women in England. With her mother she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903. Reflecting the Union’s slogan, “Deeds not Words,” Pankhurst, with Annie Kenney, fired the opening salvo in the militant suffrage campa...
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Women’s Sports Foundation (American organization)
...Senate from 1976 to 1978, she also became involved with the legislative development of the U.S. Amateur Sports Act. Together with tennis great Billie Jean King and others, de Varona organized the Women’s Sports Foundation. She served as that organization’s first elected president (1976–84). De Varona graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a B.A. in ...
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Women’s Strike for Equality (American history)
...in the women’s movement. Friedan stepped down from the presidency in March 1970 but continued to be active in the work that had sprung largely from her pioneering efforts, helping to organize the Women’s Strike for Equality—held on Aug. 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of woman suffrage—and leading in the campaign for ratification of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment...
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women’s suffrage
the right of women by law to vote in national and local elections....
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Women’s Trade Union League (American organization)
American organization, the first national association dedicated to organizing women workers. Founded in 1903, the WTUL proved remarkably successful in uniting women from all classes to work toward better, fairer working conditions. The organization relied largely upon the resources of its own members, never receiving more than token financial support from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) or ...
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Women’s United Soccer Association (sports organization)
...won the Women’s World Cup finals in 1999, attracting enthusiastic local support. The success of the MLS and the Women’s World Cup led to the creation of a women’s professional league in 2001. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) began with eight teams and featured the world’s star player, Mia Hamm, but it disbanded in 2003....
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won (Korean currency)
monetary units of South Korea and North Korea. The Bank of Korea has the exclusive authority to issue banknotes and coins for South Korea. Banknotes are issued in denominations ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 won. The notes are adorned on the obverse with early Yi (Chosŏn) dynasty figures, including writers Yi Hwang (1,000-won note) and Yi I (5,000-won note) and King ...
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wonder (behaviour)
A third crucial characteristic combines curiosity and problem seeking. Creative individuals seem to have a need to seek novelty and an ability to pose unique questions. In Defying the Crowd (1995), for example, the American psychologists Robert Sternberg and Todd Lubart likened the combined traits of autonomy and problem solving to buying low and selling high in the......
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Wonder Boeck (work by Joris)
In 1543 Joris, with some of his followers, fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he took the name Jan van Brugge (John of Bruges). In addition to his Wonder Boeck (1542, 1551; “Wonder Book”), a ponderous volume of fantasy and allegory, he produced innumerable tracts. He became a wealthy and respected citizen who professed Reformed beliefs, and he moved from......
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Wonder Boys (film by Hanson [2000])
...DragonArt Direction: Tim Yip for Crouching Tiger, Hidden DragonOriginal Score: Tan Dun for Crouching Tiger, Hidden DragonOriginal Song: “Things Have Changed” from Wonder Boys; music and lyrics by Bob DylanHonorary Award: Jack Cardiff, Ernest Lehman...
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Wonder, Little Stevie (American singer, composer, and musician)
American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century....
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Wonder Maid (work by Kosztolanyi)
...observer of human frailty with a gentle humour and a penchant for the macabre. He wrote lucid and simple poetry as well as accomplished short stories and novels. Édes Anna (1926; Wonder Maid, 1947), the tale of a servant girl, is perhaps his best novel. He translated poetry from several European languages and also from Chinese and Japanese. In his later years he devoted......
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Wonder, Stevie (American singer, composer, and musician)
American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century....
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wonder tale
wonder tale involving marvellous elements and occurrences, though not necessarily about fairies. The term embraces such popular folktales (Märchen) as “Cinderella” and “Puss-in-Boots” and art fairy tales (Kunstmärchen) of later invention, such as The Happy Prince (1888), by the Irish writer Oscar Wilde. It is often ...
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Wonder Woman (American comic-book character)
American comic-book heroine who was a perennially popular character and a feminist icon....
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wonderboom (plant)
...develop into secondary trunks that support the widespreading head of massive, constantly extending branches. One specimen in Calcutta covers an area more than 250 metres (about 275 yards) wide. The wonderboom (F. salicifolia) of Africa grows in a similar manner; a specimen at Pretoria has a spread of 50 metres (55 yards). Because of their unusual growth habits, some tropical......
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Wonderful Adventures of Nils (work by Lagerlöf)
...2 vol. (1901–02), which established her as the foremost Swedish novelist. Other notable works were Herr Arnes Penningar (1904), a tersely but powerfully told historical tale; and Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige, 2 vol. (1906–07; The Wonderful Adventures of Nils and Further Adventures of Nils), a geography reader for children....
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Wonderful Farm, The (work by Aymé)
...public of children from “4 to 75” with its talking farm animals that include an ox that goes to school and a pig that thinks it is a peacock. Selections were published in English as The Wonderful Farm (1951)....
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Wonderful Life (work by Gould)
...books Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), The Mismeasure of Man (1981), Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle (1987), and Wonderful Life (1989), he traced the course and significance of various controversies in the history of evolutionary biology, intelligence testing, geology, and paleontology. Fr...
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Wonderful Town (musical by Bernstein, Comden and Green)
Comden and Green wrote another musical with Bernstein, Wonderful Town (1953), which won them their first Tony Award; they won six others, for Hallelujah, Baby!, Applause (1970), On the Twentieth Century (1978), and The Will Rogers Follies (1991). They also wrote several......
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Wonderful Wizard of Oz (work by Baum)
Appropriately the new century opened with a novelty: a successful American fairy tale. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) is vulnerable to attacks on its prose style, incarnating mediocrity. But there is something in it, for all its doctrinaire moralism, that lends it permanent appeal: a prairie freshness, a joy in sheer invention, the simple, satisfying characterization of Dorothy and......
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Wonderful World, Beautiful People (album by Cliff)
...as he moved in the direction of reggae. By the late 1960s he was a favourite in South America (having won a prize at a festival in Brazil with his song “Waterfall”), and his album Wonderful World, Beautiful People (1970) was an international hit as well as the record that prompted Paul Simon to investigate reggae. As the star of The Harder They Come—he......
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Wonderland (work by Oates)
...and them (1969), Joyce Carol Oates worked naturalistically with violent urban materials, such as the Detroit riots. Incredibly prolific, she later experimented with Surrealism in Wonderland (1971) and Gothic fantasy in Bellefleur (1980) before returning in works such as Marya (1986) to the bleak blue-collar world of her youth in upstate New......
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Wondersmith, The (novella by O’Brien)
...falls in love with a being he sees through a microscope in a drop of water; “What Was It?” in which a man is attacked by a thing he apprehends with every sense but sight; and “The Wondersmith,” in which robots are fashioned only to turn upon their creators. These three stories appeared in periodicals in 1858 and 1859....
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Wondjina (people)
...of figures that represent mythological beings associated with the creation of the world. Called wandjina figures, the images are believed by modern Aborigines to have been painted by the Wondjinas, prehistoric inhabitants of the Kimberley region in northwest Australia, the only area where cave paintings in the wandjina style have been found. Among the Aborigines, each......
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wondjina style (painting)
type of depiction in Australian cave paintings of figures that represent mythological beings associated with the creation of the world. Called wandjina figures, the images are believed by modern Aborigines to have been painted by the Wondjinas, prehistoric inhabitants of the Kimberley region in northwest Australia, the only area where cave paintings in the wandjina style have been fo...
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Wong Kar Wai (Chinese director)
type of depiction in Australian cave paintings of figures that represent mythological beings associated with the creation of the world. Called wandjina figures, the images are believed by modern Aborigines to have been painted by the Wondjinas, prehistoric inhabitants of the Kimberley region in northwest Australia, the only area where cave paintings in the wandjina style have been fo...
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Wong Tung Jim (American cinematographer)
one of the greatest cinematographers of the American film industry....
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wongar (Australian Aboriginal mythology)
mythological period of time that had a beginning but no foreseeable end, during which the natural environment was shaped and humanized by the actions of mythic beings. Many of these beings took the form of human beings or of animals (“totemic”); some changed their forms. They were credited with having established the local social order and its “laws.” Some, especially t...
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Wonhyŏ (Buddhist priest)
Buddhist priest who is considered the greatest of the ancient Korean religious teachers and one of the Ten Sages of the Ancient Korean Kingdom....
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Wonhyŏ Daisa (Buddhist priest)
Buddhist priest who is considered the greatest of the ancient Korean religious teachers and one of the Ten Sages of the Ancient Korean Kingdom....
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Woni (people)
an official nationality of China. The Hani live mainly on the high southwestern plateau of Yunnan province, China, specifically concentrated in the southwestern corner. There are also several thousands of Hani or related peoples in northern Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam and in eastern Myanmar (Burma). Altogether they numbered some two million in the early 21st century....
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Wŏnju (South Korea)
city, Kangwŏn do (province), north-central South Korea. Historically, its location in the eroded basin of the T’aebaek Mountains on the South Han River has been militarily strategic. After the Korean War (1950–53), it developed as a military base. Wŏnju, a transportation junction, is connected with Seoul, Pusan, and Taegu by rail a...
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Wŏnsan (North Korea)
city, southeastern North Korea. Situated on the coast of the Sea of Japan (East Sea), about 80 miles (130 km) east of P’yŏngyang, it is protected by two promontories and 20 islands in the Yŏnghŭng Bay and has the best natural harbour along the east coast of Korea. During the Yi dynasty (1392–1910) it was a market, fishing, and warehousing centre under the name o...
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Wonthaggi (Victoria, Australia)
town, southern Victoria, Australia. It lies 5 miles (8 km) inland from the coast on Bass Strait. The explorer William Hovell discovered black-coal deposits at nearby Cape Paterson in 1826, but early attempts at mining were unsuccessful. Coal deposits at Wonthaggi were known by the 1850s, but development was delayed until 1909, when a labour strike in the Newcastle fields of New ...
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Woo, John (director)
In 1986 Chow teamed up with noted action-film director John Woo in Ying hung boon sik (1986; A Better Tomorrow). The movie made Chow a box-office superstar in Asia and launched a series of Chow-Woo pairings that include Ying hung boon sik II (1987; A Better Tomorrow II ), Dip......
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Woo, William Franklin (American editor)
American editor (b. Oct. 4, 1936, Shanghai, China—d. April 12, 2006, Palo Alto, Calif.), presided (1986–96) as editor of the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch and became the first person outside the Pulitzer family to lead that newspaper; he also became the first Asian American to take the helm of a major American newspaper. Woo had worked for the paper in various capacitie...
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wood (technology)
the principal strengthening and nutrient-conducting tissue of trees and other plants and one of the most abundant and versatile natural materials. Produced by many botanical species, wood is available in various colours and grain patterns. It is strong in relation to its weight, is insulating to heat and electricity, and has desirable acoustic properties. Furthermore, it imparts a feeling of ...
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wood (ball)
outdoor game in which a ball (known as a bowl) is rolled toward a smaller stationary ball, called a jack. The object is to roll one’s bowls so that they come to rest nearer to the jack than those of an opponent; this is sometimes achieved by knocking aside an opponent’s bowl or the jack. A form of bowls was played in ancient Egypt, and by the Middle Ages the game was well known in co...
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Wood, Aaron (English potter)
...of Staffordshire wares from peasant pottery to an organized industry. The family’s most prominent members were Ralph Wood (1715–72), the “miller of Burslem”; his brother Aaron (1717–85); and his son Ralph, Jr. (1748–95). Through his mother, Ralph, Jr., was related to Josiah Wedgwood, and the two names were on a number of occasions associated......
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wood alcohol (chemical compound)
the simplest of a long series of organic compounds called alcohols; its molecular formula is CH3OH. Methanol was formerly produced by the destructive distillation of wood. The modern method of preparing methanol is based on the direct combination of carbon monoxide gas and hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst. Most methanol is produced from the methane found in natu...
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wood anemone (plant)
The wood anemone of Europe, A. nemorosa, which bears white flowers, causes blistering of the skin and was formerly used as an ingredient in medicines. In North America, wood anemone refers to A. quinquefolia, a delicate plant with deeply cut leaves. Windflower, the English version of the Greek-derived anemone, refers......
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Wood, Annie (British social reformer)
British social reformer, sometime Fabian socialist, theosophist, and Indian independence leader....
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Wood, Anthony (English antiquarian)
English antiquarian whose life was devoted to collecting and publishing the history of Oxford and its university....
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Wood, Anthony à (English antiquarian)
English antiquarian whose life was devoted to collecting and publishing the history of Oxford and its university....
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Wood, Beatrice (American ceramicist)
American ceramicist who was dubbed the "mama of Dada" as a result of her relationship with the artist Marcel Duchamp; she gained celebrity for both her colourful lifestyle and her pottery and inspired a character in the book and film Jules et Jim as well as the 101-year-old Rose in the film Titanic (b. March 3, 1893, San Francisco, Calif.--d. March 12, 1998, Ojai, Calif.)....
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wood borer (bivalve)
Two groups of bivalves have exploited other food sources. These are the shipworms (family Teredinidae) and giant clams (family Tridacnidae). Shipworms are wood borers and are both protected and nourished by the wood they inhabit. They possess ctenidia and are capable of filtering food from the sea. When elongating the burrow, they digest the wood as well. In the Tridacnidae, symbiotic......
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