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Fiorelli, Silvio (Italian actor)
Documents of the company’s activities exist from 1578 to 1640, including performances in Genoa, Padua, and the court at Mantua. One of the most noted actors to perform with the Uniti was Silvio Fiorillo, known for the innovations he made in the characters of the cowardly braggart Capitano Mattamoros and the eccentric curmudgeon Pulcinella....
Fiorentina (Italian football club)
...them. Juventus, the 2005–06 Serie A champion, initially was stripped of its last two championship titles, was relegated to Serie B, and had 30 points deducted from the 2006–07 season. Fiorentina was relegated with a 12-point penalty, and Lazio was demoted with the loss of 7 points. AC Milan was allowed to remain in Serie A, but with a 15-point deduction. None was allowed entry to....
“Fioretti di San Francesco” (Italian literature)
...Less polished, but of greater literary value, were the translations of Latin legends concerning St. Francis and his followers collected in the anonymous Fioretti di San Francesco (The Little Flowers of St. Francis)....
Fiori da Urbino (Italian painter)
leading painter of the central Italian school in the last decades of the 16th century and an important precursor of the Baroque style....
Fiori, Ernesto de (Italian sculptor)
...stolid surfaces. In Germany, Georg Kolbe’s “Standing Man and Woman” of 1931 seems a prelude to the Nazi health cult, and the serene but vacuous figures of Arno Breker, Karl Albiker, and Ernesto de Fiori were simply variations on a studio theme in praise of youth and body culture. In the United States adherents of the countermovement included William Zorach, Chaim Gross, Ado...
Fiori, Federico (Italian painter)
leading painter of the central Italian school in the last decades of the 16th century and an important precursor of the Baroque style....
Fiori musicali (work by Frescobaldi)
...directions indicate the extent to which keyboard style had moved away from its origin in transcriptions of vocal or instrumental compositions. One of Frescobaldi’s remaining publications, the Fiori musicali of 1635, consists of organ music intended for liturgical use....
Fiorilli, Tiberio (Italian actor)
Italian actor of the commedia dell’arte who developed the character Scaramouche....
Fiorillo, Silvio (Italian actor)
Documents of the company’s activities exist from 1578 to 1640, including performances in Genoa, Padua, and the court at Mantua. One of the most noted actors to perform with the Uniti was Silvio Fiorillo, known for the innovations he made in the characters of the cowardly braggart Capitano Mattamoros and the eccentric curmudgeon Pulcinella....
Fiorillo, Tiberio (Italian actor)
Italian actor of the commedia dell’arte who developed the character Scaramouche....
fiorin (plant)
(Agrostis stolonifera L.), lawn grass and member of the family Poaceae. It is sometimes known as Agrostis palustris. See bent grass....
Fiorina, Carly (American business executive and politician)
American business executive who, as CEO (1999–2005) of Hewlett-Packard Company, was the first woman to head a company listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average....
fiorino d’oro (coin)
...the doge. The influence of the gold coinage of Frederick II on such cities was soon evident. Genoa was striking gold as early as 1252. Florence issued the first of its famous and profuse series of fiorini d’oro, or gold florins. The lily continued as the civic type, together with the standing figure of the Baptist. Regular weight (about 3.50 grams, 54 grains) and fineness won the fiorino...
fiorite (mineral)
The emergence of heated silica-bearing solutions onto the surface results in rapid cooling and the loss of complexing anions. Rapid precipitation of fine-grained silica results in formation of siliceous sinter or geyserite, as at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park in the western United States....
FiOS
The emergence of heated silica-bearing solutions onto the surface results in rapid cooling and the loss of complexing anions. Rapid precipitation of fine-grained silica results in formation of siliceous sinter or geyserite, as at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park in the western United States.......
Fipa (people)
a Bantu-speaking people linguistically related to Lungu, Pimbwe, and Mambwe who inhabit the Ufipa plateau between lakes Tanganyika and Rukwa in southwestern Tanzania. From prehistoric times the plateau has been a corridor between northeastern and south central Africa. The Fipa are an amalgam of commoners whose ancestors came...
fipple flute (musical instrument)
any of several end-blown flutes having a plug (“block,” or “fipple”) inside the pipe below the mouth hole, forming a flue, duct, or windway that directs the player’s breath alternately above and below the sharp edge of a lateral hole. This arrangement causes the enclosed air column to vibrate. Instruments using the fipple-flute principle include one- or two-note ...
FIQ (international bowling organization)
...in 1934. Germany hosted the Fifth International in 1936, as a prelude to, but having no connection with, the Olympic Games in Berlin. It was the last international meet of any consequence until the Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ) was formed in 1952 to coordinate international amateur competition. Its headquarters is in Helsinki, and it has grown to more than 70......
fiqh (Islam)
(Arabic: “understanding”), Muslim jurisprudence; i.e., the science of ascertaining the precise terms of the Sharīʿah, or Islamic law. The collective sources of Muslim jurisprudence are known as uṣūl al-fiqh....
fiqī (Islamic jurist)
...and military posts. Strict adherence to the Mālikī version of Islamic law provided the religious legitimization for the authority of this tribal caste. The fuqahāʾ (experts on Islamic law) supervised both the administration of justice by the qāḍīs and the work of the......
fir (Abies)
properly, any of about 40 species of trees constituting the genus Abies of the family Pinaceae, although many other coniferous evergreen trees are commonly called firs—e.g., the Douglas fir, the hemlock fir (see hemlock), and the joint fir...
FIR (air-traffic control)
An aircraft in flight follows en route air traffic control instructions as it flies through successive flight information regions (FIRs). Upon approaching an airport at which a landing is to be made, the aircraft passes into the terminal control area (TCA). Within this area, there may be a greatly increased density of air traffic, and this is closely monitored on radar by TCA controllers, who......
fir (tree)
...with boreal forest. A small, isolated area of boreal forest in the Scottish Highlands lacks some continental species but does contain the most widespread conifer of the Eurasian boreal forest, Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris)....
fir, balsam of (oleoresin)
oleoresin consisting of a viscous yellowish to greenish liquid exuded by the balsam fir of North America, Abies balsamea. It is actually a turpentine, belonging to the class of oleoresins (natural prod...
fir club moss (plant)
...lucidula), a North American species occurring in wet woods and among rocks, has no distinct strobili; it bears its spore capsules at the bases of leaves scattered along the branches. Fir club moss (H. selago), a 20-cm-tall plant native on rocks and bog margins in the Northern Hemisphere, also lacks distinct strobili. Ground pine (Lycopodium obscurum), a 25-cm-tall......
Firá (Greece)
...volcanic cliffs rising to almost 1,000 feet (300 metres). The summit of Thera is the 1,857-foot (566-metre) limestone Mount Profítis Ilías in the southeast. The chief town, Thíra (locally called Firá), was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1956. Other settlements include Emboríon and Pírgos to the south and the port of Oía at the north......
Fırat Nehri (river, Middle East)
river, Middle East. The longest river in Southwest Asia, it is one of the two main constituents of the Tigris-Euphrates river system. The river rises in Turkey and flows southeast across Syria and through Iraq. Formed by the confluence of the Karasu and the Murat rivers in the high Armenian plateau, the Eu...
Firbank, Arthur Annesley Ronald (British author)
English novelist who was a literary innovator of some importance. Greatly indebted to the literature of the 1890s, his is a peculiarly fantastic and perverse, idiosyncratic humour. His wit largely depends upon the shape and cadence of the sentence and upon an eccentric and personal vocabulary. He influenced later novelists Evelyn Waugh...
Firbank, Ronald (British author)
English novelist who was a literary innovator of some importance. Greatly indebted to the literature of the 1890s, his is a peculiarly fantastic and perverse, idiosyncratic humour. His wit largely depends upon the shape and cadence of the sentence and upon an eccentric and personal vocabulary. He influenced later novelists Evelyn Waugh...
Firdan Bridge, Al- (bridge, Suez Canal, Egypt)
longest rotating metal bridge in the world, spanning the Suez Canal in northeastern Egypt, from the lower Nile River valley near Ismailia to the Sinai Peninsula. Opened on Nov. 14, 2001, the bridge has a single rai...
Firdawsī (Persian poet)
Persian poet, author of the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”), the Persian national epic, to which he gave its final and enduring form, although he based his poem mainly on an earlier prose version....
Firdousi (Persian poet)
Persian poet, author of the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”), the Persian national epic, to which he gave its final and enduring form, although he based his poem mainly on an earlier prose version....
Firdusi (Persian poet)
Persian poet, author of the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”), the Persian national epic, to which he gave its final and enduring form, although he based his poem mainly on an earlier prose version....
fire (disaster)
Persian poet, author of the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”), the Persian national epic, to which he gave its final and enduring form, although he based his poem mainly on an earlier prose version.......
fire (combustion)
rapid burning of combustible material with the evolution of heat and usually accompanied by flame. It is one of the human race’s essential tools, control of which helped start it on the path toward civilization....
fire (weaponry)
Fortifications in antiquity were designed primarily to defeat attempts at escalade, though cover was provided for archers and javelin throwers along the ramparts and for enfilade fire from flanking towers. By classical Greek times, fortress architecture had attained a high level of sophistication; both the profile and trace (that is, the height above ground level and the outline of the walls)......
Fire!! (American magazine)
American magazine that exerted a marked impact on the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and early ’30s despite its demise after the first issue (November 1926)....
fire (gem)
in gems, rapidly changing flashes of colour seen in some gems, such as diamonds. Some minerals show dispersion; that is, they break incident white light into its component colours. The greater the separation between rays of red light (at one end of the visible spectrum...
fire alarm
means of warning in case of fire. Originally, watchmen provided the only fire-alarm system, but, with the advent of electric power, boxes wired to fire departments provided a warning system from city streets and such institutional buildings as schools...
Fire and All Risks Insurance Co. (Australian company)
Hungarian-born Australian businessman, founder of the Fire and All Risks Insurance Co. (later renamed FAI Insurance, Ltd.) and one of the 10 richest men in the country....
Fire and Sword in the Sudan (work by Slatin)
He escaped in 1895 and was made a pasha (the highest rank in the Egyptian court) by the khedive (Ottoman viceroy) of Egypt. His book, Feuer und Schwert im Sudan, 2 vol. (1896, 1922; “Fire and Sword in the Sudan”), was instrumental in enlisting support against the Mahdists. After serving with Lord Kitchener (1897–98) in the reconquest of the Sudan, he was named inspector...
Fire, Andrew Z. (American geneticist)
American scientist, who was a corecipient, with Craig C. Mello, of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2006 for discovering a mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information....
fire ant (insect)
any of a genus of insects in the family Formicidae, order Hymenoptera, that occur in tropical regions of the world, such as Central and South America, and in some temperate regions, such as North America. The best-known member of the genus, the ...
fire blight (disease)
plant disease caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora, which has destroyed pear and apple orchards in much of North America, parts of Europe, New Zeala...
fire bomb (military technology)
Incendiary bombs are of two main types. The burning material of the intensive type is thermite, a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide that burns at a very high temperature. The casing of such a bomb is composed of magnesium, a metal that itself burns at a high temperature when ignited by thermite. Intensive-type incendiaries are designed to set buildings afire by their intense heat. The......
fire brigade
activity directed at limiting the spread of fire and extinguishing it, particularly as performed by members of organizations (fire services or fire departments) trained for the purpose. When it is possible, firefighters rescue persons endangered by the fire, if necessary, before turning their full attention to putting it out....
fire control (military)
Fire control...
fire coral (hydrocoral order)
...those of hydroids, hydrocoral skeletons are composed of calcium carbonate and are internal by virtue of being shallowly penetrated by channels of living tissue. Hydrocorals, which include the order Milleporina (millepores), commonly called fire coral, and the precious red coral used for jewelry, form encrusting or branching skeletons similar to those of anthozoan corals....
fire curing (agriculture)
The fire-curing process resembles air curing except that open wood fires are kindled on the dirt floor of the curing barn after the tobacco has been hanging for two to six days. The smoke imparts to the tobacco a characteristic aroma of creosote. The firing process may be continuous or intermittent, extending from three weeks to as long as 10 weeks until curing is complete and the leaf has been......
Fire Dance (dance by Fuller)
...gradually evolved her "Serpentine Dance," which she first presented in New York in February 1892. Later in the year she traveled to Europe and in October opened at the Folies Bergère in her "Fire Dance," in which she danced on glass illuminated from below. She quickly became the toast of avant-garde Paris. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Auguste Rodin, and Jules Chéret used her as a......
fire detection
Most important in the hierarchy of interior elements are life-safety systems to protect and evacuate the building population in emergencies. These include life-threatening events, such as fire and smoke and earthquakes, and less critical ones, such as electric power failures. To deal with the threat of fire and smoke there is an array of fire-detection and fire-suppression systems. These......
fire drill (tool)
Most widespread among prehistoric and later primitive peoples is the friction method of producing fire. The simple fire drill, a pointed stick of hard wood twirled between the palms and pressed into a hole on the edge of a stick of softer wood, is almost universal. The fire-plow and the fire saw are variations on the friction method common in Oceania, Australia, and Indonesia. Mechanical fire......
fire engine
mobile (nowadays self-propelled) piece of equipment used in firefighting. Early fire engines were hand pumps equipped with reservoirs and were moved to the scene of a fire by human or animal power. For large fires, the reservoir was kept filled by a bucket brigade, but that method was inefficient, and the short range of the stream of water necessitated positioning the apparatus dangerously close t...
fire escape
means of rapid egress from a building, primarily intended for use in case of fire. Several types have been used: a knotted rope or rope ladder secured to an inside wall; an open iron stairway on the building’s exterior, an iron balcony; a chute; and an enclosed fire- and smokeproof stairway. The iron stairway is the commonest because it can be added to the outside of nearly any building of...
fire extinguisher
portable or movable apparatus used to put out a small fire by directing onto it a substance that cools the burning material, deprives the flame of oxygen, or interferes with the chemical reactions occurring in the flame. Water performs two of these functions: its conversion to steam absorbs heat, and the s...
fire fighting
activity directed at limiting the spread of fire and extinguishing it, particularly as performed by members of organizations (fire services or fire departments) trained for the purpose. When it is possible, firefighters rescue persons endangered by the fire, if necessary, before turning their full attention to putting it out....
fire finch (bird)
any of several red-and-brown or red-and-black birds of Africa that usually have fine white dots on their undersides. Fire finches belong to the family Estrildidae (order Passeriformes). Perhaps the commonest and tamest bird in Africa is the 8-centimetre (3-inch) red-billed, or Senegal, fire finch (Lagonosticta senegala), found everywhe...
fire fungus (biological organism)
Peziza, which contains about 50 widespread species, produces in summer a cup-shaped fruiting body or mushroomlike structure on rotting wood or manure. Fire fungus is the common name for two genera (Pyronema and Anthracobia) of the order that grow on burned wood or steamed soil....
fire gilding (decorative art)
(from French dorure d’or moulu: “gilding with gold paste”), gold-coloured alloy of copper, zinc, and sometimes tin, in various proportions but usually containing at least 50 percent copper. Ormolu is used in mounts (ornaments on borders, edges, and as angle guards) for furniture, especially 18th-century furniture, and for other decorative...
Fire in the Borgo (work by Raphael)
...carried by a soldier, and the supernatural light emanating from an angel. Raphael delegated his assistants to decorate the third room, the Stanze dell’Incendio, with the exception of one fresco, the “Fire in the Borgo,” in which his pursuit of more dramatic pictorial incidents and his continuing study of the male nude are plainly apparent....
fire in the fern, the (New Zealand history)
The last of the wars—known to the Europeans as “the fire in the fern” and to the Maori as te riri pakeha, “the white man’s anger,”—was fought from 1864 to 1872. Hostilities spread to virtually the whole of North Island. The main Maori combatants in the mid-60s were the fanatic Hauhau warriors. The British govern...
Fire in the Flint, The (novel by White)
...by the black creative arts. Using the conventions of the novel of manners, Fauset advanced themes of racial uplift, patriotism, optimism for the future, and black solidarity. Walter White’s The Fire in the Flint (1924) focused on the career and then the lynching of a black physician and veteran of World War I. Protesting racial oppression and exposing its most barbaric......
fire insurance
provision against losses caused by fire, lightning, and the removal of property from premises endangered by fire. The insurer agrees, for a fee, to reimburse the insured in the event of such an occurrence. The standard policy limits coverage to the replacement cost of the property destroyed less a depreciation allowance. Indirect loss, such a...
Fire Island (sandspit, New York, United States)
elongated sandspit, 32 miles (51 km) long and 0.5 mile (1 km) across (at its widest point), Suffolk county, New York, U.S. It lies off the southern shore of Long Island and shelters Great South Bay and part of Moriches Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The origin of the island’s name is unclear. One possibility is that i...
fire lily (plant)
one of two species of North American plants constituting the genus Xerophyllum of the family Melanthiaceae. The western species, X. tenax, also is known as elk grass, squaw grass, and fire lily. It is a smooth, light-green mountain perennial with a stout, unbranched stem, from 0.6 to 2 metres (2 to 6 feet) high, which rises from a woody, tuber-like rootstock and cordlike roots.......
Fire Next Time, The (work by Baldwin)
nonfiction book, published in 1963, comprising two previously published essays in letter form by James Baldwin. In these essays Baldwin warned that, if white America did not change its attitudes and policies toward black Americans and alter the conditions under which blacks were forced to...
Fire on the Mountain (novel by Desai)
...in 1957. The suppression and oppression of Indian women were the subjects of her first novel, Cry, the Peacock (1963), and a later novel, Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975). Fire on the Mountain (1977) was criticized as relying too heavily on imagery at the expense of plot and characterization, but it was praised for its poetic symbolism and use of sounds. Clear......
Fire on the Snow, The (work by Stewart)
Stewart’s greatest successes as a playwright were in radio rather than stage plays. The Fire on the Snow, broadcast in 1941, described the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition to Antarctica in 1912. This was followed by The Golden Lover (1944; published with The Fire on the Snow), the retelling of a Maori legend. Three historical dramas for the stage...
fire opal (mineral)
Fire opals usually are facet cut, but most other precious opals are finished en cabochon because their optical properties are best displayed on smoothly rounded surfaces. Undersized fragments are used for inlay work, and small pieces scattered throughout a natural matrix are commonly sold under the name root of opal. Because opal may crack or lose its colour if it dries, many finished stones......
fire, ordeal by (trial process)
The ordeal by physical test, particularly by fire or water, is the most common. In Hindu codes a wife may be required to pass through fire to prove her fidelity to a jealous husband; traces of burning would be regarded as proof of guilt. The practice of dunking suspected witches was based on the notion that water, as the medium of baptism, would “accept,” or receive, the innocent......
fire piston (device)
...variations on the friction method common in Oceania, Australia, and Indonesia. Mechanical fire drills were developed by the Eskimo, ancient Egyptians, Asian peoples, and a few American natives. A fire piston that produced heat and fire by the compression of air in a small tube of bamboo was a complex device invented and used in southeastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. About 1800 a......
fire polishing (chemistry)
...phosphoric, and perchloric acids. The general approach to improving the chemical durability of glass is to make the surface as silica-rich as possible. This can be accomplished by two methods: fire polishing, a procedure that removes alkali ions by volatilization; or surface treatment with a mixture of sulfur dioxide and steam, which extracts alkali by leaching and converting to washable......
fire prevention and control
the prevention, detection, and extinguishment of fires, including such secondary activities as research into the causes of fire, education of the public about fire hazards, and the maintenance and improvement of fire-fighting equipment....
“Fire Raisers, The” (work by Frisch)
...(1953; Don Juan, or The Love of Geometry) is a reinterpretation of the legend of the famous lover of that name. In his powerful parable play Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958; The Firebugs, also published as The Fire Raisers), arsonists insinuate themselves into the house of the weak-willed, complacent Biedermann, who allows them to destroy his home and his......
fire refining
extraction and purification of metals by processes involving the application of heat. The most important operations are roasting, smelting, and refining. Roasting, or heating in air without fusion, transforms sulfide ores into oxides, the sulfur escaping as sulfur dioxide, a gas. Smeltin...
fire salamander (amphibian)
Females of the genera Salamandra and Mertensiella (Salamandridae) may retain the fertilized eggs in the reproductive tract for a variable amount of time. The fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) deposits relatively advanced larvae in the water. In the alpine salamander (Salamandra atra) and Mertensiella, fully metamorphosed individuals are born. One......
Fire Sale (work by Paretsky)
...(2003), which is set in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and uses the backdrop of a murder mystery to criticize the U.S. government’s expanded policing powers. In Fire Sale (2005), V.I. becomes embroiled in a mystery involving a local discount store when she takes over coaching the girls’ basketball team at her former high school....
fire screen (engineering)
...smaller pieces, did not become common until the 18th century. Coal scuttles appeared early in the 18th century and were later adapted into usually ornamental wood boxes or racks for fire logs. The fire screen was developed early in the 19th century to prevent sparks from flying into the room, and it also has been ornamented and shaped to serve decorative as well as functional purposes....
fire step (warfare)
...a trench, soil from the excavation is used to create raised parapets running both in front of and behind the trench. Within the trench are firing positions along a raised forward step called a fire step, and duckboards are placed on the often muddy bottom of the trench to provide secure footing....
fire storm
violent convection caused by a continuous area of intense fire and characterized by destructively violent surface indrafts. Sometimes it is accompanied by tornado-like whirls that develop as hot air from the burning fuel rises. Such a fire is beyond human intervention and subsides only upon the consumption of everything combustible in the locality....
fire tower
...has probably been most successful in detecting lightning-caused fires and is most often employed in areas of relatively low-value lands and inaccessible areas. An aircraft is essentially a moving fire tower, and the problems of detection that apply to a tower also apply to an aircraft; however, new developments in remote-control television, high-resolution photography, heat-sensing devices,......
fire truck
mobile (nowadays self-propelled) piece of equipment used in firefighting. Early fire engines were hand pumps equipped with reservoirs and were moved to the scene of a fire by human or animal power. For large fires, the reservoir was kept filled by a bucket brigade, but that method was inefficient, and the short range of the stream of water necessitated positioning the apparatus dangerously close t...
fire turbine (machine)
Although many devices were subsequently proposed, the first significant advance was covered in an 1872 patent granted to F. Stolze of Germany. Dubbed the fire turbine, his machine consisted of a multistage, axial-flow air compressor that was mounted on the same shaft as a multistage, reaction turbine. Air from the compressor passed through a heat exchanger, where it was heated by the turbine......
fire walking (religious ceremony)
religious ceremony practiced in many parts of the world, including the Indian subcontinent, Malaya, Japan, China, Fiji Islands, Tahiti, Society Islands, New Zealand, Mauritius, Bulgaria, and Spain. It was also practiced in classical Greece and in anci...
Fire Within, The (work by Drieu La Rochelle)
...movement. Characteristic novels of this period include his first novel, L’Homme couvert de femmes (1925; “The Man Covered With Women”), and Le Feu follet (1931; The Fire Within, or Will o’ the Wisp; filmed by Louis Malle in 1963). Le Feu follet is the story of the last hours in the life of a young bourgeois Parisian addict who kills...
fire-assay (chemical process)
...particles randomly distributed, so that a large sample of the ore must be taken. Such large samples—typically containing gold, silver, and lead—can be most economically assayed by the fire method, which usually consists of six steps:...
Fire-Baptized Holiness Church (Christian sect)
Protestant denomination organized in Falcon, N.C., in 1911 by the merger of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church (organized in 1898 by several Pentecostal associations) and the Pentecostal Holiness Church (organized in 1900). A third group, the Tabernacle Pentecostal Church, joined the consolidation in 1915....
fire-bellied toad (amphibian)
(Bombina), small amphibian (family Bombinatoridae) characterized by bright orange markings on the undersides of its grayish body and limbs. The common fire-bellied toad (B. bombina) is a pond dweller about 5 centimetres (2 inches) long. When disturbed it raises its forearms and arches its head and hind legs over its back. Resting on the lower part of its tautly curved abdomen, it fr...
Fire-Bringer, The (play by Moody)
Moody’s early poems, such as “Good Friday Night” (1898), are thought to be beautiful and noble, as are his poetic plays, including The Masque of Judgment (1900) and The Fire-Bringer (1904), from an uncompleted trilogy on the unity of God and man. He abruptly changed his style with his most popular work, The Great Divide (1906), a prose play about conflict....
fire-fish (fish)
(Pterois), any of several species of showy Indo-Pacific fish of the scorpion fish family, Scorpaenidae (order Scorpaeniformes). Lion-fish are noted for their venomous fin spines, which are capable of producing painful, though rarely fatal, puncture wound...
fire-god (mythology)
The sacred fires and fire drills of religious rituals and the numerous fire-gods of world mythology must be interpreted as additional evidence of both the antiquity and the importance of fire in human history. In the ancient Vedic scriptures, Agni, or Fire, is the messenger between the people and their gods and the personification of the sacrificial fire. Brahman households today are supposed......
fire-on-the-mountain (plant)
Annual ornamentals include snow-on-the-mountain (E. marginata), native in the North American west; and many varieties of fire-on-the-mountain (E. heterophylla), from the eastern and central United States to Peru, with red-marked, poinsettia-like green bracts and leaves of varied shape on 90-centimetre- (35-inch-) tall plants....
fire-quenching method (engineering)
...a succession of closely spaced shafts to provide ventilation. To save the need for a lining, most ancient tunnels were located in reasonably strong rock, which was broken off (spalled) by so-called fire quenching, a method involving heating the rock with fire and suddenly cooling it by dousing with water. Ventilation methods were primitive, often limited to waving a canvas at the mouth of the.....
fire-tube boiler (engineering)
...is necessary on all boilers, because continued addition of heat to water in a closed vessel without means of steam escape results in a rise in pressure and, ultimately, in explosion of the boiler. Fire-tube boilers have the advantage of being easy to install and operate. They are widely used in small installations to heat buildings and to provide power for factory processes. Fire-tube boilers.....
firearm (weapon)
weapon consisting essentially of a metal tube from which a missile or projectile is shot by the force of exploding gunpowder or some other propellant. In military science, the term is often limited to cannon larger than a howitzer or mortar, although these latter two t...
fireback (device)
From early times fireplace accessories and furnishings have been objects of decoration. Since at least the 15th century a fireback, a slab of cast iron, protected the back wall of the fireplace from the intense heat; these were usually decorated. After the 19th century the fireback gave way to firebrick in fireplace construction....
fireball (astronomy)
A very significant development in meteor science occurred about two decades later. This was the establishment of large-scale networks for photographing very bright meteors, or fireballs. These networks were designed to provide all-sky coverage of meteors over about a million square kilometres of Earth’s surface. Three such networks were developed—the Prairie Network in the central Un...
Fireball (roller coaster)
In the 1920s Riverview Park in Chicago came closest to rivaling Coney Island, with always at least 6, and sometimes as many as 11, coasters in operation. The Fireball (formerly the Blue Streak) was hyped as the fastest coaster ever built, but the Chicago park’s claim that it reached speeds of 100 miles (160 km) per hour was likely exaggerated by almost 35 percent. The Chicago building code....
Firebee (military aircraft)
It also occurred to planners that RPVs could be used for photographic and electronic reconnaissance. One result of this idea was the AQM-34 Firebee, a modification of a standard U.S. target drone built in various versions since about 1951 by the Ryan Aeronautical Company. First flown in 1962, the reconnaissance Firebee saw extensive service in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. It was also......
Firebell in the Night, A (letter by Jefferson)
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