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Taxodium distichum (species)
either of two species of ornamental and timber conifers constituting the genus Taxodium (family Cupressaceae), native to swampy areas of southern North America. The name bald cypress, or swamp cypress, is used most frequently a...
Taxodium mucronatum (plant)
The closely related Montezuma or Mexican cypress (T. mucronatum) is native to the southwestern U.S., Mexico, and Guatemala. It is distinguished from the bald cypress by its shorter, persistent leaves and larger cones. It rarely produces knees....
taxol (chemical compound)
Organic compound with a complex multi-ring molecule that occurs in the bark of Pacific yew trees (Taxus brevifolia). It is active against certain cancers of the lung, ovary, breast, head, and neck, disrupting cell division and interfering with separation of the nuclear chromosomes. A semisynthetic process t...
taxon (biology)
any unit used in the science of biological classification, or taxonomy. Taxa are arranged in a hierarchy from kingdom to subspecies, a given taxon ordinarily including several taxa of lower rank. In the classification of protists, plants, and animals, certain taxonomic categories are universally recognized; in descending ord...
taxon cycle (biology)
...through the transmission of chemical substances known as pheromones. In the course of revising the classification of ants native to the South Pacific, he formulated the concept of the “taxon cycle,” in which speciation and species dispersal are linked to the varying habitats that organisms encounter as their populations expand. In 1971 he published The......
taxonomy (biology)
in a broad sense, the science of classification, but more strictly the classification of living and extinct organisms—i.e., biological classification. The term is derived from the Greek taxis (“arrangement”) and nomos (“law”). Taxonomy is, therefore, the method...
Taxopsida (gymnosperm class)
...bearing woody ovuliferous scales derived from flattened dwarf branches; seeds borne on the upper surface; 6 living families, with 62 genera and 515 species.Class TaxopsidaTriassic to the present; trees or shrubs; leaves needlelike; microstrobili with microsporophylls bearing abaxial microsporangia; seeds not in megastrobi...
Taxus (plant)
any tree or shrub of the genus Taxus (family Taxaceae), approximately eight species of ornamental evergreens, distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Other trees called yew but not in this genus are the plum-yew, Prince Albert yew (see Podocarpaceae), and stinking yew...
Taxus baccata (plant)
(all three are lumber trade names), an ornamental evergreen tree or shrub of the yew family (Taxaceae), widely distributed throughout Europe and Asia as far east as the Himalayas. Some botanists consider the Himalayan form to be a separate species, called Himalayan yew. Rising to a height of 10 to 30 metres (about 35 to 100 feet), the tree has spreading branch...
Taxus brevifolia (plant)
(Taxus brevifolia), an evergreen timber tree of the yew family (Taxaceae). It is the only commercially important yew native to North America, where it is found from Alaska...
Taxus canadensis (Taxus canadensis)
(Taxus canadensis), a prostrate, straggling evergreen shrub of the family Taxaceae, found in northeastern North America. American yew also is a lumber trade name for the Pacific yew...
Taxus celebica (plant)
(Taxus celebica), a large, ornamental evergreen shrub or tree of the yew family (Taxaceae), widespread in China at elevations up to 900 metres (3,000 feet). The tree is up to 14 m (46 ft) tall and wide and bushy when cultivated. The leaves are ...
Taxus cuspidata (plant)
an ornamental evergreen shrub or tree of the yew family (Taxaceae), native to Japan and widely cultivated in the Northern Hemisphere. Rising to a height of 16 metres (about 52 feet), it resembles the English yew but is hardier and faster-growing. Each leaf has two distinct, yellowish bands on its underside. There are many ho...
Taxus media (plant)
...prostrate and shrubby, while cuttings from leader shoots are erect and symmetrically conical. Several hybrids have been obtained by crossing the Japanese yew with the English yew; the most common, Taxus ×media, has about 10 varieties....
Tay (people)
Chu Van Tan became chieftain of the Tho, a tribal ethnic minority in the mountainous regions of northern Vietnam near the China border. Before World War II, Chu Van Tan organized his people into a revolutionary militia to resist the French. By 1940–41 he had formed an effective fighting force, the Vietnam National Salvation Army, and won a victory over French-directed troops in the Red......
Tay language (Asian dialect)
...as well: older names include Pai-i (Dai); Chuang-chia (Zhuang); Chung-chia, Dioi, Jui, and Yai (Buyei); and Tho, which is still sometimes used for the language or languages now known in Vietnam as Tay. Ahom, an extinct language once spoken in Assam (India), has a considerable amount of literature. The Tai languages are divided into three linguistic groups—the Southwestern, the Central,.....
Tay Ninh (Vietnam)
town, southern Vietnam, situated on a tributary of the Vam Co Tay River, 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and 25 miles (40 km) from the border with Kampuchea. Tay Ninh is the seat of the Cao...
Tay, River (river, Scotland, United Kingdom)
longest river in Scotland, flowing about 120 miles (193 km) from its source on the north slopes of Ben Lui to the North Sea below Dundee. The river drains 2,400 square miles (6,216 square km), the largest drainage area in Scotland. Before reaching the stretch of Loch Tay (15 miles [24 km] long) at Killin, the headwaters flow under the names Fillan and Dochart. On leaving Loch Tay at Kenmore, the r...
Tay Son brothers (Vietnamese rebels)
collective name for Nguyen Hue (b. c. 1752—d. 1792), Nguyen Nhac (b. c. 1752—d. Dec. 16, 1793...
Tay Son rebellion (Vietnamese history)
...Europeans were neither ubiquitous nor in a position to rule, even in Java. The most serious circumstances were undoubtedly those of Vietnam, where from 1771 to 1802 there raged a struggle—the Tay Son rebellion—over the very nature of the state. This rebellion threatened to sweep away the entire Confucian establishment of Vietnam, and perhaps would have done so if its leader had no...
Tay-Sachs disease (medical disorder)
hereditary metabolic disorder that causes progressive mental and neurologic deterioration and results in death in early childhood. The disease is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait and occurs most commonly among people of eastern European (Ashkenazic) Jewish origin....
Taya, Maaouya Ould Sidi Ahmed (president of Mauritania)
Area: 1,030,700 sq km (398,000 sq mi) | Population (2005 est.): 3,069,000 | Capital: Nouakchott | Chief of state: President Col. Maaouya Ould SidʾAhmed Taya and, from August 3, Chairman of the Military Council for Justice and Democracy Ely Ould Mohamed Vall | Head of government: Prime Ministers Sghair Ould MʾBarek and, from August 7, Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubakar | ...
Tayacian industry (archaeological record)
primitive flake-tool tradition of France and Israel, believed to be essentially a smaller edition of the Clactonian industry....
tayageum (musical instrument)
large transverse bamboo flute with a distinctive sound, widely used in Korean music. The taegǔm is about 84 cm (33 inches) long. It has a mouthpiece opening and six finger holes, as well as two to five open holes toward the end. A special aperture covered with a reed membrane giv...
Tayama Katai (Japanese novelist)
novelist who was a central figure in the development of the Japanese naturalist school of writing....
Tayama Rokuya (Japanese novelist)
novelist who was a central figure in the development of the Japanese naturalist school of writing....
Tayassu pecari (mammal)
The white-lipped peccary (T. pecari) is slightly darker and larger, weighing 25–40 kg (55–88 pounds). Named for the white area around the mouth, its range is limited to Central and South America, where forest and scrub are the primary habitats. These peccaries live in herds of 50 to over 300 and are more severely impacted by habitat destruction....
Tayassu tajacu (mammal)
There are three species. The collared peccary (Tayassu tajacu) is the smallest and the most common, living throughout the entire tayassuid range in a variety of habitats. Distinguished by a pale stripe around the neck, collared peccaries are less than a metre (three feet) long and weigh between 17 and 30 kg (37 and 66 pounds). They live in a variety of habitats, generally roving during......
Tayassuidae (mammal)
any of the three species of piglike mammal found in the southern deserts of the United States southward through the Amazon basin to Patagonian South America (see Patagonia). Closely resembling the ...
Taychiut (Mongolian family)
With Yesügei dead, the remainder of the clan, led by the rival Taychiut family, abandoned his widow, Höelün, and her children, considering them too weak to exercise leadership and seizing the opportunity to usurp power. For a time the small family led a life of extreme poverty, eating roots and fish instead of the normal nomad diet of mutton and mare’s milk. Two anecdot...
Taydula (Russia)
city and administrative centre of Tula oblast (region), western Russia. It lies along the Upa River, which is a tributary of the Oka River. First mentioned in 1146 as Taydula, Tula became the principal stronghold on the southern approaches to Moscow in the 16th century and the centre of a series of defensive lines aga...
Taygete (Greek mythology)
in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus)....
Taygete (astronomy)
...of which six or seven can be seen by the unaided eye and have figured prominently in the myths and literature of many cultures. In Greek mythology the Seven Sisters (Alcyone, Maia, Electra, Merope, Taygete, Celaeno, and Sterope, names now assigned to individual stars), daughters of Atlas and Pleione, were changed into the stars. The heliacal (near dawn) rising of the Pleiades in spring of the.....
Táygetos (mountains, Greece)
mountain range, southern Peloponnese (Modern Greek: Pelopónnisos), Greece. The maximum elevation is approximately 7,874 feet (2,400 m) in the range, which imposes a barrier between the regions of Laconia (Lakonía) and Messenia (Messinía). Called the five-fingered mountain by the ancient epic poet Homer, the Taïyetos...
Taygetus Mountains (mountains, Greece)
mountain range, southern Peloponnese (Modern Greek: Pelopónnisos), Greece. The maximum elevation is approximately 7,874 feet (2,400 m) in the range, which imposes a barrier between the regions of Laconia (Lakonía) and Messenia (Messinía). Called the five-fingered mountain by the ancient epic poet Homer, the Taïyetos...
Tayghetus Mountains (mountains, Greece)
mountain range, southern Peloponnese (Modern Greek: Pelopónnisos), Greece. The maximum elevation is approximately 7,874 feet (2,400 m) in the range, which imposes a barrier between the regions of Laconia (Lakonía) and Messenia (Messinía). Called the five-fingered mountain by the ancient epic poet Homer, the Taïyetos...
Tayif, aṭ- (Saudi Arabia)
city, western Saudi Arabia. Lying at an elevation of 6,165 feet (1,879 metres) on a tableland southeast of Mecca, it is the country’s principal summer resort. Once the seat of the pagan goddess Allat, it is revered now as the site of the tomb of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās, a cousin of the Prophe...
tayil (music genre)
...(and part of Paraguay), home to the Mbyá. Only the Mapuche have been extensively studied by music researchers.The most studied genre among this people is known as tayil and is performed only by women. Tayil recall a man’s ancestral lineage and are essential to the healing rituals led by female shamans. The...
Tayler, Doris May (British writer)
British writer whose novels and short stories are largely concerned with people involved in the social and political upheavals of the 20th century. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007....
Taylor & Francis (European company)
British writer whose novels and short stories are largely concerned with people involved in the social and political upheavals of the 20th century. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.......
Taylor, A. J. P. (British historian and journalist)
British historian and journalist noted for his lectures on history and for his prose style....
Taylor, Alan John Percivale (British historian and journalist)
British historian and journalist noted for his lectures on history and for his prose style....
Taylor, Albert Hoyt (American physicist and radio engineer)
American physicist and radio engineer whose work underlay the development of radar in the United States....
Taylor, Ann (British author)
...the poetry the young really read or listened to at the opening of the 19th century was not Blake but Original Poems for Infant Minds (1804), by “Several Young Persons,” including Ann and Jane Taylor. The Taylor sisters, though adequately moral, struck a new note of sweetness, of humour, at any rate of nonpriggishness. Their “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,”......
Taylor, Art (American musician)
U.S. jazz drummer and bandleader (b. April 6, 1929--d. Feb. 6, 1995)....
Taylor, Bayard (American travel writer)
American author known primarily for his lively travel narratives and for his translation of J.W. von Goethe’s Faust....
Taylor, Billy (American musician, educator, and broadcaster)
July 24, 1921Greenville, N.C.Dec. 28, 2010New York, N.Y.American jazz pianist, educator, and broadcaster who became the most prominent spokesman for the virtues of jazz, beginning with The Subject Is Jazz, a 1958 television series for which he was musical director. After hosting (196...
Taylor, Brook (British mathematician)
British mathematician, a proponent of Newtonian mechanics and noted for his contributions to the development of calculus....
Taylor, Cecil (American musician)
American jazz musician and composer, the leading free-jazz pianist....
Taylor, Cecil Percival (American musician)
American jazz musician and composer, the leading free-jazz pianist....
Taylor, Charles (Canadian philosopher)
Canadian philosopher known for his examination of the modern self. He produced a large body of work that is remarkable for its range—both for the number of areas and issues it addresses as well as for the breadth of scholarship it draws upon. His writings have been translated into a host of Western and non-Western languages....
Taylor, Charles Ghankay (president of Liberia)
Liberian politician and guerrilla leader who served as Liberia’s president from 1997 until he was forced into exile in 2003. He was widely held responsible for the country’s devastating civil war during the 1990s....
Taylor, Charles H. (American publisher)
Founded in 1872, the Globe grew slowly at first, reaching a circulation of about 8,000 in 1877, when it was purchased by Charles H. Taylor. Under Taylor as publisher, the Globe began to publish an evening as well as a morning edition, to increase its coverage of New England and local news, and to feature big headlines, especially on......
Taylor, Charles Margrave (Canadian philosopher)
Canadian philosopher known for his examination of the modern self. He produced a large body of work that is remarkable for its range—both for the number of areas and issues it addresses as well as for the breadth of scholarship it draws upon. His writings have been translated into a host of Western and non-Western languages....
Taylor, Charles Plunket Bourchier (Canadian journalist)
Canadian journalist, author of five books, and horseman whose career with the Toronto-based Globe and Mail took him to East Asia, where he was responsible for negotiating the reopening of the paper’s Beijing bureau, and also to England, Africa, the Middle East...
Taylor, Claudia Alta (first lady of the United States)
American first lady (1963–69), the wife of Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th president of the United States, and an environmentalist noted for her emphasis on beautification....
Taylor, Cora (American journalist)
Unable to get to Cuba, Crane went to Greece to report the Greco-Turkish War for the New York Journal. He was accompanied by Cora Taylor, a former brothel-house proprietor. At the end of the war they settled in England in a villa at Oxted, Surrey, and in April 1898 Crane departed to report the Spanish-American War in Cuba, first for the New York World and then for the New York......
Taylor, Dame Elizabeth (American actress)
American motion picture actress noted for her unique beauty and her portrayals of volatile and strong-willed characters....
Taylor, David Watson (American naval architect)
American marine architect who built the first ship-model testing establishment in the United States at the Washington (D.C.) Navy Yard, and formulated basic principles of ship design....
Taylor, Drew Hayden (Canadian author)
...Cowboy, 2001), Monique Mojica (Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots, 1991), Daniel David Moses (The Indian Medicine Shows, 1995), and Drew Hayden Taylor (Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock, 1990; In a World Created by a Drunken God, 2006) expose the stereotypes and dilemmas of differ...
Taylor, Edward (American poet)
one of the foremost poets in colonial British North America....
Taylor, Elizabeth (British author)
British novelist noted for her precise use of language and scrupulously understated style....
Taylor, Elizabeth (American actress)
American motion picture actress noted for her unique beauty and her portrayals of volatile and strong-willed characters....
Taylor, Elizabeth (American singer)
American singer whose exceptional voice made her a popular performer in Great Britain....
Taylor, Elizabeth Rosemond (American actress)
American motion picture actress noted for her unique beauty and her portrayals of volatile and strong-willed characters....
Taylor, Frank B. (American geologist)
...fossil plants in both North American and European coal deposits could be explained if the two continents had formerly been connected, a relationship otherwise difficult to account for. In 1908 Frank B. Taylor of the United States invoked the notion of continental collision to explain the formation of some of the world’s mountain ranges....
Taylor, Fred (American basketball coach)
American basketball coach (b. Dec. 3, 1924, Zanesville, Ohio—d. Jan. 6, 2002, Hilliard, Ohio), was the longtime head basketball coach at Ohio State University; during his tenure at the university from 1958 to 1976, Ohio State won the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship in 1960 and reached the title g...
Taylor, Frederick W. (American inventor and engineer)
American inventor and engineer who is known as the father of scientific management. His system of industrial management has influenced the development of virtually every country enjoying the benefits of modern industry....
Taylor, Frederick Winslow (American inventor and engineer)
American inventor and engineer who is known as the father of scientific management. His system of industrial management has influenced the development of virtually every country enjoying the benefits of modern industry....
Taylor, Gordon Rattray (British author and broadcaster)
...likewise…. The number of nerve fibres in a nerve trunk falls by a quarter. The weight of our brains falls from an average of 3.03 lb. to 2.27 lb. as cells die and are not replaced…. (Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Biological Time Bomb, 1968.)Let me disclose the gifts reserved for ageTo set a crown upon your lifetime’s......
Taylor, Griffith (Australian geographer)
...nationalistic sentiments that proclaimed “population capacities” of 100 to 500 million in Australia’s “vast empty spaces.” In the interwar period the Australian geographer Griffith Taylor argued that there were stringent environmental limits that would restrict Australia’s population to approximately 20 million people by the end of the 20th century. Tay...
Taylor, Henry (American poet)
...nationalistic sentiments that proclaimed “population capacities” of 100 to 500 million in Australia’s “vast empty spaces.” In the interwar period the Australian geographer Griffith Taylor argued that there were stringent environmental limits that would restrict Australia’s population to approximately 20 million people by the end of the 20th century. Tay...
Taylor, Henry (British athlete)
British swimmer who won five Olympic medals and was the first man to hold world records in the 400-metre, 880-yard, and 1,500-metre freestyle events....
Taylor, James (American musician)
American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who defined the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s. Bob Dylan brought confessional poetry to folk rock, but Taylor became the epitome of the troubadour whose life was the subject of his songs....
Taylor, James Bayard (American travel writer)
American author known primarily for his lively travel narratives and for his translation of J.W. von Goethe’s Faust....
Taylor, Jane (British author)
...the young really read or listened to at the opening of the 19th century was not Blake but Original Poems for Infant Minds (1804), by “Several Young Persons,” including Ann and Jane Taylor. The Taylor sisters, though adequately moral, struck a new note of sweetness, of humour, at any rate of nonpriggishness. Their “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” included in......
Taylor, Jean (American mathematician)
...is an exciting area of current research with many attractive unsolved problems and conjectures. One of the major triumphs of global analysis occurred in 1976 when the American mathematicians Jean Taylor and Frederick Almgren obtained the mathematical derivation of the Plateau conjecture, which states that, when several soap films join together (for example, when several bubbles meet each......
Taylor, Jeremy (British author)
Anglican clergyman and writer....
Taylor, Jim (American football player)
...tackle came in the 1960 NFL championship: with the Eagles holding a 17–13 lead over the Green Bay Packers in the final seconds of the game, Bednarik alone stood between the end zone and Jim Taylor as the Packer fullback rumbled across the Eagles’ 10-yard-line only to be brought down by Bednarik, who remained on top of Taylor until time ran out to clinch the championship for......
Taylor, John (British charlatan)
...except that it lasted several months and prevented him from finishing The Art of the Fugue. His constitution was undermined by two unsuccessful eye operations performed by John Taylor, the itinerant English quack who numbered Handel among his other failures; and Bach died on July 28, 1750, at Leipzig. His employers proceeded with relief to appoint a successor;......
Taylor, John (British writer)
minor English poet, pamphleteer, and journalist who called himself “the Water Poet.”...
Taylor, John (American politician and philosopher)
one of the leading American philosophers of the liberal agrarian political movement—commonly known as Jeffersonian democracy—during the early national period....
Taylor, John (British adventuress)
British woman who served in the English army and navy disguised as a man. She was later known as the “British Amazon.”...
Taylor, John (British clergyman)
By 1757 Edwards had finished his Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended (1758), which was mainly a reply to the English divine John Taylor of Norwich, whose works attacking Calvinism (based on the thought of the 16th-century Protestant Reformer John Calvin) had “made a mighty noise in America.” Edwards defended the doctrine not only by citing biblical statements......
Taylor, John Henry (British golfer)
British professional golfer, a member of the “Great Triumvirate” (with Harry Vardon and James Braid) that won the British Open 16 times between 1894 and 1914, Taylor winning in 1894, 1895, 1900, 1909, and 1913. He was the first English pro...
Taylor, Joseph (British actor)
English actor mentioned in the First Folio of Shakespeare in 1623 as one of the 26 who took principal parts in all of those plays and one of the 10 actors who signed the dedication of the first folio (1647) of Beaumont and Fletcher....
Taylor, Joseph H., Jr. (American astronomer)
American radio astronomer and physicist who, with Russell A. Hulse, was the corecipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery of the first binary pulsar....
Taylor, Joseph Hooton (American astronomer)
American radio astronomer and physicist who, with Russell A. Hulse, was the corecipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery of the first binary pulsar....
Taylor, June (American choreographer)
American choreographer (b. Dec. 14, 1917, Chicago, Ill.—d. May 17, 2004, Miami, Fla.), began dancing professionally when she was 12, had her career ended by tuberculosis at age 20, and thereupon became a choreographer. Her June Taylor Dancers attained success in nightclubs and then in 1948 began being seen on television, first on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town and on Caval...
Taylor, Kamala (Indian author)
Indian novelist whose works concern the struggles of contemporary Indians with conflicting Eastern and Western values....
Taylor, Kenneth (American publisher)
American publisher (b. May 8, 1917, Portland, Ore.—d. June 10, 2005, Wheaton, Ill.), founded (1962) Tyndale House Publishers, a prominent Christian publisher, but was best known as the creator of The Living Bible (1972), which featured paraphrasing from the King James version of the Bible in an attempt to make readings more accessible to a broader audience. After receiving little enc...
Taylor, Koko (American blues singer)
Sept. 28, 1928Bartlett, Tenn.June 3, 2009Chicago, Ill.American blues singer who forged a musical career that spanned nearly half a century and earned her the nickname “Queen of the Blues.” Both of Taylor’s parents had died by the time she was 11 years old, and she and h...
Taylor, Krissy (American fashion model)
American fashion model perhaps best known as a face of the cosmetics companies CoverGirl and L’Oréal. She was the sister of supermodel Niki Taylor. Taylor walked the runways for the top fashion houses, including Fendi and Ralph Lauren. She was featured in the leading beauty and fashion magazi...
Taylor, Kristen Erin (American fashion model)
American fashion model perhaps best known as a face of the cosmetics companies CoverGirl and L’Oréal. She was the sister of supermodel Niki Taylor. Taylor walked the runways for the top fashion houses, including Fendi and Ralph Lauren. She was featured in the leading beauty and fashion magazi...
Taylor, Laurette (American actress)
American actress whose stage career spanned more than 30 years....
Taylor, Lawrence (American football player)
American collegiate and professional gridiron football player, considered one of the best linebackers in the history of the game. As a member of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL), he won Super Bowl championships following the 1986 and 1990 seasons....
Taylor, Lawrence Julius (American football player)
American collegiate and professional gridiron football player, considered one of the best linebackers in the history of the game. As a member of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL), he won Super Bowl championships following the 1986 and 1990 seasons....
Taylor, Lionel (American football player)
...the Broncos never posted a winning record, and they finished last in their division on six occasions. The team did have a few standout players at this time, however, including wide receiver Lionel Taylor, who led the AFL in receptions five times, and running back Floyd Little. After the 1970 NFL-AFL merger, the Broncos continued to dwell in the divisional cellar before having their......
Taylor, Lucy Hobbs (American dentist)
the first American woman to earn a degree in dentistry....
Taylor, Margaret (American first lady)
American first lady (1849–50), the wife of Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States....