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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2006. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. No part of this database may be reproduced or otherwise used without prior written permission from the publisher unless such use is expressly permitted by applicable law.

Words are included in this dictionary on the basis of their usage. Words that are known to have current trademark registrations are shown with an initial capital and are also identified as trademarks. No investigation has been made of common-law trademark rights in any word, because such investigation is impracticable. The inclusion of any word in this dictionary is not, however, an expression of the publisher's opinion as to whether or not it is subject to proprietary rights. Indeed, no definition in this dictionary is to be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark.

American Heritage® and the eagle logo are registered trademarks of American Heritage Inc. Their use is pursuant to a license agreement with American Heritage Inc.

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. No part of this database may be reproduced or otherwise used without prior written permission from the publisher unless such use is expressly permitted by applicable law.

No investigation has been made of common-law trademark rights in any word. Words that are known to have current trademark registrations are shown with an initial capital and are also identified as trademarks. The inclusion or exclusion of any word, or its capitalization, in this dictionary is not, however, an expression of the publisher's opinion as to whether or not it is subject to proprietary rights, nor is it to be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark.

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About the Encyclopedia Americana Help Utility

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Encyclopedia Americana Editorial Advisory Board

Members of the encyclopedia's editorial advisory board are listed below.

Henry J. Abraham
James Hart Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs Emeritus, University of Virginia

Jeanine Basinger
Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Wesleyan University

Sacvan Bercovitch
Powell M. Cabot Research Professor of American Literature, Harvard University; Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Jeremy Bernstein
Professor of Physics Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technology

Thomas W. Bohn
Dean Emeritus, Roy H. Park School of Communication, Ithaca College

Joseph T. Butler
Professor of Museum Studies, Fashion Institute of Technology; Curator and Director Emeritus, Historic Hudson Valley, Tarrytown, New York

Donald Christiansen
President and Principal, Informatica, Huntington, New York

E. Lendell Cockrum
Professor Emeritus, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona

Jonathan Culler
Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Cornell University; Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Robert Ehrlich
Professor of Physics, George Mason University

Colin Eisler
Robert Lehman Professor of Fine Arts, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Jean Bethke Elshtain
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics, The Divinity School, University of Chicago

Joseph P. Farrell
Professor, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning; Head, Comparative, International, and Development Education Centre, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Eric Foner
DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University

Sumit Ganguly
Rabindranath Tagore Chair of Indian Cultures and Civilizations and Professor of Political Science, Indiana University

Sheldon L. Glashow
Higgins Professor of Physics Emeritus, Harvard University; Arthur G. B. Metcalf Professor of Physics, Boston University

Sarah Greenough
Curator and Head, Department of Photographs, National Gallery of Art

Sandra G. Gustavson
Bradford McFadden Professor of Personal Financial Management and Associate Dean for Faculty and Administration, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia

Trudier Harris
J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Robert M. Hazen
Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science, George Mason University; Staff Scientist, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Alan K. Henrikson
Director, Fletcher Roundtable on a New World Order, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Richard W. Hill
Professor of Zoology, Michigan State University

Douglas R. Hofstadter
College Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science and Director, Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University

John R. Horner
Curator of Paleontology, Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University

Paul M. Horvitz
Judge James A. Elkins Professor of Banking and Finance Emeritus, University of Houston; Director, Bank United of Texas

Penelope Hunter-Stiebel
Consulting Curator of European Art, Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon

Serope Kalpakjian
Professor Emeritus of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology

Michael Kan
Curator Emeritus of African and Oceanic Art, Detroit Institute of Arts

Richard T. LeGates
Professor of Urban Studies, San Francisco State University

Martin E. Marty
Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity, The Divinity School, University of Chicago

Everett Mendelsohn
Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University

Seyyed Hossein Nasr
University Professor of Islamic Studies, George Washington University

Johanna B. Nichols
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of California at Berkeley

James Oberg
Consultant and Author, Dickinson, Texas

Tanure Ojaide
Poet; Professor of African-American and African Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Fernand Ouellet
Professor of History Emeritus, York University

Ian C. Parker
Professor of Economics, Division of Management, University of Toronto

James M. Poterba
Mitsui Professor and Associate Head, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Director, Public Economics Research Program, National Bureau of Economic Research; Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Colin Renfrew
Disney Professor of Archaeology and Director, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge

Albert R. Roberts
Professor of Criminal Justice and Social Work, Rutgers—The State University of New Jersey

Witold Rybczynski
Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism, Graduate School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania; Professor, Department of Real Estate, Wharton School

Emily J. Sano
Director, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Jerome B. Schneewind
Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Johns Hopkins University; Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Gunther A. Schuller
Composer and Musician, Newton Centre, Massachusetts

Robert M. Seltzer
Professor of History, Hunter College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York; Director, Jewish Social Studies Program, Hunter College

Peter Sluglett
Professor of Middle Eastern History, University of Utah

Barbara Hernnstein Smith
Braxton Craven Professor of Comparative Literature and English and Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory, Duke University; Distinguished Professor of English, Brown University

Bruce L. R. Smith
Society of Fellows, Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University

Fritz Stern
University Professor of History Emeritus, Columbia University

Pierre A. Swiggers
Professor of Linguistics, Catholic University of Leuven; Professor of Romance Studies, University of Liège

Palmer Taylor
Sandra and Monroe Trout Professor of Pharmacology, University of California at San Diego

Rudolf L. Tökés
Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Connecticut; Professorial Fellow, Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hungary

Louis Weinberg
Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science, City University of New York

Claude E. Welch, Jr.
Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, State University of New York at Buffalo

R. M. Younger
Writer and Historian, Kew, Australia

Staff Acknowledgments

Creation and maintenance of the Encyclopedia Americana is the responsibility of many people fulfilling diverse roles. Grolier Online and Scholastic Inc. would like to acknowledge the following groups and individuals for their efforts:

Project Management

Duncan F. Young
General Manager, Grolier Online

Joseph M. Castagno
Senior Director: Student Reference; Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia Americana

Trudy Tuffy
Senior Director, Grolier Online

Juliette G. Bradley
Senior Director, Internet Product

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Director, Publishing Technologies

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Tone I. Ruccio
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Encyclopedia Americana Editorial Staff

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Encyclopedia Americana Journal

Barbara Letta Cole
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