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 Talk Talk - Communication terms
Category: General technical and industrial
Date & country: 28/05/2010, UK
Words: 18630


Mary I
Queen of England from 1553. She was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragón. When Edward VI died, Mary secured the crown without difficulty in spite of the conspiracy to substitute Lady Jane Grey. In 1554 Mary married Philip II of Spain, and as a devout Roman Catholic obtained the restoration of papal supremacy and sanctioned...

Mary
(biblical) In the New Testament, the mother of Jesus through divine intervention (see Annunciation and Virgin Birth), wife of Joseph. The Roman Catholic Church maintains belief in her Immaculate Conception (birth without original sin) and bodily assumption into heaven, and venerates her as a m...

Mary, Duchess of Burgundy
Daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. She married Maximilian of Austria in 1477, thus bringing the Low Countries into the possession of the Habsburgs and, ultimately, of Spain

Mary Queen of Scots
Queen of Scotland (1542–67). Also known as Mary Stuart, she was the daughter of James V. Mary's connection with the English royal line from Henry VII made her a threat to Elizabeth I's hold on the English throne, especially as she represented a champion of the Catholic cause. She was mar...

Marxism
Click images to enlargePhilosophical system, developed by the 19th-century German social theorists Marx and Engels, also known as dialectical materialism, under which matter gives rise to mind (materialism) and all is subject to change (from dialectic; see Hegel). As applied to history, it supposes that the succes...

Marx Brothers
Team of US film comedians: the silent Adolph Harpo (from the harp he played) (1888–1964); Julius Groucho (from his temper) (1890–1977); Leonard Chico (from the `chicks` – women – he chased) (1891–1961); Milton Gummo (from his gumshoes, or galoshes) (1892–1977), who left the team before they be...

Marx, Karl Heinrich
Click images to enlargeGerman philosopher, economist, and social theorist whose account of class change through conflict, `the materialist conception of history` is known as historical, or dialectical, materialism (see Marxism). His Das Kapital/Capital (1867–95) is the fundamental tex...

martyr
One who voluntarily suffers death for refusing to renounce a religious faith. The first recorded Christian martyr was St Stephen, who was killed in Jerusalem shortly after the apostles began to preach

Marvell, Andrew
Click images to enlargeEnglish metaphysical poet and satirist. In `To His Coy Mistress` (1650–52) and `An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland` (1650) he produced, respectively, the most searching seduction and political poems in the language. He was committed to the Parliamentary ...

Martin V
Pope from 1417. A member of the Roman family of Colonna, he was elected during the Council of Constance, and ended the Great Schism between the rival popes of Rome and Avignon

Martinmas
In the Christian calendar, the feast of St Martin, 11 November. On this day fairs were traditionally held, at which farmworkers were hired. In the Middle Ages it was also the day on which cattle were slaughtered and salted for winter consumption

Martinique
French island, one of the Windward Islands in the West Indies (Lesser Antilles); area 1,079 sq km/417 sq mi; population (1999 est) 381,400. The capital is Fort-de-France. The island is mountainous and has several active volcanoes; a major eruption of the volcano Mont Pelé...

Martinu, Bohuslav Jan
Czech composer. He settled in New York after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939. His music is voluble, richly expressive, and has great vitality. His works include the operas Julietta (1937) and The Greek Passion (1959), symphonies, and chamber music

martial arts
Any of several styles of armed and unarmed combat developed in the East from ancient techniques and arts. Common martial arts include aikido, judo, jujitsu, karate, kendo, and kung fu

martial law
Replacement of civilian by military authorities in the maintenance of order

Martial,
(Marcus Valerius Martialis) Latin poet and epigrammatist. Born in Bilbilis, Spain, Martial settled in Rome in AD 64, where he lived a life of poverty and dependence. His poetry, often obscene, is keenly observant of all classes in contemporary Rome. Of his works the following survive: abou...

Marston Moor, Battle of
Battle fought in the English Civil War on 2 July 1644 on Marston Moor, 11 km/7 mi west of York. The Royalists were conclusively defeated by the Parliamentarians and Scots. The Royalist forces were commanded by Prince Rupert and William Cavendish (later Duke of Newcastle); their opponents by Oliver Cromwell and Lord Leven. Lord Fairfax, on t...

Marshall, George Catlett
US general and diplomat. He was army chief of staff in World War II, secretary of state 1947–49, and secretary of defence September 1950–September 1951. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953 for initiating the Marshall Plan for European economic recovery in 1947

Marsh,
(Edith) New Zealand detective fiction writer. Her first detective novel A Man Lay Dead (1934) introduced her protagonist Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. She was made DBE in 1966

Marseille
Chief seaport and second city of France, and administrative centre of the département of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, situated on the Golfe du Lion on the Mediterranean Sea; population (2002 est) 815,100, conurbation 1,532,400. Industries include chemicals, ...

Marsala
(town) Port in western Sicily, Italy, on the Mediterranean coast 30 km/19 mi south of Trapani; population (2001) 77,800. The nationalist leader Giuseppe Garibaldi landed here in 1860 at the start of his campaign to capture Sicily for Italy. The town produces the sweet wine of the same ...

marriage
Legally or culturally sanctioned union of one man and one woman (monogamy); one man and two or more women (polygamy); one woman and two or more men (polyandry). The basis of marriage varies considerably in different societies (romantic love in the West; arranged marriages in some other societies), but most marriage ceremonies, contracts...

Marrakesh
Historic imperial city in Morocco in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, about 210 km/130 mi south of Casablanca; population (2001 est) 736,500. It is a tourist centre, and has textile, leather, and food processing industries. Founded in 1062, it has a medieval palace and mosques, and was formerly the capital of Morocco. The tourist indus...

Maronite
Member of a Christian sect deriving from refugee Monothelites (Christian heretics) of the 7th century. They were subsequently united with the Roman Catholic Church and number about 400,000 in Lebanon and Syria, with an equal number scattered in southern Europe and the Americas

marquess
Title and rank of a nobleman who in the British peerage ranks below a duke and above an earl. The wife of a marquess is a marchioness. The first English marquess was created in 1385, but the lords of the Scottish and Welsh Marches were known as marchiones before this date

Marne, Battles of the
In World War I, two unsuccessful German offensives in northern France. In the First Battle 6–9 September 1914, German advance was halted by French and British troops under the overall command of the French general Jospeh Joffre; in the Second Battle 15 July–4 August 1918, the German advance was defeated by British, French, and US troo...

Marne
(river) River in France which rises in the plateau of Langres and joins the Seine at Charenton near Paris; length 525 km/326 mi. It gives its name to the départements of Marne, Haute-Marne, Seine-et-Marne, and Val-de-Marne, and to two battles...

Marmara, Sea of
Small inland sea in Turkey, connected to the Black Sea by the Bosporus and to the Aegean Sea by the Dardanelles, separating the continents of Europe and Asia; area 11,140 sq km/4,300 sq mi. In parts it reaches depths of over 1,200 m/3,936 ft. There are several islands in the sea that contain white-marble quarries, the largest of whi...

Marlowe, Christopher
English poet and dramatist. His work includes the blank-verse (written in unrhymed verse) plays Tamburlaine the Great in two parts (1587–88), The Jew of Malta (c. 1591), Edward II (c. 1592) and Dr Faustus (c....

Marks, Simon
English chain-store magnate. His father, Russian immigrant Michael Marks, had started a number of `penny bazaars` with Yorkshireman Tom Spencer in 1887. Simon Marks entered the business in 1907 and, with his brother-in-law Israel (later Lord) Seiff (1899–1972), he built up a national chain of Marks & Spencer stores

Markova, Alicia
English ballet dancer. A dancer of delicacy and lightness, she was associated with the great classical ballets such as Giselle. She danced with the Diaghilev Ballet 1925–29, was the first resident ballerina of the Vic-Wells Ballet 1933–35, partnered Anton Dolin in their own Markova–Dolin Ballet Company 1935...

Mark Antony
Roman politician and soldier who was the last serious rival to Octavian's (later Augustus) domination of the Roman world. He served under Julius Caesar in Gaul and during the civil war when he commanded the left wing at the final battle of Pharsalus. He was consul with Caesar in 44 when he tried to secure for him the title of king. After Caesar...

Mark, St
In the New Testament, Christian apostle and evangelist whose name is given to the second Gospel. It was probably written AD 65–70, and used by the authors of the first and third Gospels. He is the patron saint of Venice, and his emblem is a winged lion. His feast day is 25 April

Marius, Gaius
Roman general and politician. He was elected consul seven times, the first time in 107 BC. He defeated the Cimbri and the Teutons (Germanic tribes attacking Gaul and Italy) 102–101 BC. Marius tried to deprive Sulla of the command in the east against Mithridates and, as a result, civil war broke out in 88 BC. Sulla marched on Rome, and Marius f...

maritime law
That part of the law dealing with the sea: in particular, fishing areas, ships, and navigation. Seas are divided into internal waters governed by a state's internal laws (such as harbours, inlets); territorial waters (the area of sea adjoining the coast over which a state claims rights); the continental shelf (the seabed and subsoil...

marionette
Type of puppet, a jointed figure controlled from above by wires or strings. Intricately crafted marionettes were used in Burma (now Myanmar) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and later at the courts of Italian princes in the 16th–18th centuries

Marinetti,
(Emilio) Italian author. In 1909 he published Manifesto del Futurismo, the first manifesto of Futurism, exhorting the youth of Italy to break with tradition in art, poetry, and the novel and face the challenges of a new machine age. He illustrated his theories in Ma...

malaria
Infectious parasitic disease of the tropics transmitted by mosquitoes, marked by periodic fever and an enlarged spleen. When a female mosquito of the Anopheles genus bites a human who has malaria, it takes in with the human blood one of four malaria protozoa of the genus P...

Mahón
Capital and port of the Spanish island of Menorca; population (2001) 23,300. Probably founded by the Carthaginians, it was under British occupation 1708–56 and 1762–82

Maratha
Member of a people living mainly in Maharashtra state, western India. There are about 40 million speakers of Marathi, a language belonging to the Indo-European family. The Marathas are mostly farmers, and practise Hinduism. In the 17th and 18th centuries the Marathas formed a powerful military confederacy in rivalry with the Mogul emperors. The...

Mahler, Gustav
Austrian composer and conductor. He composed nine large-scale symphonies incorporating folk music and pastoral imagery, with many using voices, including Symphony No 2, the `Resurrection` (1884–86). He revised it in 1893–96, but left a tenth unfinished. He also composed orchestral lieder (songs) including ...

Mahdi
In Islam, the title of a coming messiah who will establish a reign of justice on earth. The title has been assumed by many Muslim leaders, notably the Sudanese sheikh Muhammad Ahmed (1848–1885), who headed a revolt in 1881 against Egypt and in 1885 captured Khartoum. His great-grandson Sadiq el Mahdi (1936– ), leader of the Umma ...

maharishi
Hindu guru (teacher), or spiritual leader. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) influenced the Beatles and other Westerners in the 1960s

Mahayana
One of the two major forms of Buddhism, found in China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet. Veneration of bodhisattvas (those who achieve enlightenment but remain on the human plane in order to help other living beings) is a fundamental belief in Mahayana, as is the idea that everyone has within them the seeds of Buddhahood. The Lotus Sutra...

Maharashtra
State in west central India; area 307,762 sq km/118,828 sq mi; population (2001 est) 96,752,200. The capital is Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and other towns and cities include Pune, Nagpur, Ulhasnagar, Solapur, Nasik, Thana, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Sangli, and Amravati. The state is divided by the heavily forested Western Ghats into the Konk...

Magyar
Member of the largest ethnic group in Hungary, comprising 92% of the population. Most are Roman Catholic. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic group. Magyars are of mixed Ugric and Turkic origin, and were originally nomadic peoples living in the region between the Volga and the Ural Mountains. They arrived in Hungary towards the end of ...

Magritte, René François Ghislain
Belgian painter, one of the major figures in surrealism. His work, characteristic of surrealist ideas, focuses on visual paradoxes and everyday objects taken out of context. Recurring motifs include bowler hats, apples, and windows, for example Golconda (1953; private collection), in which men in bowler hats are falling from ...

magnesium
Lightweight, very ductile and malleable, silver-white, metallic element, atomic number 12, relative atomic mass 24.305. It is one of the alkaline-earth metals, and the lightest of the commonly used metals. Magnesium silicate, carbonate, and chloride are widely distributed in nature. The metal is used in alloys, flares, and flash bulbs. It i...

Magna Carta
In English history, the charter granted by King John (I) Lackland in 1215, traditionally seen as guaranteeing human rights against the excessive use of royal power. As a reply to the king's demands for feudal dues and attacks on the privileges of the medieval church, Archbishop Stephen Langton proposed to the barons the drawing-up of a bind...

Maginot Line
French fortification system along the German frontier from Switzerland to Luxembourg built 1929–36 under the direction of the war minister, André Maginot. It consisted of semi-underground forts joined by underground passages, and was protected by antitank defences; lighter fortifications continued the line to the sea. In 1940 Germ...

magic
Art of controlling the forces of nature by supernatural means such as charms and ritual. The central ideas are that like produces like (sympathetic magic) and that influence carries by contagion or association; for example, by the former principle an enemy could be destroyed through an effigy, and by the latter principle through personal items ...

magi
Priests of the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia, noted for their knowledge of astrology. The term is used in the New Testament of the Latin Vulgate Bible where the Authorized Version gives `wise men`. The magi who came to visit the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (the Adoration of the Magi) were in later tra...

Maggiore, Lake
Lake largely in Italy, bounded on the west by Piedmont and on the east by Lombardy; its northern end is in the Swiss canton of Ticino. It is 63 km/39 mi long and up to 9 km/5.5 mi wide, with an area of 212 sq km/82 sq mi

Magellan, Strait of
Channel at the southern tip of Chile; it separates the South American mainland from Tierra del Fuego, and joins the South Pacific and South Atlantic oceans. It is 595 km/370 mi long with a maximum width of 32 km/20 mi. The strait is named after the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan who discovered it in 1520. It provided a safer pa...

Magellan, Ferdinand
Portuguese navigator. In 1519 he set sail in the Victoria from Seville with the intention of reaching the East Indies by a westerly route. He sailed through the Strait of Magellan at the tip of South America, crossed an ocean he named the Pacific, and in 1521 reached the Philippines, where he was killed in a battle with the islan...

Magdeburg
Industrial city and capital of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, on the River Elbe; population (2003 est) 224,100. Products include chemicals, metal products, precision instruments, paper, textiles, and machinery; food-processing is also important, primarily in sugar refining and flour milling. A former capital of Saxony, Magdeburg became cap...

Magadha
Kingdom of ancient northeastern India, roughly corresponding to the middle and southern parts of modern Bihar. It was the scene of many incidents in the life of the Buddha and was the seat of the Mauryan dynasty founded in the 3rd century BC. Its capital Pataliputra was a great cultural and political centre

Mafia
Secret society reputed to control organized crime such as gambling, loansharking, drug traffic, prostitution, and protection; connected with the Camorra of Naples. It originated in Sicily in the late Middle Ages and now operates chiefly there and in countries to which Italians have emigrated, such as the USA and Australia. During the early 1990...

maenad
In Greek mythology, one of the women participants in the orgiastic rites of Dionysus; maenads were also known as Bacchae

Maecenas, Gaius Cilnius
Roman patron of the arts, and close friend and diplomatic agent of Augustus. He was influential in providing encouragement and material support for the Augustan poets Horace and Virgil

madrigal
Form of secular song in four or five parts, usually sung without instrumental accompaniment. It originated in 14th-century Italy. Madrigal composers include Andrea Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Thomas Morley, and Orlando Gibbons

Madras
(city) Former name, to 1996, of Chennai, an industrial port and capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, India

Madrid
(city) Capital city of Spain and of Madrid province, on the Manzanares River; population (2001 est) 2,957,100, conurbation (2003 est) 5,130,000. Built on a vast elevated plateau in the centre of the country, at 655 m/2,183 ft it is the highest capital in Europe and experiences extremes...

Madonna
(religion) Italian name for the Virgin Mary, meaning `my lady`

Madhya Bharat
State of India 1950–56. It was a union of 24 states of which Gwalior and Indore were the most important. In 1956 Madhya Bharat was absorbed in Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh
State of central India, the second largest of the Indian states; area 296,480 sq km/114,472 sq mi; population (2001 est) 60,385,100. The capital is Bhopal, and other towns and cities are Indore, Jabalpur, Gwalior, and Ujjain. The state is land-locked and mainly upland. The Narmada Riv...

Madeira Islands
Group of islands forming an autonomous region of Portugal, off the northwest coast of Africa, about 420 km/260 mi north of the Canary Islands; area 796 sq km/308 sq mi; population (1994 est) 256,000. Madeira, the largest, and Porto Santo are the only inhabited islands. The Desertas an...

macrobiotics
Dietary system of organically grown foods. It originates in Zen Buddhism, and attempts to balance the principles of yin and yang, thought to be present in foods in different proportions

macramé
Craft technique in which threads, yarns, or cords are knotted together to form an open textile structure. Traditionally practised by sailors, it is thought to have originated in the 13th century, when Arab weavers began decoratively knotting the threads along the edges of the items they had woven. The craft then spread to Europe and China, where it...

Macpherson, James
Scottish writer. He published Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland in 1760, followed by the epics Fingal in 1761 and Temora in 1763, which he claimed as the work of the 3rd-century bard Ossian. After his death they were shown largely, but not entirely, to be ...

Macmillan,
(Maurice) British Conservative politician, prime minister 1957–63; foreign secretary 1955 and chancellor of the Exchequer 1955–57. In 1963 he attempted to negotiate British entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), but was blocked by the French president Charles de Gaulle...

Mackerras,
(Alan) Australian conductor. He has helped to make the music of the Czech composer Leoš Janácek more widely known. He was conductor of the Hamburg Opera 1966–69 and of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra 1976–79. He was music director of the Sadler's Wells Opera (now English ...

Mackenzie River
River in the Northwest Territories, northwestern Canada; about 1,705 km/1,060 mi long (from the Great Slave Lake to the Beaufort Sea). It originates as the Athabasca River in British Columbia and flows over 966 km/600 mi to Lake Athabasca; it then flows northwest from the Great Slave Lake until it enters the Beaufort Sea (part of th...

Mackenzie, Compton
Scottish writer. He published his first novel, The Passionate Elopement, in 1911. Subsequent novels included Carnival (1912), a melodrama of stage life, the semi-autobiographical Sinister Street (1913–14), the sequence The Four Winds of Love (1937–45), and the...

Machu Picchu
Click images to enlargeRuined Inca city in the Peruvian Andes, northwest of Cuzco. This settlement and stronghold stands at the top of 300-m/1,000-ft-high cliffs above the Urabamba River and covers an area of 13 sq km/5 sq mi. Built in about AD 1500, the city's remote location saved it from being f...

machine gun
Rapid-firing automatic gun. The Maxim (named after its inventor, US-born British engineer H S Maxim (1840–1916)) of 1884 was recoil-operated, but some later types have been gas-operated (Bren) or recoil assisted by gas (some versions of the Browning). The forerunner of the modern machine gun was the Gatling (named after its US ...

Machiavelli, Niccolò
Italian politician and author. His name is synonymous with cunning and cynical statecraft. In his chief political writings, Il principe/The Prince (1513) and Discorsi/Discourses (1531), he discussed ways in which rulers can advance the interests of their states (and themselves) through an often amoral a...

Macdonnell Ranges
Mountain range in Northern Territory, central Australia, running east to west in parallel ridges for 644 km/400 mi. The highest peaks are Mount Liebig (1,524m/5,000 ft) and Mount Zeil (1,510 m/4,955 ft). The town of Alice Springs is situated in the middle of the Macdonnell Ranges. The spectacular scenery, with its deep gorges and red ro...

Maccabee
Member of an ancient Hebrew family founded by the priest Mattathias (died 166 BC) who, with his sons, led the struggle for independence against the Syrians in the 2nd century BC. Judas (died 161) reconquered Jerusalem in 164 BC, and Simon (died 135) established its independence in 142 BC. The revolt of the Maccabees lasted until the capture of Jeru...

Macbeth
King of Scotland from 1040. The son of Findlaech, hereditary ruler of Moray and Ross, he was commander of the forces of Duncan I, King of Scotland, whom he killed in battle in 1040. His reign was prosperous until Duncan's son Malcolm III led an invasion and killed him at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire. He was probably the grandson of Kenneth II and...

Mars
(astronomy) Click images to enlargeFourth planet from the Sun. It is much smaller than Venus or Earth, with a mass 0.11 that of Earth. Mars is slightly pear-shaped, with a low, level northern hemisphere, which is comparatively uncrate...

Macaulay, Thomas Babington
British historian, essayist, poet, and politician, secretary of war 1839–41. His History of England in five volumes (1849–61) celebrates the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as the crowning achievement of the Whig party. He was made a baron in 1857. His works include an essay on Milton (1825) published in the Edinbu...

Mariner
Series of US space probes that explored the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars 1962–75. Mariner 1 (to Venus) had a failed launch. Mariner 2 (1962) made the first fly-by of Venus, at 34,000 km/21,000 mi, confirmed the existence of solar wind, and measured Venusian temperature. Mariner 3 (la...

magnitude
(astronomy) In astronomy, measure of the brightness of a star or other celestial object. The larger the number denoting the magnitude, the fainter the object. Zero or first magnitude indicates some of the brightest stars. Still brighter are those of negative magnitude, such as Sirius, whose ma...

magnetosphere
Volume of space, surrounding a planet, in which the planet's magnetic field has a significant influence. The Earth's magnetosphere extends 64,000 km/40,000 mi towards the Sun, but many times this distance on the side away from the Sun. That of Jupiter is much larger, and, if it were visible, would appear from the Earth to have roughly t...

Magellanic Clouds
Two galaxies close to our own galaxy. They are irregularly shaped, and appear as detached parts of the Milky Way, in the southern hemisphere. The Large Magellanic Cloud spreads over the constellations of Dorado and Mensa. The Small Magellanic Cloud is in Tucana. The Large Magellanic Cloud is about 169,000 light years from Earth, and about a third t...

match
Small strip of wood or paper, tipped with combustible material for producing fire. Friction matches containing phosphorus were first made in 1816 in France by François Derosne. A safety match is one in which the oxidizing agent and the combustible body are kept apart, the former being incorporated into the striking surface on the side of the b...

malic acid
Organic crystalline acid. It can be extracted from apples, plums, cherries, grapes, and other fruits, but occurs in most living cells in smaller amounts, being one of the intermediates of the Krebs cycle

manganese
Hard, brittle, grey-white metallic element, atomic number 25, relative atomic mass 54.9380. It resembles iron (and rusts), but it is not magnetic and is softer. It is used chiefly in making steel alloys, also alloys with aluminium and copper. It is used in fertilizers, paints, and industrial chemicals. It is a necessary trace element in human n...

magnesium oxide
White powder or colourless crystals, formed when magnesium is burned in air or oxygen; a typical basic oxide. It is used to treat acidity of the stomach, and in some industrial processes; for example, as a lining brick in furnaces, because it is very stable when heated (refractory oxide)

Maskelyne, Nevil
English astronomer. He made observations to investigate the reliability of the lunar distance method for determining longitude at sea. In 1774 he estimated the mass of the Earth by noting the deflection of a plumb line near Mount Schiehallion in Perthshire, Scotland. Maskelyne was appointed Astronomer Royal in 1765 and held that office until his de...

Macintosh, Charles
Scottish manufacturing chemist who discovered that rubber could be dissolved in coal-tar naptha, producing a liquid that could be applied to fabric for waterproofing. This waterproof fabric, was used for raincoats – hence mackintosh. Other waterproofing processes have now largely superseded this method. In 1797 Macintosh set up the first a...

mainframe
Large computer used for commercial data processing and other large-scale operations. Because of the general increase in computing power, the differences between the mainframe, supercomputer, minicomputer, and microcomputer (personal computer) are becoming less marked. Mainframe manufacturers include IBM, Amdahl, Fujitsu, and Hitachi. Typical ma...

macro
In computer programming, a new command created by combining a number of existing ones. For example, a word-processing macro might create a letterhead or fax cover sheet, inserting words, fonts, and logos with a single keystroke or mouse click. Macros are also useful to automate repetitive tasks – for example, users can write a macro to sea...

mayfly
Any of a group of insects whose adult form lives only very briefly in the spring. The larval stage, which can last a year or more, is passed in water, the adult form developing gradually from the nymph through successive moults. The adult has transparent, net-veined wings. (Order Ephemerida.)

mastodon
Any of an extinct family of mammals belonging to the elephant order. They differed from elephants and mammoths in the structure of their grinding teeth. There were numerous species, among which the American mastodon (Mastodon americanum), about 3 m/10 ft high, of the Pleistocene era, is well known. They were hunted by humans ...

martin
(zoology) Any of several species of birds belonging to the swallow family. (Family Hirundinidae, order Passeriformes.)

mastiff
Breed of powerful dog, usually fawn in colour, that was originally bred in Britain for hunting purposes. It has a large head, wide-set eyes, and broad muzzle. It can grow up to 90 cm/36 in at the shoulder, and weigh 100 kg/220 lb

marten
Small bushy-tailed carnivorous mammal belonging to the weasel family. Martens live in North America, Europe, and temperate regions of Asia, and are agile tree climbers. (Genus Martes, family Mustelidae.) The sable (M. zibellina) lives in eastern Siberia, and provides the most valued fur. The largest marten ...

marmoset
Any of a group of small tree-dwelling monkeys found in South and Central America; some reach a body length of only 15 cm/6 in. Most species have characteristic tufted ears, clawlike nails, and a handsome tail, which is not prehensile (it cannot be used to grip branches in the same way as ...