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


Nicholson, Ben(jamin Lauder)
English abstract artist. After early experiments influenced by cubism and the Dutch De Stijl group, Nicholson developed an elegant style of geometrical reliefs, notably a series of white reliefs (1933–38). He won the first Guggenheim Award in 1957

Nicholas, St
In the Christian church, patron saint of Russia, children, merchants, sailors, and pawnbrokers; bishop of Myra (now in Turkey). His legendary gifts of dowries to poor girls led to the custom of giving gifts to children on the eve of his feast day, 6 December, still retained in some countries, such as the Netherlands; elsewhere the custom ha...

Nice
City on the French Riviera and administrative centre of the département of Alpes-Maritimes, situated at the mouth of the River Paillon on the Baie des Anges, near the Italian frontier; population (1999) 343,100. Founded in the 3rd century BC, it repeatedly changed hand...

Niamey
Port, capital, and administrative centre of Niger, in the southwest of the country, on the northeast bank of the Niger River; population (2001) 675,000. Manufacturing industries include textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, plastics, and foodstuffs, though service industries are the largest employers. It replaced Zinder as the capital...

Niagara Falls
(waterfalls) Two waterfalls on the Niagara River, on the Canada–USA border, between lakes Erie and Ontario and separated by Goat Island. The American Falls are 56 m/183 ft high, 328 m/1,076 ft wide; the more spectacul...

Nixon, Richard M(ilhous)
37th president of the USA 1969–74, a Republican. He attracted attention as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948, and was vice-president to Eisenhower 1953–61. As president he was responsible for US withdrawal from Vietnam, and the normalization of relations...

nirvana
In Buddhism, and other Indian religions, the ultimate religious goal characterized by the attainment of perfect serenity, compassion, and wisdom by the eradication of all desires. When nirvana is attained, the cycle of life and death, known as samsara, is broken and a state of liberty, free from pain and desire, is reached

Nineveh
Capital of the Assyrian Empire from the 8th century BC until its destruction by the Medes under King Cyaxares in 612 BC. It was situated on the River Tigris (opposite the present city of Mosul, Iraq) and was adorned with palaces

Nihilist
Member of a group of Russian revolutionaries in the reign of Alexander II 1855–81. Despairing of reform, they saw change as possible only through the destruction of morality, justice, marriage, property, and the idea of God. In 1878 the Nihilists launched a guerrilla campaign leading to the murder of the tsar in 1881

Niger
(river) Third-longest river in Africa, 4,185 km/2,600 mi. It rises in the highlands bordering Sierra Leone and Guinea, flows northeast through Mali, then southeast through Niger and Nigeria to an inland delta on the Gulf of Guinea. Its total catchment area is 1.5 million sq km/579,...

Nielsen, Carl August
Danish composer. His works combine an outward formal strictness with an inner waywardness of tonality and structure, best exemplified by his six programmatic symphonies 1892–1925

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
German philosopher who rejected the accepted absolute moral values and the `slave morality` of Christianity. He argued that `God is dead` and therefore people were free to create their own values. His ideal was the Übermensch, or `Superman`, who would impose his will on the weak and worthless. N...

Nicene Creed
One of the fundamental creeds of Christianity, drawn up by the Council of Nicaea, a meeting of bishops in AD 325. The Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical (worldwide) council. The church leaders met to discuss teachings about Jesus. The words of the Nicene Creed were formulated by the bishops and were a statement of the most important beliefs...

nightshade
Any of several plants in the nightshade family. They include the annual herbaceous black nightshade (S. nigrum), with white flowers similar to those of the potato plant and black berries; the perennial shrubby bittersweet or woody nightshade (S. dulcamara), with purple, potatolike flowers and scarlet berrie...

nitre
Potassium nitrate, KNO3, a mineral found on and just under the ground in desert regions; used in explosives. Nitre occurs in Bihar, India, Iran, and Cape Province, South Africa. The salt was formerly used for the manufacture of gunpowder, but the supply of nitre for explosives is today largely met by making the salt from ...

Nicaea, Council of
Christian church council held in Nicaea (now Iznik, Turkey) in 325, called by the Roman emperor Constantine. It condemned Arianism as heretical and upheld the doctrine of the Trinity in the Nicene Creed

Nijinsky, Vaslav Fomich
Russian dancer and choreographer. Noted for his powerful but graceful technique, he was a legendary member of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, for whom he choreographed Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1912) and Jeux (1913), and Stravinsky's Le Sacre du pri...

Nicaragua
Country in Central America, between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, bounded north by Honduras and south by Costa Rica. Government Nicaragua is a multiparty democracy with a presidential executive. The constitution dates from 1987. There is a single-chamber legislature, the National Assembly, which comprises 90 deputies directly elected...

Niger
(country) Landlocked country in northwest Africa, bounded north by Algeria and Libya, east by Chad, south by Nigeria and Benin, and west by Burkina Faso and Mali. Government The 1992 constitution, as revised in 1999, provides for a multiparty system. The president is directly elected by univer...

Nigeria
Click images to enlargeCountry in west Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, bounded north by Niger, east by Chad and Cameroon, and west by Benin. Government Nigeria is a federal republic, with a multiparty political system and a presidential executive. Its president serves of head of state and government and is popularly elected...

Nineteen Propositions
Demands presented by the English Parliament to Charles I in 1642. They were designed to limit the powers of the crown, and their rejection represented the beginning of the Civil War

Nicholas I
Tsar of Russia from 1825. His Balkan ambitions led to war with Turkey 1827–29 and the Crimean War 1853–56

Nicholas II
Tsar of Russia 1894–1917. He was dominated by his wife, Tsarina Alexandra, who was under the influence of the religious charlatan Rasputin. His mismanagement of the Russo-Japanese War and of internal affairs led to the revolution of 1905, which he suppressed, although he was forced to grant ...

Nicklaus, Jack William
US golfer, nicknamed `the Golden Bear` and widely regarded as the game's greatest ever player. He won a record 18 major titles between 1962 and 1986, and finished second on a record 19 occasions. In 1999, the US magazine Sports Illustrated named him `Best Individual Male Athlete of the 20th Century`. He pl...

nitrous oxide
Colourless, nonflammable gas that, used in conjunction with oxygen, reduces sensitivity to pain. In higher doses it is an anaesthetic. Well tolerated, it is often combined with other anaesthetic gases to enable them to be used in lower doses. It may be self-administered; for example, in childbirth. It is a greenhouse gas; about 10% ...

Night Journey
In Islam, the journey of the prophet Muhammad, guided by the archangel Gabriel, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he met the earlier prophets, including Adam, Moses, and Jesus; he then ascended to paradise, where he experienced the majesty of Allah, and was also shown hell

Nicaragua, Lake
Lake in southwest Nicaragua, the largest in Central America; area 8,250 sq km/3,185 sq mi. It is 24 km/15 mi from the Pacific Ocean and drains into the Caribbean at San Juan del Norte via the Río San Juan. It is a freshwater lake inhabited by a variety of salt-water fish including shark and swordfish. The lake contains about 31...

Nicobar Islands
Group of Indian islands, part of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands

nitrification
Process that takes place in soil when bacteria oxidize ammonia, turning it into nitrates. Nitrates can be absorbed by the roots of plants, so this is a vital stage in the nitrogen cycle

nitrate
Salt or ester of nitric acid, containing the NO3- ion. Nitrates are used in explosives, in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, in curing meat (as nitre), and as fertilizers. They are the most water-soluble salts known and play a major part in the nitrogen cycle. Nitrates in the soil, whe...

Nicolle, Charles Jules Henri
French bacteriologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1928 for his work on the role of the body louse in transmitting typhus. In 1909 he discovered that typhus is transmitted by the body louse and delousing was made a compulsory part of the military routine for the armies of World War I

niacin
One of the `B group` vitamins

nitrogen oxide
Any chemical compound that contains only nitrogen and oxygen. Nitrogen monoxide and nitrogen dioxide contribute to air pollution. See also nitrous oxide

Niven,
(James) Scottish-born US film actor. A suave and sophisticated leading man, he made films in Hollywood and Britain from the 1930s, often featuring in witty comedies and war films. His films include Wuthering Heights (1939), Around the World in 80 Days ...

Niebuhr, Reinhold
US Protestant theologian, a Lutheran minister. His Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) attacked depersonalized modern industrial society but denied the possibility of fulfilling religious and political utopian aspirations, a position that came to be known as Christian realism. Niebuhr was a pacifist, activist, and socialist but ...

niello
Black substance made by melting powdered silver, copper, sulphur, and often borax. It is used as a filling for incised decoration on silver and fixed by the application of heat. Niello was used to decorate objects in ancient Egypt, in the Bronze Age Aegean, in the European Middle Ages, and in much Anglo-Saxon metalwork. It reached its height of...

Niger-Congo languages
The largest group of languages in Africa. It includes about 1,000 languages and covers a vast area south of the Sahara desert, from the west coast to the east, and down the east coast as far as South Africa. It is divided into groups and subgroups; the most widely spoken Niger-Congo languages are Swahili (spoken on the east coast), the memb...

Nissan Motor Company
Japanese car manufacturer founded in 1933, initially marketing under the name of Datsun. Following heavy trading losses during the 1990s, Nissan entered into a cross-shareholding alliance in 1999 with French motor manufacturer Renault, entailing a major restructuring. By 2005 Renault-Nissan sales accounted for almost 10% of the worldwid...

nitrate pollution
Contamination of water by nitrates. Increased use of artificial fertilizers and land cultivation means that higher levels of nitrates are being washed from the soil into rivers, lakes, and aquifers. There they cause an excessive enrichment of the water (eutrophication), leading to a rapid growth of algae, which in turn darkens the water and reduces...

nivation
Set of processes, operating beneath or next to snow, believed to be responsible for the development of the hollows in which snow collects. It is also thought to play a role in the early formation of corries. The processes involved include freeze–thaw (weathering by the alternate freezing and melting of ice), mass movement (the downhill movemen...

Nijinksa, Bronislava
Russian choreographer and dancer. Nijinksa was the first major female choreographer to work in classical ballet, creating several dances for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, including Les Noces (1923), a landmark in 20th-century modernist dance. She was the sister of Vaslav Nijinsky, continuing his revolutionary ideas of kinet...

nihilism
The rejection of all traditional values, authority, and institutions. The term was coined 1862 by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and Sons, and was adopted by the Nihilists, the Russian radicals of the period. Despairing of reform, they saw change as possible only through the destruction of morality, justice, marriage, propert...

nikah
Muslim marriage contract. In Islam, marriage is not a sacrament but a legal, binding contract between a man and a woman. The Koran (or Qur'an) (4:21) refers to marriage as a mithaq, a sacred agreement held between husband and wife, and orders that it be written down. The acceptance of the contract by the spouses involves a mutual commitment...

Nichols, Grace
Guyanese poet. She won acclaim for her first collection I is a long memoried woman (1983), which was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry Prize; it was followed by The Fat Black Woman's Poems (1984). Her novel Whole of a Morning Sky (1986) gives a vivid account of a girl growing up in Guya...

nirodha
In Buddhism, the cessation or removal of suffering, the third of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths. Through recognizing our desires, for example greed and lust, we can aim to control our attachment to them. Following the Buddha's Eightfold Path extinguishes the suffering caused by our craving and delivers release – nirvana

Nishan Sahib
Flagpole of Sikhism. The Sikh flag, the Nishan, is triangular in shape, saffron in colour, and displays the Sikh symbol, the khanda (double-edged sword) in the centre. The Nishan Sahib can be seen flying in a prominent position at Sikh shrines and all Sikh temples, gurdwaras. At the top of the tall flagpole supporting the flag will be found a s...

Nkrumah, Kwame
Ghanaian nationalist politician, prime minister of the Gold Coast (Ghana's former name) 1952–57 and of newly independent Ghana 1957–60. He became Ghana's first president in 1960 but was overthrown in a coup in 1966. His policy of `African socialism` led to links with the c...

Nkomo, Joshua
Zimbabwean trade unionist and politician, vice president 1990–99. As president of ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union) from 1961, he was a leader of the black nationalist movement against the white Rhodesian regime. He was a member of Robert Mugabe's cabinet 1980–82 and from 1987. After completing his education in South Africa, ...

Nkomati Accord
Nonaggression treaty between South Africa and Mozambique concluded in 1984, under which they agreed not to give material aid to opposition movements in each other's countries, which in effect meant that South Africa pledged itself not to support the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo), while Mozambique was committed not to help the then out...

nostril
In vertebrates, the opening of the nasal cavity, in which cells sensitive to smell are located. (In fish, these cells detect water-borne chemicals, so they are effectively organs of taste.) In vertebrates with lungs, the nostrils also take in air. In humans, and most other mammals, the nostrils are located on the nose

nose
In humans, the upper entrance of the respiratory tract; the organ of the sense of smell. The external part is divided down the middle by a septum of cartilage. The nostrils contain plates of cartilage that can be moved by muscles and have a growth of stiff hairs at the margin to prevent foreign o...

noise
(physics) Unwanted sound. Permanent, incurable loss of hearing can be caused by prolonged exposure to high noise levels (above 85 decibels). Over 55 decibels on a daily outdoor basis is regarded as an unacceptable level. In scientific and engineering terms, a noise is any random, unpredictable...

North Atlantic Drift
Warm ocean current in the North Atlantic Ocean; an extension of the Gulf Stream. It flows east across the Atlantic and has a mellowing effect on the climate of northwestern Europe, particularly the British Isles and Scandinavia

noun
Grammatical part of speech that names a person, animal, object, quality, idea, or time. Nouns can refer to objects such as house, tree (concrete nouns); specific persons and places such as John Alden, the White House (proper nouns); ideas such as love
Novosibirsk
(city) Capital city, economic and cultural centre of Novosibirsk oblast (region) in southwestern Siberia, Russian Federation; population (2002) 1,428,500. Sited on the River Ob and the Trans-Siberian Railway, it is the largest city in Siberia and one of the main industrial centres of t...

Novi Sad
Industrial and commercial city (pottery and cotton), capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina in northern Serbia, on the River Danube; population (2002) 191,400. Products include leather, textiles, and tobacco

Nova Scotia
Click images to enlargeOne of the three Maritime Provinces of eastern Canada, comprising the peninsula of Nova Scotia, extending southeast from New Brunswick into the Atlantic Ocean, and Cape Breton Island, which is separated from the northeastern end of the mainland by the Canso Strait; area 55,500 sq km/21,400 s...

Novalis
Pioneer German Romantic poet. He wrote Hymnen an die Nacht/Hymns to the Night (1800), prompted by the death of his fiancée Sophie von Kühn. Feeling himself ecstatically united with his dead beloved, he tried to free his spirit from material things, and many of his poems contain a note of mysticism. He left two unfin...

Nouakchott
Capital of Mauritania, 270 mi/435 km northeast of Dakar, Senegal; population (capital district, 2000 est) 612,000. It is the largest city in the Sahara. Products include salt, cement, insecticides, rugs, carpets, embroidery, and crafts. A port area 8 km/5 mi to the west exports copper (mined 195 km/120 mi northeast of Nouakchott), p...

Nottinghamshire
County of central England, which has contained the unitary authority Nottingham City since April 1998. Area 2,160 sq km/834 sq mi Towns and cities West Bridgford (administrative headquarters), Mansfield, Newark, Worksop Physical rivers: Erewash Idle, Soar, Trent Features the remaining areas o...

Nottingham
City and administrative centre of Nottingham City unitary authority in central England, on the River Trent, 38 km/24 mi north of Leicester; population (2001) 249,600. The city's prosperity was based on the expansion of the lace and hosiery industries in the 18th century. The pharmacy chain Boots was started here in 1892, and the economy...

Norwich
(UK) Cathedral city and administrative headquarters of Norfolk, eastern England, on the River Wensum, 160 km/100 mi northeast of London; population (2001 est) 121,700. Industries include financial and insurance services, tourism, television and radio broadcasting, engineering, printing...

North Yorkshire
Click images to enlargeCounty of northeast England, created in 1974 from most of the North Riding and parts of the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire (since April 1996 York has been a separate unitary authority). Area 8,037 sq km/3,103 sq mi Towns and cities Northallerton (administrative headquarters); resorts:...

Northwest Territories
Click images to enlargeLarge administrative area of Canada, extending into the Arctic Circle. Covering one-eighth of the total area of the country, it comprises the mainland lying north of the 60th parallel (latitude 60° north) and some islands between the Canadian mainland and the North Pole. It is bounded by Yu...

Northwest Passage
Click images to enlargeAtlantic–Pacific sea route around the north of Canada. Canada, which owns offshore islands, claims it as an internal waterway; the USA insists that it is an international waterway and sent an icebreaker through without permission in 1985. Early explorers included Englishmen Martin Frobisher...

North-West Frontier Province
Province of Pakistan; capital Peshawar; area 74,500 sq km/28,800 sq mi; population (1993 est) 20,090,000. It was a province of British India 1901–47. It includes the strategic Khyber Pass, the site of constant struggle between the British Raj and the Pathan warriors. In the 1980s it had to accommodate a stream of refugees from ...

Northumbria
Anglo-Saxon kingdom that covered northeast England and southeast Scotland. Comprising the 6th-century kingdoms of Bernicia (Forth–Tees) and Deira (Tees–Humber), united in the 7th century, it accepted the supremacy of Wessex in 827 and was conquered by the Danes in the late 9th century. It was not until the reign of William the Con...

Northumberland
Click images to enlargeCounty of northern England. Area 5,030 sq km/1,942 sq mi Towns and cities Morpeth (administrative headquarters), Berwick-upon-Tweed, Hexham Physical Cheviot Hills; rivers Aln, Coquet, Rede, Till, Tweed, upper Tyne; Northumberland National Park in the west Features Holy Island (Li...

North Sea
Sea to the east of Britain and bounded by the coasts of Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway; part of the Atlantic Ocean; area 523,000 sq km/202,000 sq mi; average depth 55 m/180 ft, greatest depth 660 m/2,165 ft. The Dogger Bank extends east to west with shallows of as little as 11 m/36 ft, forming a t...

North Rhine-Westphalia
Administrative region (German Land) in northwestern Germany, bordered to the north and northeast by Lower Saxony, to the east by Hesse, to the south by the Rhineland-Palatinate, and to the west by Belgium and the Netherlands; area 34,079 sq km/13,158 sq mi; population (2003 est) 17,986,700. A highly industrialized...

Northern Territory
Click images to enlargeTerritory of north-central Australia, bounded on the north by the Timor and Arafura seas, on the east by Queensland, on the south by South Australia, and on the west by Western Australia; area 1,346,200 sq km/519,770 sq mi; population (2001 est) 200,000. The capital is Darwin. The ma...

Northeast Passage
Sea route from the North Atlantic, around Asia, to the North Pacific, pioneered by the Swedish explorer Nils Nordenskjöld 1878–79 and developed by the USSR in settling Northern Siberia from 1935

North-East India
Area of India (Meghalaya, Assam, Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh) linked with the rest of India only by a narrow corridor, and bounded by Myanmar (Burma), China, Bhutan, and Bangaladesh. There is opposition to immigration from Bangladesh and the rest of India, and demand for secession

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Military association of major Western European and North American states set up under the North Atlantic Treaty of 4 April 1949. The original signatories were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and the USA. Greece and Turkey were admitted to NATO in 1952, West Germany in 1955, Spain ...

North Atlantic Treaty
Agreement signed on 4 April 1949 by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and the USA, in response to the Soviet blockade of Berlin June 1948–May 1949. They agreed that `an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack ag...

Northamptonshire
County of central England. Area 2,370 sq km/915 sq mi Towns and cities Northampton (administrative headquarters), Kettering, Corby, Daventry, Wellingborough Physical rivers Avon, Cherwell, Leam, Nene, Ouse, and Welland Features Althorp Park, Spencer family home and burial place of Diana, Princess...

Northampton
Market town and administrative headquarters of Northamptonshire, central England, on the River Nene, 108 km/67 mi northwest of London; population (2001) 194,450. The major employers are public administration, financial services, and the distribution trade. The manufacture of boots and shoes was historically important, but engineering has ta...

North, Thomas
English translator. His translations include Plutarch's Lives, which appeared in 1579 as Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. Shakespeare drew heavily on this translation for his Roman plays (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus). No...

North, Frederick
English Tory politician. He entered Parliament in 1754, became chancellor of the Exchequer in 1767, and was prime minister in a government of Tories and `king's friends` from 1770. His hard line against the American colonies was supported by George III, but in 1782 he was forced to resign by the failure of his policy. In 1783 he retur...

Norman
Any of the descendants of the Norsemen (to whose chief, Rollo, Normandy was granted by Charles III of France in 911) who adopted French language and culture. During the 11th and 12th centuries they conquered England in 1066 (under William the Conqueror), Scotland in 1072, parts of Wales and Ireland, ...

Norman French
Form of French used by the Normans in Normandy from the 10th century, and by the Norman ruling class in England after the Conquest in 1066. It remained the language of the English court until the 15th century, and the official language of the law courts until the 17th century

Norfolk
(UK) County of eastern England. Area 5,360 sq km/2,069 sq mi Towns and cities Norwich (administrative headquarters), King's Lynn, Great Yarmouth (ports); Cromer, Hunstanton (resorts) Physical low-lying with the Fens in...

Normandy
Former duchy of northwest France now divided into two regions: Haute-Normandie and Basse-Normandie; area 29,900 sq km/11,544 sq mi; population (both parts, 1999 est) 3,202,400. Normandy was named after the Viking Norsemen (Normans) who conquered and settled in the area in the ...

Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Region of northern France, bounded by the English Channel to the northwest; area 12,414 sq km/4,793 sq mi; population (1999 est) 3,996,600. Its administrative centre is Lille, and it consists of the départements of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. The land is predominantly flat and well-drained, with northern ...

Nordic
Ethnic designation for any of the various Germanic peoples, especially those of Scandinavia. The physical type of Caucasoid described under that term is tall, long-headed, blue-eyed, fair of skin and hair. The term is no longer in current scientific use

non-aligned movement
Countries with a strategic and political position of neutrality (`non-alignment`) towards major powers, specifically the USA and former USSR. The movement emerged in the 1960s during the Cold War between East and West 1949–89. Although originally used by poorer states, the non-aligned position was later adopted by oil-pro...

Nolan, Sidney Robert
Australian artist. Largely self-taught, he created atmospheric paintings of the outback, exploring themes from Australian history such as the life of the outlaw Ned Kelly. His work, along with that of Drysdale and others, marked the beginning of modernism in Australian art. He was knighted in 1981

Nofretete
Alternative name for Nefertiti, queen of Egypt

Nobel Prize
Annual international prize, first awarded in 1901 under the will of Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, who invented dynamite. The interest on the Nobel endowment fund is divided annually among the persons who have made the greatest contributions in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and world peace. The first four are awarded by ac...

Noah
In the Old Testament, the son of Lamech and father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who, according to God's instructions, built a ship, the ark, so that he and his family and specimens of all existing animals might survive the Flood. There is also a Babylonian version of the tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh

Noyes, Alfred
English poet. He wrote poems about the sea, including the popular sea epic Drake (1906–08), and the anthology favourites `The Barrel-Organ` (1904), with its refrain `Go down to Kew in lilac-time ..`, and `The Highwayman` (1907). His final volume of Collected Poems was ...

Novello, Ivor
Welsh composer and actor-manager. He wrote popular songs, such as `Keep the Home Fires Burning`, in World War I, and musicals in which he often appeared as the romantic lead, including Glamorous Night (1925), The Dancing Years (1939), and Gay's the Word (1951). He also wrote...

novel
Extended fictional prose narrative, usually between 30,000 and 100,000 words in length, that deals imaginatively with human experience through the psychological development of the central characters and their relationship with a broader world. The modern novel took its name and inspiration from the Italian novella, the short tale...

Northern Rhodesia
Former name (to 1964) of Zambia, a country in Africa

Nostradamus, Michael
French physician and astrologer who was consulted by Catherine de' Medici and Charles IX of France. His book of prophecies in verse, Centuries (1555), makes cryptic predictions about world events up to the year 3797

Norsemen
Early inhabitants of Norway. The term Norsemen is also applied to Scandinavian Vikings who traded, explored, and raided far afield from their homelands during the 8th–11th centuries, settling in Iceland, Greenland, Russia, the British Isles, and northern France. The term is sometimes used to refer specifically to western Scandinavians or just ...

Norris, Frank
(Benjamin Franklin) US novelist. A naturalist writer, he wrote McTeague (1899), about a brutish San Francisco dentist and the love of gold (filmed as Greed in 1923). He completed only two parts of his projected trilogy, the Epic of Wheat...

Norman architecture
Style of architecture used in England in the 11th and 12th centuries, also known as Romanesque. Norman buildings are massive, with round arches (although trefoil arches are sometimes used for small openings). Buttresses are of slight projection, and vaults are barrel-roofed. Examples in England include the Keep of the Tower of London and parts ...

Nordenskjöld, Nils Adolf Erik
Swedish explorer. He made voyages to the Arctic with the geologist Torell and in 1878–79 discovered the Northeast Passage. He published the results of his voyages in a series of books, including Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe (1881)

Nonjuror
Any of the priests of the Church of England who, after the revolution of 1688, refused to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary. They continued to exist as a rival church for over a century, and consecrated their own bishops, the last of whom died in 1805