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


water pollution
Any addition to fresh or seawater that interferes with biological processes or causes a health or environmental hazard. Common pollutants include nitrates, pesticides, and sewage (resulting from poor sewage disposal methods), although a huge range of industrial contaminants, such as chemical by-products and residues created in the manufacture o...

waste disposal
Depositing of waste. Modern methods of waste disposal are commonly referred to as waste management as they are increasingly using methods such as recycling that allows waste to be re-used and not simply disposed of. Methods of waste disposal vary according to the materials in the waste, and inclu...

War Powers Act
Legislation passed in 1973 restricting the US president's powers to deploy US forces abroad for combat without prior Congressional approval. The president is required to report to both Houses of Congress within 48 hours of having taken such action. Congress may then restrict the continuation of troop deployment despite any presidential veto. Th...

wadi
In arid regions of the Middle East, a steep-sided valley containing an intermittent stream that flows in the wet season

Wapping
District of the Greater London borough of Tower Hamlets. The redevelopment of the London Docklands began here in 1969 with work on St Katherine Dock. From the mid-1980s it has been a centre of the newspaper industry. The Times newspaper moved its offices here and built an 80 million printing plant in February 1986; it bec...

Wailing Wall
Click images to enlargeThe remaining part of the Temple in Jerusalem, a sacred site of pilgrimage and prayer for Jews. Midrash tradition holds that this portion of wall avoided destruction in AD 70 because the Holy Spirit (Shekinah) resided there. For this reason, people will pray there aloud (`wailing`), slip p...

Wallenberg, Raoul
Swedish business executive who attempted to rescue several thousand Jews from German-occupied Budapest in 1944, during World War II. He was taken prisoner by the Soviet army in 1945 and was never heard from again. In Hungary he tried to rescue and support Jews in safe houses, and provided them with false papers to save them from deportation to ...

wavelength
Distance between successive crests or troughs of a wave. The wavelength of a light wave determines its colour; red light has a wavelength of about 700 nanometres, for example. The complete range of wavelengths of electromagnetic waves is called the electromagnetic spectrum

Waite, Terry
English religious adviser to the archbishop of Canterbury (then Dr Robert Runcie) 1980–87. As the archbishop's special envoy, Waite disappeared on 20 January 1987 while engaged in secret negotiations to free European hostages in Beirut, Lebanon. He was taken hostage by an Islamic group and released on 18 November 1991. His kidnapping follo...

Walters, Alan Arthur
British economist and government adviser 1981–89. He became economics adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but his publicly stated differences with the policies of her chancellor Nigel Lawson precipitated, in 1989, Lawson's resignation from the government as well as Walters' own departure. He was knighted in 1983

Warburg, Otto Heinrich
German biochemist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for the discovery of respiratory enzymes that enable cells to process oxygen. In 1923 he devised a manometer (pressure gauge) sensitive enough to measure oxygen uptake of respiring tissue. By measuring the rate at which cells absorb oxygen under differing conditions,...

washing soda
Substance added to washing water to `soften` hard water. The calcium and magnesium ions in hard water react with the carbonate ions from the sodium carbonate and a precipitate of calcium carbonate results. Na2CO3(aq) + CaSO4(aq) ® CaCO3(s)...

watermelon
Large melon belonging to the gourd family, native to tropical Africa, with a dark green rind and reddish juicy flesh studded with a large number of black seeds. It is widely cultivated in subtropical regions. (Genus Citrullus vulgaris, family Cucurbitaceae.)

Warren, Robert Penn
US poet and novelist. He is the only author to have received a Pulitzer Prize for both prose and poetry. His work explored the moral problems of the South. His most important novel, All the King's Men (1946; Pulitzer Prize 1947), depicts the rise and fall of a back-country demagogue modelled on the career of Huey Long...

waterfall
Click images to enlargeCascade of water in a river or stream. It occurs when a river flows over a bed of rock that resists erosion; weaker rocks downstream are worn away, creating a steep, vertical drop and a plunge pool into which the water falls. Over time, continuing erosion causes the waterfall to retreat upstream...

water meadow
Irrigated meadow. By flooding the land for part of each year, increased yields of hay are obtained. Water meadows were common in Italy, Switzerland, and England (from 1523) but have now largely disappeared

Warner, Deborah
English theatre director. She founded the Kick Theatre company in 1980. Discarding period costume and furnished sets, she adopted an uncluttered approach to the classics, including productions of many Shakespeare plays and Sophocles' Electra (1989). She has directed King Lear (1985 and 1989), Corio...

walkabout
Australian Aboriginal term for a nomadic ritual return into the bush by an urbanized Aboriginal; also used more casually for any similar excursion

Wall Street Crash, 1929
Click images to enlargePanic selling on the New York Stock Exchange following an artificial boom from 1927 to 1929 fed by speculation. On 24 October 1929, 13 million shares changed hands, with further heavy selling on 28 October and the disposal of 16 million shares on 29 October. Many shareholders were ruined, banks and ...

war communism
Series of economic policies used by the communist Bolshevik government during the Russian civil war (1918–21), a conflict with the Tsarist White armies. Although nationalization of banks and industry had gathered pace since the Russian Revolution (1917) in line with communist ideals, the outbreak of civil war produced draconian measures. Priva...

wall pressure
In plants, the mechanical pressure exerted by the cell contents against the cell wall. The rigidity (turgor) of a plant often depends on the level of wall pressure found in the cells of the stem. Wall pressure falls if the plant cell loses water

water-borne disease
Disease associated with poor water supply. In developing world countries four-fifths of all illness is caused by water-borne diseases, with diarrhoea being the leading cause of childhood death. Malaria, carried by mosquitoes that are dependent on stagnant water for breeding, affects 400 million people every year and kills 5 million. Pollute...

Washington
(USA) State in northwestern USA, bordered to the east by Idaho, to the south by Oregon, to the north by British Columbia, Canada, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean; area 172,348 sq km/66,544 sq mi; population (2000) 5,8...

ward of court
In the UK, a child whose guardian is the High Court. Any person may, by issuing proceedings, make the High Court guardian of any child within its jurisdiction. No important step in the child's life can then be taken without the court's leave

Wang, An
Chinese-born US engineer, founder in 1951 of Wang Laboratories, one of the world's largest computer companies in the 1970s. In 1948 he invented the computer memory core, the most common device used for storing computer data before the invention of the integrated circuit (chip)

water supply
Distribution of water for domestic, municipal, or industrial consumption. Water supply in sparsely populated regions usually comes from underground water rising to the surface in natural springs, supplemented by pumps and wells. Urban sources are deep artesian wells, rivers, and reservoirs, usually f...

Wainwright, Alfred
English walker and author of guidebooks. His first articles appeared in 1955 in a local paper and he eventually produced over 40 meticulously detailed books, including volumes on the Lake District, Pennine Way, and other areas of northern England

Waller, Fats
(Thomas Wright) US jazz pianist and composer. He had a forceful stride piano style. His songs, many of which have become jazz standards, include `Ain't Misbehavin` (1929), `Honeysuckle Rose` (1929), and `Viper's Drag` (1934). An exuberant, humorous perform...

WASP
Common (frequently derogatory) term to describe the white elite in US society. The term is widely used to refer to established, wealthy, and privileged Americans of western European origin who are often educated at prestigious schools and universities and are disproportionately represented in government, business, and other influential institutions...

wave-cut platform
Gently sloping rock surface found at the foot of a coastal cliff. Covered by water at high tide but exposed at low tide, it represents the last remnant of an eroded headland (see coastal erosion). Wave-cut platforms have a gentle gradient (usually less than 1°) and can be up to about 1 km/0.6 mi in length. Over time, wave-cut platf...

Walcott, Derek Walton
St Lucian writer, poet, and playwright. His work fuses Caribbean and European, classical and contemporary elements, and deals with the divisions within colonial society and his own search for cultural identity. His works include the long poem Omeros (1990) and his adaptation of Homer's Odyssey for the stage...

wage
Pay given to labour. The pay of manual workers is usually called wages, compared to salaries paid to nonmanual workers. The basic wage of a worker is the wage received for working a normal week. On top of the basic wage, the worker may receive overtime pay and other bonus payments. The basic wage plus these extra payments is called the worker's...

wages council
Council responsible for setting a legally enforceable minimum wage in an industry in the UK. Industries covered by wages councils include retailing and hairdressing. They were introduced in 1909 to prevent employers exploiting workers in traditionally low-paid industries where trade unions were weak because workers found it difficult to organiz...

waveguide
Hollow metallic tube, either empty or containing a dielectric, used to guide a high-frequency electromagnetic wave (microwave) travelling within it. The wave is reflected from the internal surfaces of the guide. Waveguides are extensively used in radar systems

waterspout
Funnel-shaped column of water and cloud that is drawn from the surface of the sea or a lake by a tornado

Wagenfeld, Wilhelm
German architect and industrial designer. A graduate of the Bauhaus design school in Weimar, Germany, Wagenfeld went on to become one of the country's leading proponents of the machine style (a geometric, undecorated style deemed appropriate for industrial products) in the areas of metal and glass goods. Major clients were the Jenaer Glassworks...

wallpaper
In computing, design used as a background `desktop pattern` on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), such as Microsoft Windows or Apple's Mac OS, and visible when no windows are open. Users can choose from a range of different wallpapers, including plain colours, textures, and repeating patterns, or design their own. An increasing number ...

WAV
In computing, audio file format for IBM-compatible PCs, widely used to distribute sounds over the Internet. WAV files, which contain a digitized recording of a sound, bear the suffix .wav

Warne, Shane Keith
Australian cricketer. A right-arm wrist spin bowler, he became the first player in history to take 600 Test wickets. A key figure in Australia's emergence in the 1990s as the leading side in world cricket, his success also led to a revival in wrist spin, a type of bowling little-used for many years. In 1998 he became the most prolific s...

Waugh, Steve
Australian cricketer, and captain of the Australian team from February 1999 until his retirement in 2004. A right-handed batsman and medium pace bowler, he captained Australia to victory in the 1999 World Cup. In the period up to March 2001, he led his team to a record 16 consecutive Test victories. Career highlights Test cricket (1985–200...

Walsingham
Village in Norfolk, England, 8 km/5 mi north of Fakenham; population (2001) 864. There are ruins of an Augustinian priory founded in 1153, which was a centre of pilgrimage until its destruction during the Reformation. Pilgrimages to Walsingham were revived in 1897; they centre on the Slipper Chapel (Roman Catholic) 2 km/1 mi from th...

water beetle
Aquatic beetle with an oval, flattened, streamlined shape. The head is sunk into the thorax and the hindlegs are flattened into flippers for swimming; there is a wide variation in size within the species; they are usually dark or black in colour and the entire body has a resplendent sheen. Both the adults and larvae are entirely aquatic, an...

warble fly
Large, brownish, hairy flies, with mouthparts that are reduced or vestigial. The larva is a large maggot covered with spines. They cause myiasis (invasion of the tissues by fly larvae) in animals. In agriculture, warble flies are pests, causing damage to livestock, where their presence can retard growth, reduce milk and meat yield, and render hides...

Warrington
(authority) Unitary authority in northwest England, created in 1998 from part of Cheshire. Area 176 sq km/68 sq mi Towns and cities Warrington (administrative headquarters), Lymm, Great Sankey Features River Mersey; Manchester Ship Canal; Warrington Museum and Art Gallery includes ...

Walsh, Courtney Andrew
West Indian cricketer. A tall right-arm fast bowler from Jamaica, he was the first bowler to take 500 Test wickets. Renowned for his determination and durability, he captained the West Indies 1996–97. He retired in April 2001. Career highlights Test cricket (1984–2001) appearances: 132; overs: 5,003.1; wickets: 519...

Waters, Muddy
US blues musician. One of the last of the great country blues singers and one of the first major players of modern Chicago blues, he was raised on the Stovall Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he began playing harmonica and guitar while working as a sharecropper. In 1950 he gained his first national success with `Rolling Stone`...

Waugh, Mark Edward
Australian cricketer. An elegant right-handed batsman of prodigious talent, whose ability to score quick runs against the best bowling attacks made him a key member of both Australia's Test and One-day sides. The twin brother of Steve Waugh, he scored a century on his Test debut against England in 1991. A highly skilled fielder, he fini...

WAP
Initiative started in the 1990s by Unwired Planet and mobile phone manufacturers Motorola, Nokia, and Ericsson to develop a standard for delivering Web-like applications on mobile phones and other wireless devices. In theory WAP phones can be used for e-mail and messaging, reading Web pages, shopping, booking tickets, and making other finan...

Wales: the Act of Union
Under the Act of Union (1536) Wales was united politically with England. The liberties as well as the laws of England were extended to the principality, and Wales was given parliamentary representation for the first time. However, many old Welsh customs were abolished and the Welsh language was banished completely from the official proceedings of t...

Warszawa
Polish name for Warsaw, the capital of Poland

watershed
Boundary formed by height differences in the land, situated between two rivers or drainage basins

war on terror
US-led international campaign against terrorist organizations, declared in response to the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, on September 11th, 2001 that killed around 3,000 people. The attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, an international terrorist network then being run from Afghanistan by Saudi-born dissident Os...

Walloon Brabant
Province of Belgium, part of the French-speaking Walloon community and region, bordered by Flemish Brabant to the north and Liége, Namur, and Hainaut to the south; area 1,091 sq km/421 sq mi; population (1997 est) 341,600. The province was created in 1995 when the province of Brabant was divided into three autonomous administra...

WCC
Abbreviation for World Council of Churches, international Christian body

Wexford
(county) County of the Republic of Ireland, in the province of Leinster; county town Wexford; area 2,350 sq km/907 sq mi; population (2002) 116,600. Wexford is one of the most intensively cultivated areas in Ireland. The main crops are wheat, barley, beet, and potatoes. Fishing...

Wexford
(town) Seaport and county town of Wexford, Republic of Ireland, on the estuary of the River Slaney; population (2002) 17,200. Industries include food processing and the manufacture of textiles, cheese, agricultural machinery, furniture, and motor vehicles. There is an annual international ...

West Yorkshire
Click images to enlargeMetropolitan county of northeast England, created in 1974; in 1986, most of the functions of the former county council were transferred to the metropolitan borough councils. Area 2,040 sq km/787 sq mi Towns and cities Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield (administrative centres for districts of the sa...

West Sussex
County of southern England, created in 1974, formerly part of Sussex. Area 1,990 sq km/768 sq mi Towns and cities Chichester (administrative headquarters), Crawley, Horsham, Haywards Heath, Shoreham (port); Bognor Regis, Littlehampton, Worthing (resorts) Physical the Weald; South Downs...

West Point
Former fort in New York State, on the Hudson River, 80 km/50 mi north of New York City, site of the US Military Academy (commonly referred to as West Point), established 1802. Women were admitted in 1976. West Point has been a military post since 1778

Westphalia, Treaty of
Agreement in 1648 ending the Thirty Years' War. The peace marked the end of the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire and the emergence of France as a dominant power. It recognized the sovereignty of the German states, Switzerland, and the Netherlands; Lutherans, Calvinists, and Roman Catholics ...

Westphalia
Independent medieval duchy, incorporated in Prussia by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and made a province in 1816 with Münster as its capital. Since 1946 it has been part of the German Land (region) of North Rhine-Westphalia

Westminster Abbey
Click images to enlargeGothic church in central London, officially the Collegiate Church of St Peter. It was built from 1050 to 1745 and consecrated under Edward the Confessor in 1065. The west towers are by Nicholas Hawksmoor, completed after his death in 1745. Since William I nearly all English monarchs have been crowne...

West Midlands
Metropolitan county of central England, created in 1974; in 1986, most of the functions of the former county council were transferred to the metropolitan borough councils. Area 900 sq km/347 sq mi Towns and cities Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Solihull, Walsall, Wolverhampton (all administrat...

Westmeath
County of the Republic of Ireland, in the province of Leinster; county town Mullingar; area 1,760 sq km/679 sq mi; population (2002) 71,850. The rivers Brosna, Inny, and Shannon flow through the county, and its principal lakes are loughs Ree (the largest, and an extension of the River Shannon), Ennell, Owel, and Sheelin. The Royal C...

West Indies, Federation of the
Federal union 1958–62 comprising Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis and Anguilla, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago. This federation came to an end when first Jamaica and then Trinidad and Tobago withdrew

West Glamorgan
Former county of southwest Wales, 1974–96, now divided into Neath Port Talbot, and Swansea unitary authorities

West Indies
Archipelago of about 1,200 islands, dividing the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The archipelago is divided into: Bahamas; Greater Antilles: Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti, Dominican Republic), Jamaica, and Puerto Rico; Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Netherlands An...

Western Sahara
Disputed territory in northwest Africa, bounded to the north by Morocco, to the east and south by Mauritania, and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean; area 266,800 sq km/103,000 sq mi; population (2004) 417,000. The capital is Laâyoune (Arabic El Aaiún). Exports...

Western Isles
Island administrative unitary authority area in Scotland, also known as the Outer Hebrides, including the major islands of Lewis-with-Harris, North and South Uist, Benbecula, and Barra. Area 3,057 sq km/1,180 sq mi Towns Stornoway on Lewis (administrative headquarters), Castlebay, Lochboi...

West, Rebecca
English journalist and novelist, an active feminist from 1911. Her novels, of which the semi-autobiographical The Fountain Overflows (1956) and The Birds Fall Down (1966) are regarded as the best, demonstrate a social and political awareness. The Meaning of Treason (1947) was reissued as ...

West, Benjamin
American neoclassical painter. A noted history painter, he was active in London from 1763 and enjoyed the patronage of George III for many years. The Death of General Wolfe (1770; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) began a vogue for painting recent historical events in contemporary costume. Traditionally history painting ...

Wessex
Kingdom of the West Saxons in Britain, said to have been founded by Cerdic about AD 500, covering Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, and the former county of Berkshire. In 829 Egbert established West Saxon supremacy over all England. Thomas Hardy used the term Wessex in his novels for the...

Wesker, Arnold
English dramatist. A leading writer of kitchen-sink drama, his socialist beliefs were reflected in the successful trilogy Chicken Soup with Barley, Roots, and I'm Talking About Jerusalem (1958–60). He established a catchphrase with the title of his play Chips with Everyt...

Wenceslas, St
Duke of Bohemia. He attempted to Christianize his people and was murdered by his brother. He is patron saint of the Czech Republic and the `good King Wenceslas` of a popular carol. Feast day 28 September

werewolf
In folk belief, a human being either turned into a wolf by a spell or having the ability to assume a wolf form. The symptoms of porphyria may have fostered the legends

Welsh
People of Wales; see also Celt. The term is thought to be derived from an old Germanic term for `foreigner`, and so linked to Walloon (Belgium) and Wallachian (Romania). It may also derive from the Latin Volcae, the name of a Celtic people of France

Wells, H(erbert) G(eorge)
English writer. He was a pioneer of science fiction with such novels as The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898) (describing a Martian invasion of Earth), which brought him nationwide recognition. His later novels had an anti-establishment, anticonventional humour remarkable in its day, for ...

Wellington
(city) Capital and commercial port of New Zealand, in the province of the same name on North Island, on the Cook Strait; population (2001 est) city, 165,900, urban agglomeration, 351,700. After Auckland, Wellington is the second-largest manufacturing centre of New Zealand. Industries i...

Welles,
(George) US actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. His first and greatest film was Citizen Kane (1941), which he produced, directed, and starred in. Later work includes the films noirs The Lady from Shanghai (1948) and Tou...

Welland Ship Canal
Waterway in south Ontario, Canada. Since 1959 it has been a part of the St Lawrence Seaway, linking Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. Extending for 45 km/28 mi through the Niagara Peninsula, the modern canal (1932) carries ships over the Niagara Escarpment between Port Colborne on Lake Erie and Port Weller on Lake Ontario, which is 99 m/326 ft low...

Welensky, Roy
Rhodesian politician. He was instrumental in the creation in 1953 of the Central African Federation, comprising Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Nyasaland (now Malawi), and was prime minister 1956–63, when the federation was disbanded. His Southern Rhodesian Federal Party was defeated by Ian Smith's Rho...

Weizmann, Chaim Azriel
Zionist leader, the first president of Israel 1948–52. He conducted the negotiations leading up to the Balfour Declaration, by which the UK declared its support for an independent Jewish state. Born in Motol in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), he became a naturalized British subject, and as a qualified chemist and director of the Admiralty la...

Weimar Republic
Constitutional republic in Germany from 1919 to 1933, which was crippled by the election of antidemocratic parties to the Reichstag (parliament), and then subverted by the Nazi leader Hitler after his appointment as chancellor in 1933. It took its name from the city where in February 1919 a constituent assembly met to draw up a democratic constitut...

Weil's disease
Infectious disease of animals that is occasionally transmitted to human beings, usually by contact with water contaminated with rat urine. It is characterized by acute fever, and infection may spread to the brain, liver, kidneys, and heart. It has a 10% mortality rate. The usual form occurring in humans is caused by a spiral-shaped bacteriu...

Weill, Kurt Julian
German composer; a US citizen from 1943. He wrote chamber and orchestral music and collaborated with Bertolt Brecht on operas such as Die Dreigroschenoper/The Threepenny Opera (1928) and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny/The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1929), both of which attacked s...

Weil, Simone
French writer who became a practising Catholic after a mystical experience in 1938. Apart from essays, her works (advocating political passivity) were posthumously published, including Waiting for God (1951), The Need for Roots (1952), and Notebooks (1956)

weights and measures
See under c.g.s. system, f.p.s. system, m.k.s. system, SI units

Wegener, Alfred Lothar
German meteorologist and geophysicist whose theory of continental drift, expounded in Origin of Continents and Oceans in 1915, was originally known as `Wegener's hypothesis`. His ideas can now be explained in terms of plate tectonics, the idea that the Earth's crust consists of a number of plates, all moving wit...

weaving
Click images to enlargeThe production of textile fabric by means of a loom. The basic process involves the interlacing at right angles of vertical threads (the warp) and horizontal threads (the weft). The weft is traditionally carried across from one side of the loom to the other by a type of bobbin called a shuttle, and ...

Wedgwood, Josiah
English pottery manufacturer. He set up business in Staffordshire in the early 1760s to produce his agateware as well as unglazed blue or green stoneware (jasper) decorated with white neo-classical designs, using pigments of his own invention

Welsh corgi
Breed of dog with a foxlike head and pricked ears, originally bred for cattle herding. The coat is dense, with several varieties of colouring. Corgis are about 30 cm/12 in at the shoulder, and weigh up to 12 kg/27 lb. There are two types of corgi, the Pembrokeshire and the Cardiganshire. The Pembrokeshire has a finely textured coat, yellowi...

weevil
Any of a superfamily (Curculionoidea) of beetles, usually less than 6 mm/0.25 in in length, and with a head prolonged into a downward beak, which is used for boring into plant stems and trees for feeding. The larvae are usually white and the adults green, black, or brown. There are approximately 570 species of weevil in Britain and 40,000 known...

weever fish
Any of a family (Trachinidae) of marine bony fishes of the perch family, especially the genus Trachinus, with poison glands on the dorsal fin and gill cover that can give a painful sting. It grows up to 5 cm/2 in long, has eyes near the top of the head, and lives on sandy seabeds

weasel
Any of various small, short-legged, lithe carnivorous mammals with bushy tails, especially the genus Mustela, found worldwide except Australia. They feed mainly on small rodents although some, like the mink M. vison, hunt aquatic prey. Most are 12–25 cm/5–10 in long, excluding the tail. Includ...

westerlies
Prevailing winds from the west that occur in both hemispheres between latitudes of about 35° and 60°. Unlike the trade winds, they are very variable and produce stormy weather. The westerlies blow mainly from the southwest in the northern hemisphere and the northwest in the southern hemisphere, bringing moist weather to the west coast of ...

weathering
Click images to enlargeProcess by which exposed rocks are broken down on the spot (in situ) by the action of rain, frost, wind, and other elements of the weather. It differs from erosion in that no movement or transportion of the broken-down material takes place. Two types of weathering are recognized: physical (o...

weaver
Any small bird of the family Ploceidae, order Passeriformes; they are mostly about 15 cm/6 in long. The majority of weavers are African, a few Asian. The males use grasses to weave elaborate globular nests in bushes and trees. The nests are entered from beneath, and the male hangs from it calling and flapping his wings to attract a female. ...

Weber, Max
(sociologist) German sociologist, one of the founders of modern sociology. He emphasized cultural and political factors as key influences on economic development and individual behaviour. Weber argued for a scientific and value-free approach to research, yet highlighted the importance of m...

wedge
Block of triangular cross-section that can be used as a simple machine. An axe is a wedge: it splits wood by redirecting the energy of the downward blow sideways, where it exerts the force needed to split the wood

weedkiller
Chemical that kills some or all plants. Selective herbicides are effective with cereal crops because they kill all broad-leaved plants without affecting grasslike leaves. Those that kill all plants include sodium chlorate and paraquat; see also Agent Orange. The widespread use of weedkillers in agriculture has led to an increase in crop yie...