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


Delacroix,
(Ferdinand Victor) French Romantic painter. His prolific output included religious and historical subjects and portraits of friends, among them the musicians Paganini and Chopin. Antagonistic to the French academic tradition, he evolved a highly coloured, fluid style, as in The Death ...

Dekker, Thomas
English dramatist and pamphleteer. He wrote mainly in collaboration with others. His play The Shoemaker's Holiday (1600) was followed by collaborations with Thomas Middleton, John Webster, Philip Massinger, and others. His pamphlets include The Gull's Hornbook (1609), a lively satire on the fashions of ...

deism
Belief in a supreme being. The term usually refers to a movement in the 17th and 18th centuries characterized by the belief in a rational `religion of nature` as opposed to the orthodox beliefs of Christianity. Deists believed that God is the source of natural law but does not intervene directly in the affairs of the world, and that the o...

De Havilland, Geoffrey
English aircraft designer who designed and whose company produced the Moth biplane, the Mosquito fighter-bomber of World War II, and in 1949 the Comet, the world's first jet-driven airliner to enter commercial service. He was knighted in 1944. After designing a fighter and a bomber for use in World War I, he founded the De Havilland Air...

degree
(mathematics) In mathematics, a unit of measurement of an angle or arc. A circle or complete rotation is divided into 360°. A degree may be subdivided into 60 minutes (symbol '), and each minute may be subdivided in turn into 60 seconds (symbol "). Temperature is also measured in ...

Defoe, Daniel
English writer. His Robinson Crusoe (1719), though claiming to be a factual account of shipwreck and solitary survival, was influential in the development of the novel. The fictional Moll Flanders (1722) and the partly factual A Journal of the Plague Yea...

Defender of the Faith
One of the titles of the English sovereign, conferred on Henry VIII in 1521 by Pope Leo X in recognition of the king's treatise against the Protestant Martin Luther. It appears on coins in the abbreviated form F.D. (Latin Fidei Defensor)

Defence, Ministry of
UK government department created in 1964 from a temporary Ministry of Defence established after World War II together with the Admiralty, Air Ministry, and War Office. It is responsible for defence policy and for control and administration of the armed services, with the aim of protecting the UK and its overseas territories and supporting the gover...

deed
Legal document that passes an interest in property or binds a person to perform or abstain from some action. Deeds are of two kinds: indenture and deed poll. Indentures bind two or more parties in mutual obligations. A deed poll is made by one party only, such as when a person changes his or her name

Decorated
In architecture, the second period of English Gothic, covering the latter part of the 13th century and the 14th century. Chief characteristics include ornate window tracery, the window being divided into several lights by vertical bars called mullions; sharp spires ornamented with crockets and pinnacles; complex church vaulting; and sle...

Declaration of Rights
In Britain, the statement issued by the Convention Parliament in February 1689, laying down the conditions under which the crown was to be offered to William III and Mary. Its clauses were later incorporated in the Bill of Rights

Declaration of Independence
Click images to enlargeHistoric US document stating the theory of government on which the USA was founded, based on the right `to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness`. The statement was issued by the Continental Congress on 4 July 1776, renouncing all allegiance to the British crown and ending the politi...

decimal fraction
In mathematics, fraction in which the denominator is any higher power of 10. Thus 3/10, 51/100, and 23/1,000 are decimal fractions and are normally expressed as 0.3, 0.51, and 0.023. The use of decimals greatly simplifies addition and multiplication of fractions, though not all fractions can be expressed exactly as decimal fractions. Th...

Debussy,
(Achille-) French composer. He broke with German Romanticism and introduced new qualities of melody and harmony based on the whole-tone scale. His work includes Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune/Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894)...

Debs, Eugene V(ictor)
US labour leader and socialist who organized the Social Democratic Party in 1897 (known as the Socialist Party from 1901). He was the founder and first president of the American Railway Union in 1893, and was imprisoned for six months in 1894 for defying a federal injunction to end the 1894 Pullman strike in Chicago. An ardent socialist and union m...

Debrecen
Second-largest city in Hungary, 193 km/120 mi east of Budapest, in the Great Plain (Alföld) region; population (2001) 211,000. It produces tobacco, agricultural machinery, and pharmaceuticals. Lajos Kossuth declared Hungary independent of the Habsburgs here 1849. It is a commercial centre and has a university fou...

Death Valley
Click images to enlargeDesert depression in southeastern California, USA; 225 km/140 mi long and 6–26 km/4–16 mi wide; area 8,368 sq km/3,231 sq mi. At 85 m/280 ft below sea level, Death Valley is the lowest point in North America. It is one of the world's hottest and driest places, w...

Dean, James
(Byron) US actor. A stage performer who had appeared in a small number of minor film roles, Dean was killed in a car accident soon after the public showing of the first film in which he starred, Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955). He posthumously became a cult hero with &l...

Deakin, Alfred
Australian politician, prime minister 1903–04, 1905–08, and 1909–10. In his second administration, he enacted legislation on defence and pensions. Educated at Melbourne University, he worked first as a barrister and then journalist before being elected to the Victorian parliament as a Liberal, in 1879. He held ministerial posts in th...

Dead Sea Scrolls
Collection of ancient scrolls (rolls of writing) and fragments of scrolls found 1947–56 in caves on the western side of the Jordan, at Qumran. They include copies of Old Testament books a thousand years older than those previously known to be extant. The documents date mainly about 150 BC–A...

Dead Sea
Large lake, partly in Israel and partly in Jordan, lying 394 m/1,293 ft below sea level; it is the lowest surface point on earth; area 1,020 sq km/394 sq mi. The chief river entering it is the Jordan; it has no outlet and the water is very salty (340 g of salt per litre of water). The sea is not, however, completely dead.
de Broglie
French physicists; see Broglie, Louis, and Broglie, Maurice

decibel
Unit of measure used originally to compare sound intensities and subsequently electrical or electronic power outputs; now also used to compare voltages. A whisper has a sound intensity of 20 dB; 140 dB (a jet aircraft taking off nearby) is the threshold of pain. An increase of 10 dB is equivalent to a tenfold increase in intensity or power....

death cap
Fungus of the amanita group, the most poisonous mushroom known. The fruiting body, or mushroom, has a scaly white cap and a collarlike structure (volva) near the base of the stalk. (Amanita phalloides, family Agaricaceae.)

delphinium
Any of a group of plants containing about 250 species, including the butterfly or Chinese delphinium (Delphinium grandiflorum), an Asian form and one of the ancestors of the garden delphinium. Most species have blue, purple, or white flowers on a long spike. (Genus Delphin...

de Lesseps, Ferdinand, Vicomte
French engineer; see Lesseps, Ferdinand, Vicomte de Lesseps

Democratic Party
Older of the two main political parties of the USA, founded in 1792. It tends to be the party of the working person, as opposed to the Republicans, the party of big business, but the divisions between the two are not clear cut. Its stronghold since the Civil War has traditionally been industrial urban centres and the southern states, but conservati...

de Falla, Manuel
Spanish composer; see Falla, Manuel de

Derby, Edward
(George Geoffrey Smith) British politician. He was leader of the Conservative Party 1846–68 and prime minister 1852, 1858–59, and 1866–68, each time as head of a minority government. Originally a Whig, he became secretary for the colonies in 1830, and introduced the bill for the...

delta wing
Aircraft wing shaped like the Greek letter delta Δ. Its design enables an aircraft to pass through the sound barrier with little effect. The supersonic airliner Concorde and the US space shuttle have delta wings

derrick
Simple lifting machine consisting of a pole carrying a block and tackle. Derricks are commonly used on ships that carry freight. In the oil industry the tower used for hoisting the drill pipes is known as a derrick

detonator
Small explosive charge used to trigger off a main charge of high explosive. The relatively unstable compounds mercury fulminate and lead azide are often used in detonators, being set off by a lighted fuse or, more commonly, an electric current

Dewar, James
Scottish chemist and physicist who invented the vacuum flask (Thermos) in 1872 during his research into the properties of matter at extremely low temperatures. He was knighted in 1904. Working on the liquefaction of gases, Dewar dicsovered, in 1891, that both liquid oxygen and ozone are magnetic. In 1895 he became the first to produce liquid hydrog...

dew point
Temperature at which the air becomes saturated with water vapour. At temperatures below the dew point, the water vapour condenses out of the air as droplets. If the droplets are large they become deposited on plants and the ground as dew; if small they remain in suspension in the air and form mist or fog

developmental psychology
Study of development of cognition and behaviour from birth to adulthood

deindustrialization
Decline in the share of manufacturing industries in a country's economy. Typically, industrial plants are closed down and not replaced, and service industries increase

Deng Xiaoping
Chinese political leader. A member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the 1920s, he took part in the Long March (1934–36). He was in the Politburo from 1955 until ousted in the Cultural Revolution (1966–69). Reinstated in the 1970s, he gradually took power and introduced a radical economic modernization programme. He retired from t...

de Valois, Ninette
Irish choreographer, dancer, and teacher. In setting up the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1931 (later the Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School) she was, along with choreographer Frederick Ashton, one of the architects of British ballet. Among her works are Job (1931), The Rake's Progress (1935), Checkmat...

depression
(economics) In economics, a period of low output and investment, with high unemployment. Specifically, the term describes two periods of crisis in world economy: 1873–96 and 1929 to the mid-1930s

Denmark
Click images to enlargePeninsula and islands in northern Europe, bounded to the north by the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea, east by the Kattegat strait, south by Germany, and west by the North Sea. Government Under the 1849 constitution, revised most recently 1953, there is a hereditary monarch with no personal political...

decay, radioactive
See radioactive decay

deep-sea trench
Another term for ocean trench

deforestation
Click images to enlargeDestruction of forest for timber, fuel, charcoal burning, and clearing for agriculture and extractive industries, such as mining, without planting new trees to replace those lost (reforestation) or working on a cycle that allows the natural forest to regenerate. The rate of deforestation is of major...

de Tocqueville, Alexis
French politician; see Tocqueville, Alexis de

dehydration
(food) Process to preserve food. Moisture content is reduced to 10–20% in fresh produce, and this provides good protection against moulds. Bacteria are not inhibited by drying, so the quality of raw materials is vital. The process was developed commercially in France about 1795 to pre...

decathlon
Two-day athletic competition for men consisting of ten events: 100 metres, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400 metres (day one); 110-metre hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, 1,500 metres (day two). Points are awarded for performances, and the winner is the athlete with the greatest aggregate score. The decathlon is an Olympic eve...

demand
In economics, the quantity of a product or service that customers want to buy at any given price. Also, the desire for a commodity, together with ability to pay for it

deposit account
In banking, an account in which money is left to attract interest, sometimes for a fixed term. Unlike a current account, the deposit account does not give constant access

deficit financing
In economics, a planned excess of expenditure over income, dictated by government policy, creating a shortfall of public revenue which is met by borrowing. The decision to create a deficit is made to stimulate an economy by increasing consumer purchasing and at the same time to create more jobs

defibrillation
Use of electrical stimulation to restore a chaotic heartbeat to a rhythmical pattern. In fibrillation, which may occur in most kinds of heart disease, the heart muscle contracts irregularly; the heart is no longer working as an efficient pump. Paddles are applied to the chest wall, and one or more electric shocks are delivered to normalize the ...

delirium
In medicine, a state of acute confusion in which the subject is incoherent, frenzied, and out of touch with reality. It is often accompanied by delusions or hallucinations. Delirium may occur in feverish illness, some forms of mental illness, brain disease, and as a result of drug or alcohol intoxication. In chronic alcoholism, attacks of delirium ...

demesne
In the Middle Ages in Europe, land kept in the lord's possession, not leased out but, under the feudal system, worked by villeins to supply the lord's household

death penalty
Another name for capital punishment

de facto
(Latin) in fact

deontology
Ethical theory that the rightness of an action consists in its conformity to duty, regardless of the consequences that may result from it. Deontological ethics is thus opposed to any form of utilitarianism or pragmatism

Delors, Jacques Lucien Jean
French socialist politician, economy and finance minister 1981–84 under François Mitterrand's presidency, and president of the European Commission, 1985–94. In the latter role, he oversaw significant budgetary reform, the introduction of the single European market, and the negotiation and ratification of the 1992 Maastricht Treat...

desertification
Spread of deserts by changes in climate, or by human-aided processes. Desertification can sometimes be reversed by special planting (marram grass, trees) and by the use of water-absorbent plastic grains, which, added to the soil, enable crops to be grown. About 30% of land worldwide is affected by desertification (1998), including 1 mil...

Dempsey, Jack
(William Harrison) US heavyweight boxing champion, nicknamed `the Manassa Mauler`. He beat Jess Willard in 1919 to win the title and held it until 1926, when he lost it to Gene Tunney. Career highlights Professional record f...

Dee
(Scotland) River which flows through Aberdeenshire, Scotland and the city of Aberdeen; length 137 km/85 mi. From its source in the Cairngorm Mountains, it flows east into the North Sea at Aberdeen (by an artificial channel in this latter stage). Near Braemar the river passes through a ...

Derwent
(North Yorkshire) River in North Yorkshire, northeast England; length 92 km/57 mi. Rising in the North Yorkshire moors, it flows south through Malton and joins the River Ouse southeast of Selby

development aid
See aid

Deneb
Brightest star in the constellation Cygnus, and the 20th-brightest star in the night sky. It is one of the greatest supergiant stars known, with a true luminosity of about 60,000 times that of the Sun. Deneb is 1,800 light years from the Sun

dendrite
Part of a nerve cell or neuron. The dendrites are slender filaments projecting from the cell body. They receive incoming messages from many other nerve cells and pass them on to the cell body. If the combined effect of these messages is strong enough, the cell body will send an electrical impulse alo...

denitrification
Process occurring naturally in soil, where bacteria break down nitrates to give nitrogen gas, which returns to the atmosphere

dental formula
Way of showing the number of teeth in an animal's mouth. The dental formula consists of eight numbers separated by a line into two rows. The four above the line represent the teeth on one side of the upper jaw, starting at the front. If this reads 2 1 2 3 (as for humans) it means two incisors, on...

dentition
Type and number of teeth in a species. Different kinds of teeth have different functions; a grass-eating animal will have large molars for grinding its food, whereas a meat-eater will need powerful canines for catching and killing its prey. The teeth that are less useful to an animal'...

Delaunay-Terk, Sonia
French painter and textile designer. Born in Russia, she was active in Paris from 1905. With her husband Robert Delaunay, she was a pioneer of abstract art

De Laurentiis, Dino
Italian film producer. He has enjoyed a prolific but uneven career working in both Europe and the USA. He has produced films for some of the great European film-makers of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Ingmar Bergman

Deneuve, Catherine
French actor. Graceful and elegant, she is one of the most famous French stars. Her breakthrough came with Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg/Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964); since then she has worked with a number of leading film-makers, including Luis Buñuel, Roman Polanski, and François Truffaut...

Depardieu, Gérard
French actor. His combination of an imposing physique with gentleness and humility won him international acclaim as the eponymous hero in Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), a performance for which he received the Cannes Film Festival award for Best Actor as well as an Academy Award nomination. Well known in France since the early 1970s, ...

De Palma, Brian
(Russell) US film director. Frequently derided by critics for being derivative of English film director Alfred Hitchcock, De Palma is nevertheless a technical master of the cinematic medium, as shown in such films as Dressed to Kill (1980) and Mission: Impossibl...

desktop publishing
Use of microcomputers for small-scale typesetting and page makeup. DTP systems are capable of producing camera-ready pages (pages ready for photographing and printing), made up of text and graphics, with text set in different typefaces and sizes. The page can be previewed on the screen before final printing on a laser printer. A DTP program...

de Klerk, F(rederik) W(illem)
South African National Party politician, president 1989–94. A pragmatic conservative who sought gradual reform of the apartheid system, he ended the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) opposition movement in 1990 and released its effective leader Nelson Mandela. By June 1991 he had repealed all racially discriminating laws. After a land...

decontamination factor
In radiological protection, a measure of the effectiveness of a decontamination process. It is the ratio of the original contamination to the remaining radiation after decontamination: 1,000 and above is excellent; 10 and below is poor

decagon
In geometry, a ten-sided polygon

derivative
(maths) In mathematics, the limit of the gradient of a chord linking two points on a curve as the distance between the points tends to zero; for a function of a single variable, y = f(x), it is denoted by f ...

De Savary, Peter John
English entrepreneur. He built up a large business empire in the 1980s, which then collapsed in serious debt during the economic downturn in the early 1990s, but he has since revived his fortunes through prestige hospitality property developments. His first venture was an import-export enterprise. He then moved into the hotel business and launc...

decretal
In medieval Europe, a papal ruling on a disputed point, sent to a bishop or abbot in reply to a request or appeal. The earliest dates from Siricius 385. Later decretals were collected to form a decretum

deliquescence
Phenomenon of a substance absorbing so much moisture from the air that it ultimately dissolves in it to form a solution. Deliquescent substances make very good drying agents and are used in the bottom chambers of desiccators. Calcium chloride (CaCl2) is one of the commonest

Delibes,
(Clément Philibert) French composer. His lightweight, perfectly judged works include the ballet scores Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876), and the opera Lakmé (1883)

Dessau, Paul
German composer. His work includes incidental music to Bertolt Brecht's theatre pieces; an opera, Der Verurteilung des Lukullus/The Trial of Lucullus (1949), also to a libretto by Brecht; and numerous choral works and songs

decretum
Collection of papal decrees. The best known is that collected by Gratian (died 1159) about 1140, comprising some 4,000 items. The decretum was used as an authoritative source of canon law (the rules and regulations of the church)

decolonization
Gradual achievement of independence by former colonies of the European imperial powers, which began after World War I. The process of decolonization accelerated after World War II with 43 states achieving independence between 1956 and 1960, 51 between 1961 and 1980, and 23 from 1981. The movement affected every continent: India and Pakistan gai...

Devonshire, 8th Duke of
British politician; see Spencer Compton Cavendish Hartington

DeMille, Agnes George
US dancer and choreographer. She introduced popular dance idioms into ballet with such works as Rodeo (1942). One of the most significant contributors to the American Ballet Theater, with dramatic ballets like Fall River Legend (1948), based on the Lizzie Borden murder case, she also led the change on Broadway ...

Denpasar
Capital town of Bali in the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia; population (2000) 387,500. With its international airport, it is the largest commercial centre on the island, and the axis of road transport. Industries include food processing, machinery, papermaking and printing, and handicrafts. Denpasar is home to a university (1962), a museum o...

de Kooning, Willem
Dutch-born US painter. He emigrated to the USA in 1926 and worked as a commercial artist. After World War II he became, together with Jackson Pollock, one of the leaders of the abstract expressionist movement, although he retained figural images, painted with quick, violent brushstrokes. His Women series, exhibited in 1953, w...

deregulation
Action to abolish or reduce government controls and supervision over private economic activities, with the aim of improving competitiveness. This may lead to an increase in company mergers and acquisitions, but also bankruptcies. A wider array of services and lower prices in some industries may also result; see also monetarism; privatizatio...

demarcation
In British industrial relations, the practice of stipulating that particular workers should perform particular tasks. The practice can be the source of industrial disputes

dean
In education, in universities and medical schools, the head of administration; in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, UK, the member of the teaching staff charged with the maintenance of discipline; in the USA, a leader in several administrative areas, such as the dean of students or dean of admissions; in Roman Catholicism, senior ca...

Dewey, Melvil
US librarian. In 1876, he devised the Dewey decimal system of classification for accessing, storing, and retrieving books, widely used in libraries. The system uses the numbers 000 to 999 to designate the major fields of knowledge, then breaks these down into more specific subjects by the use of decimals. Dewey founded the American Library Associat...

denaturation
In biology, changes occurring in the structure of proteins such as enzymes, usually caused by changes in pH or temperature, by radiation, or by chemical treatments. An example is the heating of egg albumen resulting in solid egg white. The enzymes associated with digestion and metabolism become inactive under abnormal conditions. Heat will damage t...

deadly nightshade
Another name for belladonna, a poisonous plant

development
(biology) In biology, the process whereby a living thing transforms itself from a single cell into a vastly complicated multicellular organism, with structures, such as limbs, and functions, such as respiration, all able to work correctly in relation to each other. Most of the details of this ...

dewpond
Drinking pond for farm animals on arid hilltops such as chalk downs. In the UK, dewponds were excavated in the 19th century and lined with mud and clay. It is uncertain where the water comes from but it may be partly rain, partly sea mist, and only a small part dew

dermatology
Medical speciality concerned with diagnosis and treatment of skin disorders

Deconstructionism
In architecture, a style that fragments forms and space by taking the usual building elements of floors, walls, and ceilings and sliding them apart to create a sense of disorientation and movement. Essentially modernist, it draws inspiration from the optimism of the Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s

Desert Storm, Operation
Code-name of the military action to eject the Iraqi army from Kuwait during 1991. The build-up phase was code-named Operation Desert Shield and lasted from August 1990, when Kuwait was first invaded by Iraq, to January 1991 when Operation Desert Storm was unleashed, starting the Gulf War. Desert Storm ended with the defeat of the Iraqi ...

deferred share
On the stock market, a share that typically warrants a dividend only after a specified dividend has been paid on the ordinary shares; it may, however, be entitled to a dividend on all the profits after that point

decision theory
Theory that decisions can best be made by eliminating intuition and subjective criteria and employing a system of mathematical techniques for analysing decision-making problems. The system aims to minimize error, and includes techniques such as game theory, risk analysis, and utility theory