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


article
(grammar) Grammatical part of speech, used directly before a noun. There are two articles in English: the definite article the, which is used when a specific thing is being referred to, as in `the book that I need`; and the indefinite art...

Aryan languages
19th-century name for the Indo-European languages; the languages of the Aryan peoples of India. The name Aryan is no longer used by language scholars because of its association with the Nazi concept of white supremacy

Arabic language
Major Semitic language of the Hamito-Semitic family of West Asia and North Africa, originating among the Arabs of the Arabian peninsula. It is spoken today by about 120 million people in the Middle East and North Africa. Arabic script is written from right to left. The language has spread by way of conquest and trade as far west as Morocco and ...

Aramaic language
Semitic language of the Hamito-Semitic family of western Asia, the everyday language of Palestine 2,000 years ago, during the Roman occupation and the time of Jesus. In the 13th century BC Aramaean nomads set up states in Mesopotamia, and during the next 200 years spread into northern Syria, where Damascus, Aleppo, and Carchemish were among the...

artificial intelligence
Branch of science concerned with creating computer programs that can perform actions comparable with those of an intelligent human, including learning and adaptation. AI research covers such areas as planning (for robot behaviour), language understanding, pattern recognition, and knowledge representation. The possibility of artificial intelligence ...

Arecibo
Town in northwest Puerto Rico; population (2001 est) 49,800. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Arecibo River, 77 km/48 mi to the west of San Juan. This colonial centre was originally settled in the mid-16th century. A port with some light manufacturing facilities and...

arms control
Attempts to limit the arms race between the superpowers by reaching agreements to restrict the production of certain weapons; see disarmament

Armenian language
One of the main divisions of the Indo-European language family. Old Armenian, the classical literary language, is still used in the liturgy of the Armenian Church. Armenian was not written down until the 5th century AD, when an alphabet of 36 (now 38) letters was evolved. Literature flourished in the 4th to 14th centuries, revived in the 18th, ...

Armenian Church
Form of Christianity adopted in Armenia in the 3rd century. The Catholicos, or exarch, is the supreme head, and Echmiadzin (near Yerevan) is his traditional seat. Believers number about 2 million. About 295, Gregory the Illuminator (c. 257–332) was made first exarch of the Armenian Church, which has developed along national ...

Archipenko, Alexander
Ukrainian-born abstract sculptor. He pioneered cubist sculpture, producing geometrically stylized forms, as in Woman Combing Her Hair (1915; Tate Gallery, London). He also experimented with polychrome reliefs (which he called `sculpto-paintings`), with clear plastics and other materials, and sculptures incor...

Arawak
Indigenous American people of the Caribbean and northeastern Amazon Basin. Arawaks lived mainly by shifting cultivation in tropical forests. They were driven out of many West Indian islands by another American Indian people, the Caribs, shortly before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. Subsequently, their numbers on Hispaniola declined...

Arts Councils
UK organizations that support music, drama, dance, visual arts, and literature with government and National Lottery funds. They came into being in April 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain, created in 1945, was divided into the separate and independent Arts Councils of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The councils' main o...

art nouveau
Decorative style in the visual arts, interior design, and architecture that flourished from 1890 to 1910. It is characterized by organic, sinuous patterns and ornamentations based usually on twisting plant forms. In England, it appears in the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley; in Scotland, in the interior and exterior designs of Charles Rennie ...

artillery
Collective term for military firearms too heavy to be carried. Artillery can be mounted on tracks, wheels, ships, or aeroplanes and includes cannons and rocket launchers

arteriosclerosis
Hardening of the arteries, with thickening and loss of elasticity. It is associated with smoking, ageing, and a diet high in saturated fats. The term is used loosely as a synonym for atherosclerosis

artificial respiration
Emergency procedure to restart breathing once it has stopped; in cases of electric shock or apparent drowning, for example, the first choice is the expired-air method, the kiss of life by mouth-to-mouth breathing until natural breathing is restored

Artemis
In Greek mythology, the goddess of chastity, all young creatures, the Moon, and the hunt (Roman Diana). She was the daughter of Zeus and the Titaness Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was worshipped at cult centres throughout the Greek world; one of the largest was at Ephesus where her great temple, reconstructed several times in antiqui...

art deco
Style in the decorative arts that influenced design and architecture, and is particularly associated with mass-produced domestic goods. It emerged in Europe in the 1920s and continued through the 1930s, achieving greatest popularity in the USA and France. Art deco pulls together aspects of abstraction and cubism to create a deliberately modern ...

Arnold, Matthew
English poet and critic. His poem `Dover Beach` (1867) was widely regarded as one of the most eloquent expressions of the spiritual anxieties of Victorian England. In his highly influential critical essays collected in Culture and Anarchy (1869), he attacked the smugness and ignorance of the Victorian middle classes, an...

Arnold, Malcolm Henry
English composer. His work is tonal and includes a large amount of orchestral, chamber, ballet, and vocal music. His best-known overtures include Beckus the Dandipratt (1948), A Sussex Overture (1951), and Tam O'Shanter (1955). His operas include The Dancing Master ...

Arnhem Land
Plateau of the central peninsula in northeast Northern Territory, Australia, west of the Gulf of Carpentaria; approximate area 80,776 sq km/31,188 sq mi. Arnhem Land was named after a Dutch ship which dropped anchor here in 1618. The chief town is Nhulunbuy; population (2001) 9,000. It is the largest of the Aboriginal reserves, and was ...

Arnhem, Battle of
In World War II, airborne operation by the Allies, 17–26 September 1944, to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, thereby opening the way for a thrust towards the Ruhr and a possible early end to the war. It was only partially successful, with 7,600 casualties

Armstrong, Louis
US jazz cornet and trumpet player and singer, considered one of the most influential jazz musicians. His Chicago recordings in the 1920s with the Hot Five and Hot Seven brought him recognition for his warm and pure trumpet tone, his skill at improvisation, and his quirky, gravelly voice. In 1947 he formed the Louis Armstrong All-Stars, with who...

armour
Click images to enlargeBody protection worn in battle. Body armour is depicted in Greek and Roman art. Chain mail was developed in the Middle Ages but the craft of the armourer in Europe reached its height in design in the 15th century, when knights were completely encased in plate armour that still allowed freedom of mov...

Arminius
German chieftain of the Cherusci tribe. An ex-soldier of the Roman army, he annihilated a Roman force led by Quintilius Varus in the Teutoburger Forest area in AD 9, and saved Germany from becoming a Roman province. He survived an assassination attempt by Tiberius in AD 19, but was treacherously killed by some of his kinsmen in the same year

Armenian massacres
Series of massacres of Armenians by Turkish soldiers between 1895 and 1915. In 1894–96 demands for better trea tment led to massacres of Armenians in eastern Asia Minor. Over 50,000 Armenians were killed by Kurdish irregulars and Ottoman troops. The killing was stopped by the major European powers, but in 1915 Ottoman suspicions of Armenian loy...

Armagh
(city) City and county town of County Armagh, Northern Ireland; population (2001) 14,600. Industries include textiles, including linen; the manufacture of shoes, optical instruments, and chemicals; and engineering and food processing. The city became the religious centre of Ireland...

Armagh
(county) Historic county of Northern Ireland, bordering Lough Neagh to the north and the Republic of Ireland to the south; area 1,250 sq km/483 sq mi. The principal towns and cities are Armagh, Craigavon, and Keady. The county is flat in the north, with many bogs and mounds formed from...

Armada
Fleet sent by Philip II of Spain against England in 1588. See Spanish Armada

Armageddon
In the New Testament (Revelation 16:16), the site of the final battle between the nations that will end the world; it has been identified with Megiddo in Israel

Ariadne
In Greek mythology, the daughter of Minos, King of Crete. When Theseus came from Athens as one of the sacrificial victims offered to the Minotaur, she fell in love with him and gave him a ball of thread, which enabled him to find his way out of the labyrinth. When Theseus abandoned her on the island of Naxos, she married Dionysus

Argus
In Greek mythology, a giant with 100 eyes. When he was killed by Hermes, Hera transplanted his eyes into the tail of her favourite bird, the peacock

Argos
City in ancient Greece, at the head of the Gulf of Argos, which was once a cult centre of the goddess Hera; her celebrated sanctuary lay outside the city. In the Homeric age the name `Argives` was sometimes used instead of `Greeks`. Although one of the most important cities in the Peloponnese, Argos was dominated by Corinth ...

Argonauts
In Greek mythology, the band of heroes who accompanied Jason when he set sail in the Argo to find the Golden Fleece

Arezzo
(town) Town in Tuscany, Italy, 80 km/50 mi southeast of Florence; population (2001) 91,600. Originally an Etruscan settlement, Arezzo is an important market for agricultural and animal products from the fertile surrounding districts, and trades in textiles and clothing, shoes, olive oi...

Ardennes
(plateau) Hilly, wooded plateau in northeast France, southeast Belgium, and northern Luxembourg, cut through by the River Meuse. The area gives its name to the region of Champagne-Ardenne and the département of the Ardennes in France. The highest hills are about 590...

Ares
In Greek mythology, the god of war, equivalent to the Roman Mars. The son of Zeus and Hera, he was worshipped chiefly in Thrace. Ares loved Aphrodite, whose husband Hephaestus made the pair the laughing stock of the gods. According to a late tradition, Ares killed Halirrhothius for violence to his daughter Alcippe, and was acquitted at the court of...

Arctic Ocean
Ocean surrounding the North Pole; area 14,000,000 sq km/5,405,400 sq mi. Because of the Siberian and North American rivers flowing into it, it has comparatively low salinity and freezes readily. The ocean comprises: Beaufort Sea off Canada/Alaska coast, named after British admiral Francis Beaufort; oil drilling allowed only in w...

Arctic Circle
Imaginary line that encircles the North Pole at latitude 66° 30' north. Within this line there is at least one day in the summer during which the Sun never sets, and at least one day in the winter during which the Sun never rises

Arctic, the
Click images to enlargeThat part of the northern hemisphere surrounding the North Pole; generally defined as the region lying either north of the Arctic Circle (66° 30' north) or north of the treeline; area 36 million sq km/14 million sq mi; population around 1 million. There is no Arctic continen...

Archimedes screw
One of the earliest kinds of pump, associated with the Greek mathematician Archimedes. It consists of a large spiral screw revolving inside a close-fitting cylinder. It is used, for example, to raise water for irrigation. The lowest portion of the screw just dips into the water, and as the cylind...

Arkhangelsk
Port in the north of the Russian Federation, capital of Archangelsk oblast; population (2002) 356,100. Situated on the Northern Dvina River, it is Russia's chief timber-exporting port, and the centre of a rapidly growing mineral extraction industry (oil drilling and diamond mining). Formerly blocked by ice for half the year, it has been...

Arcadia
Central plateau and department of southern Greece; area 4,419 sq km/1,706 sq mi; population (1991) 103,800. Tripolis is the capital town

archaeology
Click images to enlargeStudy of prehistory and history, based on the examination of physical remains. Principal activities include preliminary field (or site) surveys, excavation (where necessary), and the classification, dating, and interpretation of finds. History A museum found at the ancient Sumerian city of Ur indica...

Arbroath
Fishing town in Angus, on the east coast of Scotland, 26 km/16 mi northeast of Dundee, at the mouth of Brothock Water; population (2001) 22,800. In 1320 the Declaration of Arbroath was signed by the Scottish Parliament in Arbroath Abbey, proclaiming Scotland's independence to the pope. The town has a number of oil-related firms, a f...

Ararat, Mount
Click images to enlargeDouble-peaked mountain in Turkey near the Iranian and Armenian borders; Great Ararat, at 5,137 m/16,854 ft, is the highest mountain in Turkey; Little Ararat rises to 3,925 m/12,877 ft. Based on a misreading of the Old Testament (Genesis 8:4), it was believed to be the resting...

Aran Islands
Click images to enlargeGroup of three limestone islands in the mouth of Galway Bay, which is about 32 km/20 mi wide. They lie 48 km/30 mi from Galway, on the west coast of the Republic of Ireland; the principal town is Kilronan on Inishmore. The islands form a natural breakwater, and comprise Inishmore (Irish ...

Aral Sea
Inland sea divided between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the world's fourth-largest lake; former area 62,000 sq km/24,000 sq mi, but decreasing. Since the 1960s water from its tributaries, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, has been diverted for irrigation and city use, and the sea is disappearing, with long-term consequences for the cli...

Aragón
(autonomous community) Autonomous community and former kingdom of northeast Spain, including the provinces of Huesca, Teruel, and Zaragoza (Saragossa); area 47,669 sq km/18,405 sq mi; population (2001 est) 1,199,800. Agriculture is centred at the oases and irrigated areas; prod...

Arafura Sea
Area of the Pacific Ocean between northern Australia and Indonesia, bounded by the Timor Sea in the west and the Coral Sea, via the Torres Strait, in the east; 1,290 km/800 mi long and 560 km/350 mi wide. It lies on the Arafura Shelf, and is 50–80 m/165–265 ft deep. The Indonesian Aru islands lie to the north. To the north...

Arafat, Yassir
Palestinian nationalist politician, cofounder of the al-Fatah (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine) resistance group in 1958, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969, and president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994. He was a key player in peace talks with Israel regarding the status of t...

Arab–Israeli Wars
Series of wars and territorial conflicts between Israel and various Arab states in the Middle East since the founding of the state of Israel in May 1948. These include the war of 1948–49; the 1956 Suez War between Israel and Egypt; the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel captured territory from Syria and Jordan; the October Wa...

Arabian Sea
Northwestern branch of the Indian Ocean, covering 3,859,000 sq km/1,489,970 sq mi, with India to the east, Pakistan and Iran to the north, and the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia to the west. It is linked with the Red Sea via the Gulf of Aden, and with the Gulf via the Gulf of Oman. Its mean depth is 2,730 m/8,956 ft. The chief river flowing ...

Arab Emirates
See United Arab Emirates

Arundel
Market town in West Sussex, southern England, on the River Arun; population (2001) 4,200. Tourism is an important summer industry. Its Norman castle, much restored, is the seat of the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal of England

Arunachal Pradesh
State of India, in the Himalayas on the borders of Tibet and Myanmar; area 83,578 sq km/33,270 sq mi; population (2001 est) 1,091,100 (including over 80 ethnic groups). Formerly part of the state of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh became a state of India in 1987. The main towns include Bomdila and Ziro, while its capital is Itanagar. Its posit...

arthritis
Inflammation of the joints, with pain, swelling, and restricted motion. Many conditions may cause arthritis, including gout, infection, and trauma to the joint. There are three main forms of arthritis: rheumatoid arthritis; osteoarthritis; and septic arthritis

art
In the broadest sense, all the processes and products of human skill, imagination, and invention. In contemporary usage, definitions of art usually reflect art theory, and the term may encompass literature, music, drama, painting, and sculpture. Popularly, the term is most commonly used to refer to the visual arts. In Western culture, artistic thou...

arson
Malicious and wilful setting fire to property

arrest
Apprehension and detention of a person suspected of a crime. In Britain, an arrest may be made on a magistrate's warrant, but a police constable is empowered to arrest without warrant in all cases where he or she has reasonable ground for thinking a serious offence has been committed. A private citizen may arrest anyone committing a serious off...

Arras
French town on the Scarpe River northeast of Paris; population (1999) 40,500. It is the capital of Pas-de-Calais département, and was formerly known for tapestry. It was the birthplace of the French revolutionary leader Robespierre

Arran
Large island in the Firth of Clyde, lying between the Kintyre peninsula and the mainland of North Ayrshire, Scotland; area 427 sq km/165 sq mi; population (2001) 5,050. The economy is largely based on tourism and craft industries, though other industries include whisky distilling and food processing. The island, which is mountainous to ...

Arp, Hans
French abstract painter, sculptor, and poet. He was one of the founders of the Dada movement in 1916, and was later associated with the Surrealists. Using chance and automatism, Arp developed an abstract sculpture whose sensuous shapes suggest organic forms. In many of his works, in particular his early collages, he collaborated with his wife Sophi...

Arnold, Benedict
US soldier and military strategist who, during the American Revolution, won the turning-point battle at Saratoga in 1777 for the Americans. He is chiefly remembered as a traitor to the American side, having plotted to betray the strategic post at West Point to the British

Arno
Italian river 240 km/150 mi long, rising in the Apennines, and flowing westwards to the Mediterranean Sea. Florence and Pisa stand on its banks. A flood in 1966 damaged virtually every Renaissance landmark in Florence

Arnim, Ludwig Achim von
German Romantic poet and novelist. He wrote short stories, a romance Armut, Schuld und Busse der Gräfin Dolores/Countess Dolores (1810), and plays, but left the historical novel Die Kronenwächter (1817) unfinished. With Clemens Brentano he collected the German folk songs in Des Knaben Wun...

Arlington
County in Virginia, and a suburb of Washington, DC, USA, which it faces across the Potomac River; area 67 sq km/26 sq mi; population (2000 est) 189,500. Arlington is a busy residential community with clusters of modern high-rise buildings and some light manufacturing (electrical components, scientific instruments, machinery). It is ...

Arles
Town in Bouches-du-Rhône département, southwest France, on the Arles canal and the left bank of the Rhône, at the head of the Camargue delta; population (1990) 52,600. Its main economic activities are tourism and agriculture, and it is in an important fruit- and vine-growing district. Roman reli...

arithmetic
Branch of mathematics concerned with the study of numbers and their properties. The fundamental operations of arithmetic are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Raising to powers (for example, squaring or cubing a number), the extraction of roots (for example, square roots), percenta...

Arkwright, Richard
English inventor and manufacturing pioneer who in 1768 developed a machine for spinning cotton (he called it a `water frame`). In 1771 he set up a water-powered spinning factory and in 1790 he installed steam power in a Nottingham factory. He was knighted in 1786

Aristotle
Greek philosopher who advocated reason and moderation. He maintained that sense experience is our only source of knowledge, and that by reasoning we can discover the essences of things, that is, their distinguishing qualities. In his works on ethics and politics, he suggested that human happiness consists in living in conformity with nature. He der...

Aristarchus of Samos
Greek astronomer. The first to argue that the Earth moves around the Sun, he was ridiculed for his beliefs. He was also the first astronomer to estimate (quite inaccurately) the sizes of the Sun and Moon and their distances from the Earth

Aristides
Athenian politician. He was one of the ten Athenian generals at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC and was elected chief archon, or magistrate. Later he came into conflict with the democratic leader Themistocles, and was exiled in about 483 BC. He returned to fight against the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC and in the following year commanded the Athe...

Ariège
(river) River in southern France, which rises in the Pyrenees and flows north to join the Garonne 10 km/6 mi south of Toulouse; length 170 km/106 mi. It gives its name to the département of Ariège

Arianism
System of Christian theology that denied the complete divinity of Jesus, giving God the Father primacy over the created son Jesus. It was founded about 310 by Arius, and condemned as heretical at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Some 17th- and 18th-century theologians held Arian views akin to those of Unitarianism (that God is a single being, ...

Arequipa
(city) Capital of Arequipa department in the western Andes of southern Peru; it stands at a height of 2,363 m/7,753 ft in a fertile valley at the base of the dormant volcano El Misti (5,822 m/19,100 ft); industries include textiles, soap, and leather goods; population (2005...

archery
Use of the bow and arrow, originally in hunting and warfare, now as a competitive sport. The world governing body is the Fédération Internationale de Tir à l'Arc (FITA) founded in 1931. In Olympic competition, archers shoot at targets 70 m/230 ft away in four events - men's and women's individual and team competit...

archdeacon
Originally an ordained dignitary of the Christian church charged with the supervision of the deacons attached to a cathedral. Today in the Roman Catholic Church the office is purely titular; in the Anglican Church an archdeacon, directly subordinate to the bishop, still has many business duties, such as the periodic inspection of churches. The ...

archbishop
In the Christian church, a bishop of superior rank who has authority over other bishops in his jurisdiction and often over an ecclesiastical province. The office exists in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches

arch
(architecture) Click images to enlargeIn masonry, a curved structure that supports the weight of material over an open space, as in a bridge or doorway. The first arches consisted of several wedge-shaped stones supported by their mutual pressure....

Arc de Triomphe
Arch at the head of the Champs Elysées in the Place de l'Etoile, Paris, France, begun by Napoleon in 1806 and completed in 1836. It was intended to commemorate Napoleon's victories of 1805–06 and commissioned from Jean Chalgrin. Beneath it rests France's `Unknown Soldier`

Araucanian Indian
Member of a group of South American peoples native to central Chile and the Argentine pampas. They were agriculturalists and hunters, as well as renowned warriors, defeating the Incas and resisting the Spanish for 200 years. Originally, they lived in small villages; some 200,000 still survive in ...

Arakan
State of Myanmar (formerly Burma) on the Bay of Bengal coast, some 645 km/400 mi long and strewn with islands; population (1994 est) 2,482,000. Most of Arakan is mountainous or hilly land, originally covered with tropical forest, though this has now mainly been destroyed by shifting cultivation and has been replaced by a dense growth of bam...

Aragon, Louis
French poet and novelist. Beginning as a Dadaist, he became one of the leaders of Surrealism, published volumes of verse, and in 1930 joined the Communist Party. Taken prisoner in World War II, he escaped to join the Resistance; his experiences are reflected in the poetry of Le Crève-coeur/Heart-break (1941) ...

artichoke
Either of two plants belonging to the sunflower family, parts of which are eaten as vegetables. The common or globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus) is a form of thistle native to the Mediterranean. It is tall, with purplish-blue flowers; the leaflike structures (bracts) around the unopened flower are eaten. The Jerusalem arti...

arum
Any of a group of mainly European plants with narrow leaves and a single, usually white, special leaf (spathe) surrounding the spike of tiny flowers. The ornamental arum called the trumpet lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) is a native of South Africa. (Genus Arum, f...

arbitrageur
In finance, a person who buys securities (such as currency or commodities) in one country or market for immediate resale in another market, to take advantage of different prices. Arbitrage became widespread during the 1970s and 1980s with the increasing deregulation of financial markets. The effect of arbitrage is to lessen or eliminate the price d...

Arnold, Thomas
English schoolmaster, father of the poet and critic Matthew Arnold. He was headmaster of Rugby School 1828–42. His regime has been graphically described in Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857). He emphasized training of character, and had a profound influence on public school education

Archimedes
(mathematician) Greek mathematician and philosopher who made major discoveries in geometry, hydrostatics, and mechanics, and established the sciences of statics and hydrostatics. He formulated a law of fluid displacement (Archimedes&#...

arc lamp
Electric light that uses the illumination of an electric arc maintained between two electrodes. The E nglish chemist Humphry Davy demonstrated the electric arc in 1802 and electric arc lighting was first introduced by English electrical engineer W E Staite in 1846. The lamp consists of two carbon electrodes, between which a very high voltage is main...

Archimedes' principle
In physics, the principle that the weight of the liquid displaced by a floating body is equal to the weight of the body. The principle is often stated in the form: `an object totally or partially submerged in a fluid displaces a volume of fluid that weighs the same as the apparent loss in weight of the object (which, in turn, equals the up...

armature
In a motor or generator, the wire-wound coil that carries the current and rotates in a magnetic field. (In alternating-current machines, the armature is sometimes stationary.) The pole piece of a permanent magnet or electromagnet and the moving, iron part of a solenoid, especially if the latter acts as a switch, may also be referred to as a...

Arts and Crafts Movement
English social and aesthetic movement of the late 19th century that stressed the importance of manual skills and the dignity of labour. It expressed a rejection of Victorian industrialization and mass production, and a nostalgic desire to return to a medieval way of life. The movement influenced art ...

aria
(music) Melodic solo song of reflective character, often with a contrasting middle section. It is used to express a moment of importance in the action of an opera or oratorio. Already to be found in Jacopo Peri's Euridice (1600) and Claudio Monteverdi's Orfe...

arabesque
(dance) In ballet, a pose in which the dancer stands on one leg, straight or bent, with the other leg raised behind, fully extended. The arms are held in a harmonious position to give the longest possible line from fingertips to toes. It is one of the fundamental positions in ballet

archaeopteryx
Extinct primitive bird, known from fossilized remains, about 160 million years old, found in limestone deposits in Bavaria, Germany. It is popularly known as `the first bird`, although some earlier bird ancestors are now known. It was about the size of a crow and had feathers and wings, with three clawlike digits at the end of each wing, ...

argonaut
Octopus living in the open sea, genus Argonauta. The female of the common paper nautilus, A. argo, is 20 cm/8 in across, and secretes a spiralled papery shell for her eggs from the web of the first pair of arms. The male is a shell-less dwarf, 1 cm/0.4 in across

armadillo
Mammal of the family Dasypodidae, with an armour of bony plates along its back or, in some species, almost covering the entire body. Around 20 species live between Texas and Patagonia and range in size from the fairy armadillo, or pichiciego, Chlamyphorus truncatus, at 13 cm/5 ...

Argentina
Click images to enlargeCountry in South America, bounded west and south by Chile, north by Bolivia, and east by Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and the Atlantic Ocean. Government The return of civilian rule in 1983 brought a return of the 1853 constitution, with some changes in the electoral system; in 1994 further importa...

Aruba
Island in the Caribbean, the westernmost of the Lesser Antilles, 30 km/19 mi north of the Paraguana Peninsula in Venezuela; area 193 sq km/75 sq mi; population (2001 est) 70,000 (half of Indian descent). The capital and chief town and port is Oranjestad. Aruba is a self-governing overseas territory of the Netherlands. Languages ...