• Pembroke, Richard FitzGilbert, 2nd Earl of (Anglo-Norman lord)

    Richard FitzGilbert, 2nd earl of Pembroke was an Anglo-Norman lord whose invasion of Ireland in 1170 initiated the opening phase of the English conquest. The son of Gilbert FitzGilbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, he succeeded to his father’s estates in southern Wales in 1148/49. Pembroke had evidently

  • Pembroke, William Herbert, 1st earl of, Baron Herbert of Cardiff (English noble)

    William Herbert, 1st earl of Pembroke was a leading figure in the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I of England. His father, Sir Richard Herbert, was an illegitimate son of William, the 1st earl of Pembroke of the first creation. Sir William’s first wife, Anne Parr, was a sister of

  • Pembroke, William Marshal, 1st earl of (English regent)

    William Marshal, 1st earl of Pembroke was a marshal and then regent of England who served four English monarchs—Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III—as a royal adviser and agent and as a warrior of outstanding prowess. Marshal’s father, John (FitzGilbert) the Marshal (died 1165), fought for the

  • Pembrokeshire (county, Wales, United Kingdom)

    Pembrokeshire, county of southwestern Wales, bounded on the northeast by Ceredigion, on the east by Carmarthenshire, on the south by the Bristol Channel, and on the west and northwest by St. Bride’s Bay and Cardigan Bay of St. George’s Channel. The county’s rugged and convoluted coastline forms a

  • Pembrokeshire (breed of dog)

    Welsh Corgi: The Pembroke Welsh Corgi is descended from dogs brought to Pembrokeshire, Wales, between the 10th and 12th centuries by Vikings, Flemish weavers, or both. Some of the ancestors of the Pembroke breed probably belonged to the spitz group that produced the Keeshond, Pomeranian, and Samoyed. The…

  • Pembrokeshire Coast National Park (national park, Wales, United Kingdom)

    Pembrokeshire: Pembrokeshire Coast National Park preserves the county’s scenic coast and the Preseli Hills. The town of St. David’s, named for the national saint of Wales, who was born in the 6th century, has been a place of pilgrimage since the Middle Ages, attracting those with…

  • pembrolizumab (drug)

    cancer: Immunotherapy: …therapies, such as nivolumab and pembrolizumab, have proven beneficial in patients with melanoma and certain other cancer types.

  • pemetrexed (drug)

    mesothelioma: Survival prediction and treatment: …used in this class is pemetrexed, which is most effective when combined with platinum-based agents, such as cisplatinum. These drugs may be given as definitive treatment to patients that are not surgical candidates, and up to 50 percent of treated individuals may respond with tumour arrest and shrinkage and modestly…

  • Pemex (Mexican company)

    Petróleos Mexicanos, state-owned Mexican company, a producer, refiner, and distributor of crude oil, natural gas, and petroleum products. It is one of the largest petroleum companies in the world. It has long been a major source of revenue for Mexico’s federal government, contributing as much as

  • Pemigewasset River (river, New Hampshire, United States)

    Franconia Notch: The Pemigewasset River rises in the Notch and follows the pass, from which it flows southward for about 70 miles (113 km) to join the Winnipesaukee River and form the Merrimack. The area, made a state park in 1928, is traversed by the Appalachian National Scenic…

  • pemmican (food)

    pemmican, dried meat, traditionally bison (moose, caribou, deer, or beef can be used as well), pounded into coarse powder and mixed with an equal amount of melted fat, and occasionally saskatoon berries, cranberries, and even (for special occasions) cherries, currants, chokeberries, or blueberries.

  • Pempheridae (fish)

    sweeper, any of the fishes of the genera Parapriacanthus or Pempheris, in the family Pempheridae (order Perciformes), all of which occur in marine or brackish waters in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. Sweepers have elongate-oval, compressed bodies with well-developed fins and tail. The

  • Pempheris (fish)

    sweeper: …of the genera Parapriacanthus or Pempheris, in the family Pempheridae (order Perciformes), all of which occur in marine or brackish waters in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. Sweepers have elongate-oval, compressed bodies with well-developed fins and tail. The eyes are unusually large. A few species have luminescent organs along…

  • Pempheris schomburgki (fish)

    sweeper: The glassy sweeper (Pempheris schomburgki) of the western Atlantic is the only representative along the North American coasts. No species occur in the eastern Atlantic or eastern Pacific.

  • pemphigus (dermatology)

    pemphigus, a group of skin diseases characterized by large blisters that appear on the skin and mucous membranes. Pemphigus diseases include pemphigus vulgaris, pemphigus vegetans, pemphigus foliaceus, pemphigus erythematosus, and benign familial pemphigus. The most common and most severe of these

  • pemphigus erythematosus (dermatology)

    pemphigus: Pemphigus foliaceus and pemphigus erythematosus are less severe. Mucous membranes are rarely involved. Lesions may be found on the scalp, face, or trunk, or they may spread. They also arise from an autoimmune reaction, but the process usually occurs nearer the surface of the epidermis. Low doses of…

  • pemphigus foliaceus (dermatology)

    pemphigus: Pemphigus foliaceus and pemphigus erythematosus are less severe. Mucous membranes are rarely involved. Lesions may be found on the scalp, face, or trunk, or they may spread. They also arise from an autoimmune reaction, but the process usually occurs nearer the surface of the epidermis.…

  • pemphigus vegetans (dermatology)

    pemphigus: Pemphigus vegetans is similar. Both are autoimmune diseases caused by antibodies that are produced against proteins (antigens) found within cells of the outermost layer of the skin, called the epidermis. The interaction between autoantibodies and these antigens results in a loss of cohesion among skin…

  • pemphigus vulgaris (dermatology)

    pemphigus: …severe of these diseases is pemphigus vulgaris, in which large, flaccid blisters erupt on otherwise healthy-looking skin and mucous membranes. The first site of blistering is often the mouth. The blisters rupture easily, leaving weeping, encrusted areas that do not heal. Pain from mouth lesions can prevent the individual from…

  • Pemptades (work by Dodoens)

    Rembert Dodoens: Pemptades introduced new families, arranged plants into 26 groups, and added many original and borrowed illustrations. It was the basis of John Gerard’s celebrated Herball. Dodoens served as physician to the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II and his successor, Rudolph II. He joined the faculty…

  • Pemulwuy (Australian Aboriginal warrior)

    New South Wales: The growth of a free society: …led by warriors such as Pemulwuy (a leader from the Botany Bay area who was killed by an Englishman in 1802), led to violent clashes in which large numbers of Aboriginal people were killed. While governors maintained that Aboriginal people should be treated with humanity and as British subjects, the…

  • pen (writing implement)

    pen, tool for writing or drawing with a coloured fluid such as ink. The earliest ancestor of the pen probably was the brush the Chinese used for writing by the 1st millennium bce. The early Egyptians employed thick reeds for penlike implements about 300 bce. A specific allusion to the quill pen

  • pen (female swan)

    swan: …called cobs, and females, called pens, look alike. Legend to the contrary, swans utter a variety of sounds from the windpipe, which in some species is looped within the breastbone (as in cranes); even the mute swan, the least vocal species, often hisses, makes soft snoring sounds, or grunts sharply.

  • PEN (international organization)

    International PEN, international organization of writers. The original PEN was founded in London in 1921 by the English novelist John Galsworthy, and it has since grown to include writers worldwide. The name PEN is an acronym standing for “poets, playwrights, editors, essayists, and novelists.”

  • pen drawing

    pen drawing, artwork executed wholly or in part with pen and ink, usually on paper. Pen drawing is fundamentally a linear method of making images. In pure pen drawing in which the artist wishes to supplement his outlines with tonal suggestions of three-dimensional form, modeling must necessarily be

  • pen shell (mollusk)

    bivalve: Annotated classification: (pearl oysters and fan shells) Shell equivalve, variably shaped; anisomyarian but often monomyarian; shell structure of outer simple calcitic prisms and inner nacre; ctenidia pseudolamellibranch, often plicate (deeply folded); mantle margin lacking fusions; foot reduced; marine; endobyssate or epibyssate. About 100 species. Order Limoida Shell equivalve, ovally

  • Pen y Fan (mountain, Wales, United Kingdom)

    Brecknockshire: Pen y Fan, the highest peak in the park, stands 2,906 feet (866 metres) above sea level. Because of its location at the edge of the Welsh highlands along what became the English border, Brecknock has been historically a centre of conflict between the Welsh…

  • PEN, International (international organization)

    International PEN, international organization of writers. The original PEN was founded in London in 1921 by the English novelist John Galsworthy, and it has since grown to include writers worldwide. The name PEN is an acronym standing for “poets, playwrights, editors, essayists, and novelists.”

  • Pen, Jean-Marie Le (French politician)

    Jean-Marie Le Pen was a French nationalist who founded and served as leader (1972–2011) of the National Front political party, which represented the main right-wing opposition to the country’s mainstream conservative parties from the 1970s through the early 21st century. A controversial figure who

  • pen-and-wash drawing (art)

    line-and-wash drawing, in the visual arts, a drawing marked out by pen or some similar instrument and then tinted with diluted ink or watercolour. In 13th-century China, artists used transparent ink washes to create delicate atmospheric effects. The line-and-wash technique was practiced in Europe

  • Pen-hsi (China)

    Benxi, city, southeast-central Liaoning sheng (province), northeastern China. It is situated some 45 miles (75 km) southeast of Shenyang (Mukden) on the Taizi River. From the time of the Liao dynasty (907–1125), Benxi was the centre of a small-scale iron industry, and coal began to be mined in the

  • pen-tailed tree shrew (mammal)

    tree shrew: …hair, but that of the pen-tailed tree shrew (Ptilocercus lowii) is hairless and ends in a featherlike tuft.

  • Pen-ts’ao kang-mu (work by Li Shizhen)

    Li Shizhen: …highly influential materia medica, the Bencao gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica), which described 1,892 drugs and presented directions for preparing some 11,000 prescriptions. Completed in 1578, the book was in part a compilation of other smaller works of the same kind. It contained descriptions of 1,094 herbs and 444 animal…

  • Pen-y-bont Ar Ogwr (county borough, Wales, United Kingdom)

    Bridgend, county borough, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), southern Wales. Bridgend county borough extends from the mining valleys of Ogmore, Garw, and Llynfi in the north to the arable lowlands and an extensive coastline in the south. The town of Bridgend is the administrative centre of

  • Pen-y-Ghent (mountain, England, United Kingdom)

    Pennines: …(2,373 feet [723 metres]), and Pen-y-Ghent (2,273 feet [693 metres]). In the southern section, heights of more than 2,000 feet (600 metres) are rare, apart from Kinder Scout (2,088 feet [636 metres]), part of the Peak District of Derbyshire.

  • PEN/Faulkner Award (American literary award)

    PEN/Faulkner Award, American literary prize for fiction founded in 1980 by author Mary Lee Settle and organized by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Settle, then teaching at the University of Virginia, established the award in response to what she considered the commercialization of American literature

  • PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (American literary award)

    PEN/Faulkner Award, American literary prize for fiction founded in 1980 by author Mary Lee Settle and organized by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Settle, then teaching at the University of Virginia, established the award in response to what she considered the commercialization of American literature

  • PEN/Nabokov Award (American literary award)

    PEN/Nabokov Award, annual American literary award for lifetime achievement established by the PEN American Center, the American branch of the writers’ organization International PEN, in 2016. A previous version of the prize, awarded biennially from 2000 to 2008, was open to both U.S. and

  • PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature (American literary award)

    PEN/Nabokov Award, annual American literary award for lifetime achievement established by the PEN American Center, the American branch of the writers’ organization International PEN, in 2016. A previous version of the prize, awarded biennially from 2000 to 2008, was open to both U.S. and

  • Peña de Francia (mountains, Spain)

    Salamanca: The Peña de Francia Mountains rise in the south to their highest point at Peña de Francia (5,682 feet [1,732 metres]), which is crowned by a monastery and hostel. This part of the province is richly forested. The Gata Mountains lie along the boundary with Cáceres.…

  • Peña Nieto, Enrique (president of Mexico)

    Enrique Peña Nieto is a Mexican politician of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional; PRI) who served as the president of Mexico (2012–18). Prior to becoming president, he served as governor of the state of México (2005–11). Peña Nieto was born in México state

  • Pena Palace (building, Sintra, Portugal)

    Sintra: …the mountain peaks is the Pena Palace, a 19th-century castle, partly an adaptation of a 16th-century monastery and partly an imitation of a medieval fortress, which was built for Queen Maria II by her young German consort, Ferdinand II. On the extensive grounds of the castle, Ferdinand created the Parque…

  • Peña, Michael (American actor)

    Crash: …a Hispanic locksmith, Daniel (Michael Peña), arrives to change the locks on the Cabots’ house, but Jean assumes that Daniel is likely to be a gangbanger and wants the locks changed again. In a diner, white police officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon) calls an African American HMO administrator, Shaniqua…

  • Peña, Santiago (president of Paraguay)

    Paraguay: The presidency of Mario Abdo Benítez: …handpicked candidate, former finance minister Santiago Peña, secured the nomination. In a field that included 12 other candidates, Peña’s principal challenger was Efraín Alegre, making his third run for president, this time with the backing of the broad Concertación coalition, comprising some two dozen political parties. Among the other contenders…

  • Penacook Plantation (New Hampshire, United States)

    Concord, city, capital (since 1808) of New Hampshire, U.S., and seat (1823) of Merrimack county. It lies along the Merrimack River above Manchester. The site was granted by the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1725 as Penacook Plantation. Settled in 1727, the community was incorporated as Rumford in

  • Penaeaceae (plant family)

    Myrtales: Family distributions and abundance: Penaeaceae, containing the former families Oliniaceae and Rhynchocalycaceae, consists of 9 genera with 29 species and is restricted to Africa. The genus Olinia, found in eastern and southern Africa and on the island of St. Helena, has 5 species. Penae and the 7 other small…

  • penal code (law)

    crime: The concept of crime: criminal codes: Criminal behavior is defined by the laws of particular jurisdictions, and there are sometimes vast differences between and even within countries regarding what types of behavior are prohibited. Conduct that is lawful in one country or jurisdiction may be criminal in another, and…

  • penal colony

    penal colony, distant or overseas settlement established for punishing criminals by forced labour and isolation from society. Although a score of nations in Europe and Latin America transported their criminals to widely scattered penal colonies, such colonies were developed mostly by the English,

  • Penal Laws (British and Irish history)

    Penal Laws, laws passed against Roman Catholics in Britain and Ireland after the Reformation that penalized the practice of the Roman Catholic religion and imposed civil disabilities on Catholics. Various acts passed in the 16th and 17th centuries prescribed fines and imprisonment for participation

  • penal science (sociology)

    penology, the division of criminology that concerns itself with the philosophy and practice of society in its efforts to repress criminal activities. As the term signifies (from Latin poena, “pain,” or “suffering”), penology has stood in the past and, for the most part, still stands for the policy

  • penal servitude (law)

    crime: China: Punishments for serious offenses include imprisonment and the death penalty. About 70 different offenses are punishable by death, though the vast majority of death sentences are imposed for common crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, assault (see assault and battery), and theft. Since the 1990s there have been an increasing…

  • Peñalara Peak (mountain, Spain)

    Spain: Relief: Their highest points—Peñalara Peak at 7,972 feet (2,430 metres) and Almanzor Peak at 8,497 feet (2,590 metres)—rise well above the plains of the central plateau. In contrast, the granitic Galician mountains, at the northwestern end of the Hercynian block, have an average elevation of only 1,640 feet…

  • Peñalba, Rodrigo (Nicaraguan artist)

    Cocibolca: The Nicaraguan artist Rodrigo Peñalba immortalized Cocibolca in murals depicting the final battle between its Indian inhabitants and the Spaniards. Cocibolca, meaning “sweet sea,” was also the Indian name for the lake.

  • penalty (law)

    punishment, the infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for a misdeed (i.e., the transgression of a law or command). Punishment may take forms ranging from capital punishment, flogging, forced labour, and mutilation of the body to imprisonment and fines. Deferred punishments consist

  • penalty kick (sports)

    football: Fouls: Penalty kicks, introduced in 1891, are awarded for more serious fouls committed inside the area. The penalty kick is a direct free kick awarded to the attacking side and is taken from a spot 12 yards (11 meters) from goal, with all players other than…

  • penalty shot (sports)

    ice hockey: Strategies: …and exciting play is the penalty shot, which is called when a stick is thrown to deflect a shot or when a player with an open path to the goal is pulled down from behind. The team against which the infraction was committed selects a player to skate unopposed to…

  • penance (religion)

    absolution: and Eastern Orthodoxy, confession, or penance, is a sacrament. The power to absolve lies with the priest, who can grant release from the guilt of sin to sinners who are truly contrite, confess their sins, and promise to perform satisfaction to God. In the New Testament the grace of forgiveness…

  • Penance of Hugo, The (work by Monti)

    Vincenzo Monti: …morte di Ugo Bassville (1793; The Penance of Hugo), usually known as Bassvilliana, also praises the pope and warns of the dangers of the French Revolution. Then Napoleon invaded Italy, and his successes converted Monti, who moved to Milan, turned on the papacy, sang the praises of the conqueror, and…

  • Penang (Malaysia)

    George Town, leading port of Malaysia, situated on a triangular promontory in the northeastern sector of the island of Penang (Pinang). Its sheltered harbour is separated from the west coast of Peninsular (West) Malaysia by a 3-mile (5-km) channel through which international shipping approaches

  • Penang (island, Malaysia)

    Penang, island of Malaysia, lying in the Strait of Malacca off the northwest coast of peninsular Malaya, from which it is separated by a narrow strait whose smallest width is 2.5 miles (4 km). Penang Island is roughly oval in shape. It has a granitic, mountainous interior—reaching a high point of

  • penang (plant)

    Betel chewing is a habit of an estimated one-tenth of the world’s population, and betel is the fourth most common psychoactive drug in the world, following nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine. The practice of betel chewing is popular throughout wide areas of southern Asia and the East Indies. A betel

  • penannular brooch

    brooch: The penannular brooch, in the form of a ring with a small break in the circumference, was characteristic of Irish production; generally of great size and probably worn on the shoulder with the pin pointing upward, it was richly decorated with interlaced patterns. The finest example…

  • Peñaranda, Enrique (president of Bolivia)

    Bolivia: The rise of new political groups and the Bolivian National Revolution: …1943 the civilian president General Enrique Peñaranda was overthrown by a secret military group, Reason for the Fatherland (Razón de Patria; RADEPA). RADEPA allied itself with the MNR and tried to create a new-style government under Colonel Gualberto Villaroel (1943–46), but little was accomplished except for the MNR’s political mobilization…

  • Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo (town, Spain)

    Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo, town, Córdoba provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southern Spain. A railway junction in the Sierra Morena, it lies about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Córdoba city. Peñarroya was settled in the 13th century. Pueblonuevo was

  • Penarth (Wales, United Kingdom)

    Vale of Glamorgan: …resort, and the town of Penarth functions as both a resort and a residential area for workers who commute to Cardiff. The Turner House Art Gallery in Penarth is part of the National Museum of Wales. Area 128 square miles (331 square km). Pop. (2001) 119,292; (2011) 126,336.

  • Peñas, Golfo de (inlet, Chile)

    Gulf of Peñas, inlet of the southeast Pacific Ocean, southwestern Chile. It extends inland for 55 miles (89 km) and stretches about 50 miles (80 km) south from Taitao Peninsula to the Guayaneco

  • Peñas, Gulf of (inlet, Chile)

    Gulf of Peñas, inlet of the southeast Pacific Ocean, southwestern Chile. It extends inland for 55 miles (89 km) and stretches about 50 miles (80 km) south from Taitao Peninsula to the Guayaneco

  • Penateka (people)

    Comanche: Recent history: …Root] Eaters”), Kotsoteka (“Buffalo Eaters”), Penateka (“Honey Eaters”), Nokoni (“Wanderers” or “Those Who Turn Back”), and Quahadis (“Antelopes”). One of the best-known Comanche leaders, Quanah Parker, belonged to the Quahadi band. In the mid-19th century the Penateka, a southern band, were settled on a reservation in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).…

  • Penates (Roman deities)

    Penates, household gods of the Romans and other Latin peoples. In the narrow sense, they were gods of the penus (“household provision”), but by extension their protection reached the entire household. They are associated with other deities of the house, such as Vesta, and the name was sometimes

  • Pénaud Planophore (aircraft model)

    Pénaud Planophore, model aircraft designed, built, and first flown by the French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Pénaud in 1871. Pénaud flew the small hand-launched model airplane, or planophore, as he preferred to call it, on Aug. 18, 1871, before a large group of invited witnesses at the Jardin des

  • Pénaud, Alphonse (French aeronautical pioneer)

    Alphonse Pénaud was a French aeronautical pioneer. Pénaud was the son of an admiral but suffered from a degenerative hip condition that prevented his following a family tradition of service in the French navy. As early as 1870 he began to demonstrate the discoveries that would eventually establish

  • Penbritin (drug)

    ampicillin, drug used in the treatment of various infections, including otitis media (middle ear infection), sinusitis, and acute bacterial cystitis. Ampicillin (or alpha-aminobenzylpenicillin) is a semisynthetic penicillin, one of the first such antibiotics developed. Similar in action to

  • Pencao kangmu (work by Li Shizhen)

    Li Shizhen: …highly influential materia medica, the Bencao gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica), which described 1,892 drugs and presented directions for preparing some 11,000 prescriptions. Completed in 1578, the book was in part a compilation of other smaller works of the same kind. It contained descriptions of 1,094 herbs and 444 animal…

  • pence (Anglo-Saxon coin)

    coin: Anglo-Saxon penny coinages: English coinage proper began with the silver penny of Offa, king of Mercia (757–796). It was first struck at around the weight of the sceat, from about 790, and its weight increased to about 22 1 2 grains (equal to 240 to the…

  • Pence, Michael Richard (vice president of the United States)

    Mike Pence is the 48th vice president of the United States (2017–21) in the Republican administration of Pres. Donald Trump. In 2020 Trump and Pence were defeated by their Democratic opponents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Pence had previously served as governor of Indiana (2013–17). Pence was

  • Pence, Mike (vice president of the United States)

    Mike Pence is the 48th vice president of the United States (2017–21) in the Republican administration of Pres. Donald Trump. In 2020 Trump and Pence were defeated by their Democratic opponents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Pence had previously served as governor of Indiana (2013–17). Pence was

  • pencerdd (Welsh literary office)

    Celtic literature: The Middle Ages: …of the order was the pencerdd (“chief of song or craft”), the ruler’s chief poet, whose duty was to sing the praise of God, the ruler, and his family. Next came the bardd teulu, who was the poet of the ruler’s war band although he seems to have been poet…

  • pencil (writing implement)

    pencil, slender rod of a solid marking substance, such as graphite, enclosed in a cylinder of wood, metal, or plastic; used as an implement for writing, drawing, or marking. In 1565 the German-Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner first described a writing instrument in which graphite, then thought to be

  • pencil (geometry)

    pencil, in projective geometry, all the lines in a plane passing through a point, or in three dimensions, all the planes passing through a given line. This line is known as the axis of the pencil. In the duality of solid geometry, the duality being a kind of symmetry between points and planes, the

  • pencil beam (physics)

    radar: Antennas: …a symmetrical beam called a pencil beam. A fan beam, one with a narrow beamwidth in azimuth and a broad beamwidth in elevation, can be obtained by illuminating an asymmetrical section of the paraboloid. An example of an antenna that produces a fan beam is shown in the photograph.

  • pencil cedar (plant)

    eastern red cedar, (Juniperus virginiana), an evergreen ornamental and timber tree of the cypress family (Cupressaceae), native to poor or limestone soils of eastern North America. An eastern red cedar can grow to 12 to 15 metres (about 40 to 50 feet) tall and 30 to 60 cm (about 1 to 2 feet) in

  • pencil drawing

    pencil drawing, drawing executed with an instrument composed of graphite enclosed in a wood casing and intended either as a sketch for a more elaborate work in another medium, an exercise in visual expression, or a finished work. The cylindrical graphite pencil, because of its usefulness in easily

  • pencil fish (fish grouping)

    pencil fish, any of several slender South American fishes belonging to three groups of characins, treated by some authorities as three separate families and by others as a single family, Characidae. Pencil fish pick animal food from the bottom or from plant surfaces. Most species inhabit

  • pencil gneiss (petrology)

    gneiss: Pencil gneiss contains rod-shaped individual minerals or segregations of minerals, and augen gneiss contains stubby lenses of feldspar and quartz having the appearance of eyes scattered through the rock. The identification of gneiss as a product of metamorphism is usually clear, but some primary gneiss…

  • Pencil of Nature, The (work by Talbot)

    William Henry Fox Talbot: Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature (1844–46), published in six installments, had 24 (of a proposed 50) plates that documented the beginnings of photography primarily through studies of art objects and architecture. In 1851 Talbot discovered a way of taking instantaneous photographs, and his “photolyphic engraving” (patented…

  • Penck, A.R. (German artist and musician)

    A.R. Penck was a Neo-Expressionist painter, printmaker, draftsman, sculptor, filmmaker, and musician known for his use of stick-figure imagery reminiscent of cave paintings. Having attempted unsuccessfully to gain entry into one of several art schools in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR;

  • Penck, Albrecht (geographer)

    Albrecht Penck was a geographer, who exercised a major influence on the development of modern German geography, and a geologist, who founded Pleistocene stratigraphy (the study of Ice Age Earth strata, deposited 11,700 to 2,600,000 years ago), a favored starting place for the study of human

  • Penck, Walther (German geomorphologist)

    Walther Penck was a German geomorphologist noted for his theories of landform evolution. He was the son of the geographer Albrecht Penck. His ideas of the dependence of landform evolution upon the mobility of the Earth’s crust were a direct challenge to the accepted ideas of geomorphology of his

  • Pencz, Georg (German engraver)

    Hans Sebald Beham: …brother, Barthel Beham (1502–40), and Georg Pencz (c. 1500–50). All three artists, noted for their brilliant work on extremely small copper plates, grew up under the influence of Albrecht Dürer’s late classical style. It is likely that they worked in Dürer’s studio. In 1525 the trio was banned from Nürnberg…

  • Pend d’Oreille (people)

    Plateau Indian: Language: Spokan, Kalispel, Pend d’Oreille, Coeur d’Alene, and Flathead peoples. Some early works incorrectly denote all Salishan groups as “Flathead.”

  • Pend Oreille River (river, United States)

    Clark Fork: …River, it is called the Pend Oreille River. Major tributaries are the Blackfoot, Bitterroot, St. Regis, and Flathead rivers.

  • Pend Oreille, Lake (lake, Idaho, United States)

    Lake Pend Oreille, lake in Kaniksu National Forest, northwestern Idaho, U.S. The largest lake in Idaho, it is about 40 miles (65 km) long and 4 miles (6.5 km) wide and covers an area of some 125 square miles (325 square km). It is about 1,150 feet (350 metres) deep and is noted for the highly

  • Penda (Anglo-Saxon king)

    Penda was an Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia from about 632 until 655, who made Mercia one of the most powerful kingdoms in England and temporarily delayed the rise of Northumbria. In 628 Penda defeated a West Saxon people known as the Hwicce at the Battle of Cirencester (in present-day Gloucestershire)

  • pendant (jewelry)

    pendant, in jewelry, ornament suspended from a bracelet, earring, or, especially, a necklace. Pendants are derived from the primitive practice of wearing amulets or talismans around the neck. The practice dates from the Stone Age, when pendants consisted of such objects as teeth, stones, and

  • pendant (architecture)

    pendant, in architecture, sculpted ornament or elongated boss terminating the fan, or pendant, vaulting, associated with late English Gothic architecture of the Perpendicular period (15th century). Such devices are also to be found hanging from the framing of open timber roofs of this as well as

  • pendant (heraldry)

    flag: Forms and functions: …known as a pendant, or pennant) was a long tapering flag, 60 to 18 feet (18 to 5.5 metres) long and about 24 feet (7 metres) broad at the hoist, ending in two points. Because of its great length, almost its only use was at sea. In the 15th century…

  • Pende (people)

    African art: Lower Congo (Kongo) cultural area: Pende masks, made in a realistic style, are among the most dramatic works of all African art. Like the Yaka, small Pende masks fit over the head, helmet-style. Representing the mysterious powers to which boys are introduced at initiation, Pende masks are worn in comic…

  • Pendeen (village, England, United Kingdom)

    Penwith: The village of Pendeen, at the northwestern tip of Penwith district, was the site of a small tin mine still operating in the 1980s, exemplifying an industry that was until the late 19th century an economic mainstay of both the district and the county. Pilchard and mackerel are…

  • Pendéli Óros (mountains, Greece)

    Mount Pentelicus, mountain range enclosing the Attic plain on its northeast but within the nomós (department) of Attica (Modern Greek: Attikí), in Greece. The chief summit, about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Athens (Athína), is Kokkinarás (3,632 feet [1,107 m]), which yields white Pentelic marble

  • pendeloque (gem cut)

    drop cut: A pendeloque, a shape credited to Louis de Berquem in the 15th century, is a pear-shaped modification of the round brilliant cut used for diamonds. A briolette is an elongated pear-shaped stone covered with bands of triangular or rectangular facets, usually with a pointed end and…