butterfish: Among these are the harvest fish (Peprilus alepidotus), an Atlantic species that usually grows to about 20 cm (8 inches) long; the Pacific pompano (Peprilus simillimus), a silvery Californian fish; and Pampus argenteus, a black-spotted, Oriental fish.

butterfish: …cm (8 inches) long; the Pacific pompano (Peprilus simillimus), a silvery Californian fish; and Pampus argenteus, a black-spotted, Oriental fish.

PepsiCo, Inc., based in Purchase, New York, is one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies. PepsiCo is known for its Frito-Lay snack food brands, soft drinks under its Gatorade, Mountain Dew, and namesake Pepsi brands, and cereal products under its Quaker Oats subsidiary. The PepsiCo

pepsin, the powerful enzyme in gastric juice that digests proteins such as those in meat, eggs, seeds, or dairy products. Pepsin is the mature active form of the zymogen (inactive protein) pepsinogen. Pepsin was first recognized in 1836 by German physiologist Theodor Schwann. In 1929 its

pepsin: …the stomach make and store pepsinogen. Impulses from the vagus nerve and the hormonal secretions of gastrin and secretin stimulate the release of pepsinogen into the stomach, where it is mixed with hydrochloric acid and rapidly converted to the active enzyme pepsin. The digestive power of pepsin is greatest at…

tarantula hawk, (genus Pepsis), genus of about 130 species of spider wasps that paralyze spiders to feed their larval young. Tarantula hawks are found on every continent except Europe and Antarctica and are especially common in the southwestern United States through Central America. The tarantula

tarantula hawk: Physical description: …more common species such as P. grossa and P. thisbe reach about 5 cm (2 inches) in length. Their slender bodies are generally steel blue in color and are often somewhat iridescent in shades of blue-black, blue-green, or blue-violet. Most have orange, amber, or blue-black wings with distinctive venation. Their…

tarantula hawk: Physical description: The largest species, Pepsis heros, can measure as long as 11 cm (about 4 inches), while more common species such as P. grossa and P. thisbe reach about 5 cm (2 inches) in length. Their slender bodies are generally steel blue in color and are often somewhat iridescent…

tarantula hawk: Physical description: grossa and P. thisbe reach about 5 cm (2 inches) in length. Their slender bodies are generally steel blue in color and are often somewhat iridescent in shades of blue-black, blue-green, or blue-violet. Most have orange, amber, or blue-black wings with distinctive venation. Their coloring serves as…

Punjab: History of Punjab: …enlarged through incorporation of the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), an amalgamation of the preindependence princely territories of Patiala, Jind, Nabha, Faridkot, Kapurthala, Kalsia, Malerkotla (Maler Kotla), and Nalagarh. Political and administrative leadership for the enlarged Punjab was provided by Sardar Partap Singh Kairon

gastric gland: …of three major cell types: zymogenic, parietal, and mucous neck cells. At the base of the gland are the zymogenic (chief) cells, which are thought to produce the enzymes pepsin and rennin. (Pepsin digests proteins, and rennin curdles milk.) Parietal, or oxyntic, cells occur throughout the length of the gland…

peptic ulcer, lesion that occurs primarily in the mucous membrane of the stomach or duodenum (the upper segment of the small intestine); it is produced when external factors reduce the ability of the mucosal lining to resist the acidic effects of gastric juice (a mixture of digestive enzymes and

proteolytic enzyme, any of a group of enzymes that break the long chainlike molecules of proteins into shorter fragments (peptides) and eventually into their components, amino acids. This breakdown process is known as proteolysis. Proteolytic enzymes are present in bacteria, archaea, certain types

peptide, any organic substance of which the molecules are structurally like those of proteins, but smaller. The class of peptides includes many hormones, antibiotics, and other compounds that participate in the metabolic functions of living organisms. Peptide molecules are composed of two or more

amino acid: Peptide bond: Amino acids can be linked by a condensation reaction in which an ―OH is lost from the carboxyl group of one amino acid along with a hydrogen from the amino group of a second, forming a molecule of water and leaving the two…

bacteria: The cell envelope: …linked to one another by peptide bridges that confer rigid stability. The nature of the peptide bridges differs considerably between species of bacteria but in general consists of four amino acids: l-alanine linked to d-glutamic acid, linked to either diaminopimelic acid in gram-negative bacteria or l-lysine, l-ornithine, or

amino acid: Peptide bond: Amino acids can be linked by a condensation reaction in which an ―OH is lost from the carboxyl group of one amino acid along with a hydrogen from the amino group of a second, forming a molecule of water and leaving the two…

bacteria: The cell envelope: …of a huge molecule called peptidoglycan (or murein). In gram-positive bacteria the peptidoglycan forms a thick meshlike layer that retains the blue dye of the Gram stain by trapping it in the cell. In contrast, in gram-negative bacteria the peptidoglycan layer is very thin (only one or two molecules deep),…

metabolism: Synthesis of proteins: The enzyme peptidyl transferase, which is part of the larger of the two ribosomal subunits, catalyzes the transfer of formylmethionine from the tRNA to which it is attached (designated tRNAf-Met) to the second amino acid; for example, if the second amino acid were leucine, step 5 would…

metabolism: Synthesis of proteins: …to another site, called a peptidyl-donor (P) site.

John Christopher Pepusch was a composer who was an important musical figure in England when George Frideric Handel was active there. After studying theory and organ music, Pepusch at age 14 obtained a position at the Prussian court; he remained there until 1697. He traveled to the Netherlands and

John Christopher Pepusch was a composer who was an important musical figure in England when George Frideric Handel was active there. After studying theory and organ music, Pepusch at age 14 obtained a position at the Prussian court; he remained there until 1697. He traveled to the Netherlands and

bookcase: …are all now in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Samuel Pepys was an English diarist and naval administrator, celebrated for his Diary (first published in 1825), which gives a fascinating picture of the official and upper-class life of Restoration London from Jan. 1, 1660, to May 31, 1669. Pepys was the son of a working tailor who had come to

Lake Titicaca: …in the southeast, is called Lake Huiñaymarca in Bolivia and Lake Pequeño in Peru; the larger, in the northwest, is called Lake Chucuito in Bolivia and Lake Grande in Peru.

Athol, town (township), Worcester county, north-central Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on the Millers River, north of Quabbin Reservoir. Settled in 1735, it was known by the Algonquian name of Pequoiag until it was incorporated in 1762 and renamed for Blair Atholl, the Scottish home of the dukes of

Pequot, any member of a group of Algonquian-speaking North American Indians who lived in the Thames valley in what is now Connecticut, U.S. Their subsistence was based on the cultivation of corn (maize), hunting, and fishing. In the 1600s their population was estimated to be 2,200 individuals. The

Pequot War, war fought in 1636–37 by the Pequot people against a coalition of English settlers from the Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Saybrook colonies and their Native American allies (including the Narragansett and Mohegan) that eliminated the Pequot as an impediment to English colonization

Milan, village, Erie and Huron counties, northern Ohio, U.S., on the Huron River, about 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Sandusky. In 1804 Moravian missionaries established an Indian village called Pequotting on the site. Settlers from Connecticut arrived a few years later, and the village was laid

Jeffrey C. Hall: …of the period gene product, PER, fluctuated in the fruit fly brain, with PER building up at night and declining during the day. The oscillations, they discovered, were the result of a negative feedback loop, whereby PER was produced until it reached a specific level, at which point it then…

history of logic: Categorical forms: …to be converted “accidentally” (per accidens). Propositions of form O cannot be converted at all; from the fact that some animal is not a dog, it does not follow that some dog is not an animal. Aristotle used these laws of conversion in later chapters of the Prior Analytics…

Luigi Nono: Per Bastiana Tai-yang Cheng (1967), based on a Chinese folk song and celebrating the birth of the Nonos’ daughter, is somewhat aleatoric and calls for three instrumental groups playing in quarter tones and for magnetic tape.

economic growth: …problem of whether or not per capita income levels and their rates of growth in developed economies will eventually converge or diverge. For example, as per capita incomes of fast growers like the Italians and Japanese approach those of economies that developed earlier, such as the American and British, will…

punctuation: Punctuation in Greek and Latin to 1600: Jerome (died 419/420), devised punctuation per cola et commata (“by phrases”), a rhetorical system, based on manuscripts of Demosthenes and Cicero, which was especially designed to assist reading aloud. Each phrase began with a letter projecting into the margin and was in fact treated as a minute paragraph, before which…

star cluster: OB and T associations: …of an OB association is Per OB 1, at a distance of some 7,500 light-years, which spreads out from the double cluster h and χ Persei. A large group of 20 supergiant stars of spectral type M belongs to Per OB 1. Associations with red supergiants may be in a…

heraldry: Other charges: …divisions of a shield are party per pale (or, simply, per pale), division of the field into two equal parts by a perpendicular line (that resembles the impalement just mentioned but does not serve the same purpose of combining arms); party per fess, division into two equal parts by a…

For a Few Dollars More, Italian western film, released in 1965, that was the second film in the popular Dollars series, director Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti western” trilogy that starred Clint Eastwood. The Man with No Name (played by Eastwood) teams with another bounty hunter, Col. Douglas Mortimer

Per Ramessu, ancient Egyptian capital in the 15th (c. 1630–c. 1530 bce), 19th (c. 1292–c. 1191 bce), and 20th (c. 1190–c. 1077 bce) dynasties. Situated in the northeastern delta about 62 miles (100 km) northeast of Cairo, the city lay in ancient times on the Bubastite branch of the Nile River. In

Pithom, ancient Egyptian city located near Ismailia in Al-Ismāʿīliyyah muḥāfaẓah (governorate) and mentioned in the Bible (Exodus 1:11) as one of the treasure houses built for the pharaoh by the Hebrews prior to the Exodus. Although Pithom has been identified as Tall al-Maskhūṭah, excavations at

A Fistful of Dollars, Italian western film, released in 1964, that popularized the “spaghetti western” subgenre and was a breakthrough movie for director Sergio Leone and star Clint Eastwood. A mysterious stranger (played by Eastwood) drifts into a small Mexican town only to find a virtual war

Wadjet: …form of the ancient Egyptian Per Wadjit (Coptic Pouto, “House of Wadjit”), the name of the capital of the 6th Lower Egyptian nome (province), present-day Tall al-Farāʿīn, of which the goddess was the local deity.

per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), any of a group of synthetic chemical compounds that contain fluorine atoms attached to chains of carbon atoms. Numerous different per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been synthesized, many of which possess highly useful properties when applied

Pelusium, ancient Egyptian city on the easternmost mouth of the Nile River (long silted up). The Egyptians likely called it Saʾinu and also Per-Amon (House of Amon), whence perhaps the site’s modern name, Tell Farama. It lies about 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Port Said, in the Sinai Peninsula. In

Pithom, ancient Egyptian city located near Ismailia in Al-Ismāʿīliyyah muḥāfaẓah (governorate) and mentioned in the Bible (Exodus 1:11) as one of the treasure houses built for the pharaoh by the Hebrews prior to the Exodus. Although Pithom has been identified as Tall al-Maskhūṭah, excavations at

Armant, ancient town in Upper Egypt, near Thebes on the west bank of the Nile River. It was the seat of a sun cult and was a crowning place of kings. The war god Mont was worshiped there in hawk-headed human form and also in his epiphany, the bull Buchis. Armant was probably the original home of

insurance: Limits of liability: Limits may apply on a per-occurrence or a claims-made basis. In the former, which gives the most comprehensive coverage, the policy in force in year one covers a negligent act that took place in year one, no matter when a claim is made. If the policy is made on a…

encyclopaedia: Children’s encyclopaedias: …produced an encyclopaedia for children—the Pera Librorum Juvenilium (1695; “Collection of Juvenile Books”). Larousse issued Petite Encyclopédie du jeune âge (“Small Children’s Encyclopaedia”) in 1853, but the next, Encyclopédie Larousse des enfants (“Larousse Encyclopaedia for Children”), did not appear until 1957. The first of the modern children’s encyclopaedias was, however,…

crustacean: Annotated classification: Superorder Peracarida Females with a ventral brood pouch formed by plates at the bases of some of the thoracic limbs; development direct, with offspring resembling adults. Order Mysidacea (opossum shrimps) Triassic to present; carapace well-developed, covering most of thorax; 3–30 mm, with a few much larger;…

Malpighiales: Euphorbiaceae, Peraceae, and Rafflesiaceae: …separate recognition of the family Peraceae, because it is the sister group to Rafflesiaceae and Euphorbiaceae combined.

germfree life: Methodology.: Germicidal vapour sterilization (2% peracetic acid) is used for plastic isolators, which cannot endure the heat of steam sterilization. Air for the isolated organism is sterilized by mechanical filtration. Eggs are surface-treated with mercuric chloride, and seeds with peracetic acid or formalin. Food and water are sterilized by steam,…

peroxy acid, any of a class of chemical compounds in which the atomic group ―O―O―H replaces the ―O―H group of an oxy acid (a compound in which a hydrogen atom is attached to an oxygen atom by a covalent bond that is easily broken, producing an anion and a hydrogen ion). Examples of peroxy acids are

Jean Coralli was a French dancer and choreographer who was ballet master of the Paris Opéra and who, with Jules Perrot, created the Romantic ballet Giselle. Coralli received his early training in Paris from Pierre Gardel or Jean-François Coulon and made his debut at the Paris Opéra in 1802. In

Peradeniya Botanic Gardens, botanical garden in Peradeniya, near Kandy, Sri Lanka, noted for its rich and varied collections of tropical woody plants. Occupying 59 hectares (146 acres), it has about 4,000 species of plants. The most important specimens of the garden include palms, some of which are

Murray Perahia is an American pianist and conductor who was perhaps best known for his sensitive recordings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s concertos, conducted from the keyboard. Perahia was trained at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. He won the Leeds International Piano Competition by

Perak, traditional region, northwestern West Malaysia (Malaya), bordering Thailand to the north and fronting the Strait of Malacca to the west. Its area includes a large portion of West Malaysia’s west-coast plains and centres upon the Perak River, which flows north-to-south between the Keledang

Perak War, (c. 1874–76), rebellion against the British by a group of dissident Malay chiefs that culminated in the assassination in 1875 of James Birch, the first British resident (adviser) in Perak. Although they succeeded in eliminating Birch, the Malay leaders failed in their ultimate

Tun Perak was the bendahara (chief minister) of the port city of Malacca (now Melaka in Malaysia), who was kingmaker and the effective ruler of that important East Indies trade centre from 1456 until his death in 1498. A leader in the Malay defeat of a Siamese invasion in 1445–46, Tun Perak was

Latin American literature: Plays: In Lima the dramas of Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo ranged from adaptations of French Neoclassical plays to librettos for operas at the viceregal palace. A mathematician, poet, attorney, accountant, and historian, Peralta dazzled European visitors to Lima. La Rodoguna (written about 1719) is a free adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s drama…

Pedro de Peralta was a Spanish colonial official who established Santa Fe as the capital of New Mexico. Peralta arrived in Mexico City during the winter of 1608–09 following his university studies in Spain. In March 1609 the viceroy of Mexico appointed him to the post of governor of New Mexico;

skateboarding: …such as Tony Alva and Stacey Peralta. The first skate park was built in Florida in 1976, and many others began to appear throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia, all providing a variety of slopes and banked surfaces for sudden turns and stunts. It was at this time…

bandicoot, (order Peramelemorphia), any of about 20 species of Australasian marsupial mammals comprising the order Peramelemorphia. (For Asian rodents of this name, see bandicoot rat.) Bandicoots are 30 to 80 cm (12 to 31 inches) long, including the 10- to 30-cm (4- to 12-inch) tail. The body is

bandicoot: The long-nosed bandicoots (genus Perameles) are vaguely ratlike animals with long snouts. The common long-nosed bandicoot (P. nasuta) is still tolerably common in lightly forested country in eastern Australia. The eastern barred bandicoot (P. gunnii) is common in Tasmania, but it has been eliminated from the…

Bay of Bothnia, gulf forming the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia, the northern arm of the Baltic Sea, which lies between Finland and

influenza pandemic (H1N1) of 2009: Treatment and prevention: …intravenously administered antiviral known as peramivir, though not formally approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was given emergency-use authorization for the treatment of hospitalized H1N1 patients who had not responded to oral or inhaled antivirals or who had life-threatening illness.

shield-backed katydid: …present in sufficient numbers, the coulee cricket (Peranabrus scabricollis) is a destructive pest of plants in the Pacific Northwest. Insecticides and insecticidal baits are used to control populations and migrating bands of Mormon crickets and coulee crickets; past methods of control included the creation of ditches or the erection of…

Peranakan, in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, a native-born person of mixed local and foreign ancestry. There are several kinds of Peranakans, namely Peranakan Chinese, Peranakan Arabs, Peranakan Dutch, and Peranakan Indians. The Peranakan Chinese, however, form the largest and the most

Peranakan, in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, a native-born person of mixed local and foreign ancestry. There are several kinds of Peranakans, namely Peranakan Chinese, Peranakan Arabs, Peranakan Dutch, and Peranakan Indians. The Peranakan Chinese, however, form the largest and the most

Hakka, ethnic group of China. Originally, the Hakka were North Chinese, but they migrated to South China (especially Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Guangxi provinces) during the fall of the Nan (Southern) Song dynasty in the 1270s. Worldwide they are thought to number about 80 million today,

Euphrates River, river, Middle East. The longest river in southwest Asia, it is 1,740 miles (2,800 km) long, and it is one of the two main constituents of the Tigris-Euphrates river system. The river rises in Turkey and flows southeast across Syria and through Iraq. Formed by the confluence of the

bullfighting: Bullfighting and the arts: …Mariano Benlliure (from Spain) and Humberto Peraza (from Mexico) have also been drawn to bullfighting themes. A superb example of Benlliure’s work can be seen in the graveyard at Sevilla where, depicted in bronze, are 12 life-size figures carrying the open coffin of the great Joselito, who was killed by…

Pramoedya Ananta Toer: …first published novel, Perburuan (1950; The Fugitive), during a two-year term in a Dutch prison camp (1947–49). That work describes the flight of an anti-Japanese rebel back to his home in Java.

perch, either of two species of fish, the common and the yellow perch (Perca fluviatilis and P. flavescens, sometimes considered as single species, P. fluviatilis) of the family Percidae (order Perciformes). The name also is widely, and sometimes confusingly, applied to a variety of other fishes.

trophic cascade: Effects on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: …such as bass (Micropterus) and yellow perch (Perca flavescens), to or from freshwater lakes. Those experiments showed that trophic cascades controlled biomass and production of phytoplankton, recycling rates of nutrients, the ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus available to phytoplankton, activity of bacteria, and sedimentation rates. Because trophic cascades affected the…

herpesvirus: Macavirus, Percavirus, and Rhadinovirus, include Epstein-Barr virus, baboon, orangutan, and gorilla herpesviruses, and herpesvirus saimiri. The replication rate of gammaherpesviruses is variable.

Percé, city, Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region, eastern Quebec province, Canada. It lies along the Gulf of St. Lawrence at the east end of the Gaspé Peninsula. First visited in 1534 by Jacques Cartier, it has been the site of a Roman Catholic mission since 1670. Percé is now a fishing port and

André Baillon: …somewhat the tragic introspection of Le Perce-Oreille du Luxembourg (1928; “The Earwig of Luxembourg”). His later autobiographical writing includes Le Neveu de Mlle Autorité (1930; “The Nephew of Miss Authority”) and Des vivants et des morts (1930; “The Living and the Dead”). Simple yet rich language marks his posthumous works,…

illusion: Perceiver-distortion illusions: Some illusions are related to characteristics of the perceiver, namely the functioning of the brain and the senses, rather than to physical phenomena that distort a stimulus. Many common visual illusions are perceptual: they result from the brain’s processing of ambiguous or unusual…

percentage, a relative value indicating hundredth parts of any quantity. One percent (symbolized 1%) is a hundredth part; thus, 100 percent represents the entirety and 200 percent specifies twice the given quantity. For example, 1 percent of 1,000 chickens equals 1100 of 1,000, or 10 chickens; 20

depletion allowance: …changed in 1926 to the “percentage depletion” for oil and gas property, under which the corporation deducts a fixed percentage of its sales as a depletion allowance, regardless of the amount invested. In addition, producers can deduct their capital costs, thus gaining a double benefit. After 1931, Congress expanded the…

percentile, a number denoting the position of a data point within a numeric dataset by indicating the percentage of the dataset with a lesser value. For example, a data point that falls at the 80th percentile has a value greater than 80 percent of the data points within the dataset. Percentiles are

H.H. Price: His earliest book, Perception (1932), rejected causal theories of perception, while a later publication, Thinking and Experience (1953), revealed the importance of conceptual awareness beyond mere symbolic interpretation. Also writing on religion, parapsychology, and psychic phenomena, he viewed telepathy and clairvoyance as influences on the unconscious mind. Additional…

perception, in humans, the process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience. That experience, or percept, is the joint product of the stimulation and of the process itself. Relations found between various types of stimulation (e.g., light waves and sound waves) and their

James J. Gibson: …Gibson’s most important writings include The Perception of the Visual World (1950) and The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (1966). His followers organized the International Society for Ecological Psychology in 1981.

perceptrons, a type of artificial neural network investigated by Frank Rosenblatt, beginning in 1957, at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Rosenblatt made major contributions to the emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI), both through

Seymour Papert: …he cowrote (with Marvin Minsky) Perceptrons: An Introduction to Computational Geometry (1969), a seminal work about artificial intelligence (AI). Papert was also instrumental in the creation of the school’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (1970; now the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory), which had previously been part of Project MAC,…

human behaviour: Judgment: Finally, infants create perceptual categories by which to organize experience, a category being defined as a representation of the dimensions or qualities shared by a set of similar but not identical events. Infants will treat the different colours of the spectrum, for example, according to the same categories…

perceptual constancy, the tendency of animals and humans to see familiar objects as having standard shape, size, colour, or location regardless of changes in the angle of perspective, distance, or lighting. The impression tends to conform to the object as it is or is assumed to be, rather than to

perceptual learning, process by which the ability of sensory systems to respond to stimuli is improved through experience. Perceptual learning occurs through sensory interaction with the environment as well as through practice in performing specific sensory tasks. The changes that take place in

coloration: Coloration changes in populations: The phenomenon—known as a perceptual set or a search image—is exemplified by the predator of the European snail Cepaea. Predators encounter one morph and form a search image; they continue to hunt for that one form until its increasing rarity causes the predator to hunt randomly, encounter a different…

painting: Volume and space: Perceptual space is the view of things at a particular time and from a fixed position. This is the stationary window view recorded by the camera and represented in the later periods of ancient Greek and Roman paintings and in most Western schools of painting…

psychomotor learning: Age: …differences in human performance on psychomotor apparatus are associated with chronological age. Scores obtained from nearly all the devices mentioned above are sensitive to age differences. Researchers generally report a rapid increase in psychomotor proficiency from about the age of five years to the end of the second decade, followed…

Perceval, hero of Arthurian romance, distinguished by his quality of childlike (often uncouth) innocence, which protected him from worldly temptation and set him apart from other knights in Arthur’s fellowship. This quality also links his story with the primitive folktale theme of a great fool or

Spencer Perceval was a lawyer, politician, and British prime minister from 1809 until his assassination in 1812. The second son of the 2nd Earl of Egmont, Perceval was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1786 and became a king’s counsel

Chrétien de Troyes: …Le Chevalier au lion; and Perceval, ou Le Conte du Graal. The non-Arthurian tale Guillaume d’Angleterre, based on the legend of St. Eustace, may also have been written by Chrétien.

perch, either of two species of fish, the common and the yellow perch (Perca fluviatilis and P. flavescens, sometimes considered as single species, P. fluviatilis) of the family Percidae (order Perciformes). The name also is widely, and sometimes confusingly, applied to a variety of other fishes.

rod, old English measure of distance equal to 16.5 feet (5.029 metres), with variations from 9 to 28 feet (2.743 to 8.534 metres) also being used. It was also called a perch or pole. The word rod derives from Old English rodd and is akin to Old Norse rudda (“club”). Etymologically rod is also akin

perciform: Annotated classification: Family Percichthyidae (perch trouts) Eocene to present. Dull-coloured, small perchlike freshwater and marine fishes of Australia, Chile, and Argentina. Dorsal fin deeply notched. About 11 genera, about 34 species. Family Chandidae (Ambassidae) (Asiatic glassfishes, or glass perches) Small fishes similar in body

Guido Cavalcanti: …when he went into exile: “Perch’io non spero di tornar giamai” (“Because I hope not ever to return”), a line that some hear echoed in T.S. Eliot’s refrain from “Ash Wednesday,” “Because I do not hope to turn again.”

Perche, region of northern France on the border of Normandy, mainly in the east of the Orne département, with extensions into neighbouring départements. Formerly a county, it was united with the French crown in 1525. It is largely hilly country, the Perche Hills having summits of about 1,000 feet

perched rock, boulder balanced on a pinnacle rock, another boulder, or in some other precarious position. Some perched rocks form in place, as where rainwash (and in some cases wind) has removed fine material from around the boulder. Others may be transported by tectonic forces (involved in