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optical disk
optical disk any of a variety of information storage disks that are played or read using a laser . Optical disks include compact discs (CDs and CD-ROMs), laser discs (see videodisc ), and digital versatile discs (or digital video discs; DVDs and DVD-ROMs). WORM [ W rite O nce/ R ead M any] ...
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compact disc
compact disc (CD), a small plastic disc used for the storage of digital data. As originally developed for audio systems, the sound signal is sampled at a rate of 44,100 times a second, then each sample is measured and digitally encoded on the 4 3/4 in (12 cm) disc as a series of microscopic pits...
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Mother Goose
Mother Goose name associated with nursery rhymes . Most English nursery rhymes have been ascribed to Mother Goose. The origin of the name is still a matter of dispute. Some trace it to a French collection of tales by Charles Perrault (1697) that had the subtitle Contes de ma mère L'Oye [t...
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Joseph Grimaldi
Joseph Grimaldi , 1779-1837, English pantomime actor and clown. He made his debut at the age of three in Robinson Crusoe at Sadler's Wells, London. For many years he performed there and at Drury Lane. By the time he played the clown in his production of Mother Goose at Covent Garden in 1806, he ...
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iridescence
iridescence , exhibition of rainbowlike colors on a surface. It usually results from interference when light composed of different wavelengths is reflected from the superficial layers of organic or inorganic substances, e.g., minerals, mother-of-pearl, and the feathers of birds. Iridescence greatl...
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nursery rhymes
nursery rhymes verses, generally brief and usually anonymous, for children. The best-known examples are in English and date mostly from the 17th cent. A popular type of rhyme is used in "counting-out" games, e.g., "Eenie, meenie, minie, mo." The subject matter of the rhymes has been linked ...
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L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum (Lyman Frank Baum) , 1856-1919, American journalist, playwright, and author of children's stories, b. Chittenango, N.Y. He and his family moved to South Dakota in 1888, where he ran a newspaper, and to Chicago in 1891, where he worked as a journalist. His first children's book, Moth...
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Charles Samuel Addams
Charles Samuel Addams 1912-88, American cartoonist, b. Westfield, N.J. Beginning in 1932, Addams's work appeared regularly in The New Yorker magazine, to which he eventually contributed more than 1,300 cartoons. Members of a ghoulish family were recurring figures in his subject matter. Famed for ...
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Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault , 1628-1703, French poet. His collections of eight fairy tales, Histoires ou contes du temps passé [stories or tales of olden times] (1697) gave classic form to the traditional stories of Bluebeard, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Little Red Ridinghood, and Hop-...
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poultry
poultry domesticated fowl kept primarily for meat and eggs; including birds of the order Galliformes, e.g., the chicken, turkey , guinea fowl , pheasant , quail , and peacock ; and natatorial (swimming) birds, e.g., the duck and goose . Several poultry birds, including the chicken and the...
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