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dervish ... Desgabets, Robert

dervish any member of a Sufi (Muslim mystic) fraternity, or tariqa. Within the Sufi fraternities, which were first organized in the 12th century, an established leadership and a prescribed discipline obliged the dervish postulant to serve his sheikh, or master, and to establish a rapport with him. The postulant was also ... Derwent River river in Tasmania, Australia, rising in Lake St. Clair on the central plateau and flowing 113 miles (182 km) southeast to enter Storm Bay through a 3.5-mile- (5.5-kilometre-) wide estuary. Its major upper-course tributaries, the Jordan, Clyde, Ouse (now draining the Great Lake), and Dee, are extensively developed for hydropower. ... Derwent Water lake, administrative county of Cumbria, historic county of Cumberland, England, in the Lake District National Park. It is about 3 miles (5 km) long and from 0.5 to 1.25 miles (0.8 to 2 km) wide, and its maximum depth is 72 feet (22 metres). The River Derwent enters its southern ... Derwent, River river in North Yorkshire, England, that rises on Fylingdales Moor only 6 miles (10 km) inland from the North Sea but flows 57 miles (92 km) through alternating gorges and vales to its junction with the River Ouse. This peculiar course results from the blockage of its former path by ... Derwentside former district, unitary authority and historic county of Durham, northeastern England, located in the north-central part of the county about 12 miles (20 km) southwest of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. Derwentside was a coal-mining area, historically important to Great Britain, encompassing an outlying section of the northeastern Pennines ... Dery, Tibor Hungarian novelist, short-story writer, poet, and playwright, one of the most respected and controversial figures in 20th-century Hungarian literature. He was imprisoned for his role in the 1956 revolution. Deryne Szeppataki, Roza the first female Hungarian opera singer and the most famous Hungarian actress of the first half of the 19th century. Derzhavin, Gavrila Romanovich Russia's greatest and most original 18th-century poet, whose finest achievements lie in his lyrics and odes. Des Esseintes, Jean fictional character, a reclusive aesthete in the novel Against the Grain (1884) by Joris-Karl Huysmans. The last in a depleted line of nobles, Des Esseintes is wealthy and effete, and he grows impotent from dissolution. At age 30 he abandons society to lead a life of experimental sensualism. Des Moines city, capital of Iowa, U.S., and seat (1845) of Polk county. The city lies on the Des Moines River at its juncture with the Raccoon River in the south-central part of the state. Situated in the heart of the Corn Belt, it is the focus of Iowa's most populous metropolitan ... Des Moines Register, The morning daily newspaper published in Des Moines, Iowa, one of the most influential regional newspapers in the United States. Des Moines River river rising in Lake Shetek in southwestern Minnesota, U.S., near Pipestone, and flowing 525 mi (845 km) in a southeasterly direction to join the Mississippi River 2 mi southwest of Keokuk, Iowa. Above Humboldt, Iowa, the river is known as the West Fork. The East Fork and the Raccoon River ... Des Periers, Bonaventure French storyteller and humanist who attained notoriety as a freethinker. Des Plaines city, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. Lying on the Des Plaines River, it is a suburb of Chicago, 17 miles (27 km) northwest of downtown. The area was originally inhabited by Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwa peoples. Settled in 1835 by Socrates Rand of Massachusetts, for whom the community was named ... Des Plaines River river rising in Kenosha county, southeastern Wisconsin, U.S., and flowing south into Illinois through the northwestern suburbs of Chicago to Lyons. It then continues southwest past Lockport and Joliet, where it joins the Kankakee River after a course of 110 miles (177 km). The Illinois River is formed by the ... Desai, Anita English-language Indian novelist and author of children's books who excelled in evoking character and mood through visual images ranging from the meteorologic to the botanical. Desai, Kiran Indian-born American author whose second novel, The Inheritance of Loss (2006), became an international best seller and won the 2006 Booker Prize. Desai, Morarji prime minister of India (1977-79), first leader of sovereign India not to represent the long-ruling Indian National Congress party. Desaix de Veygoux, Louis-Charles-Antoine French military hero who led forces in the German, Egyptian, and Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars (from 1792). desalination removal of dissolved salts from seawater and in some cases from the brackish (slightly salty) waters of inland seas, highly mineralized groundwaters (e.g., geothermal brines), and municipal wastewaters. This process renders such otherwise unusable waters fit for human consumption, irrigation, industrial applications, and various other purposes. Existing desalination technology requires ... Desargues's theorem in geometry, mathematical statement discovered by the French mathematician Girard Desargues in 1639 that motivated the development, in the first quarter of the 19th century, of projective geometry by another French mathematician, Jean-Victor Poncelet. The theorem states that if two triangles ABC and A'B'C', situated in three-dimensional space, are related ... Desargues, Girard French mathematician who figures prominently in the history of projective geometry. Desargues's work was well known by his contemporaries, but half a century after his death he was forgotten. His work was rediscovered at the beginning of the 19th century, and one of his results became known as Desargues's theorem. Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline French poet and woman of letters of the Romantic period. Desborough, John English soldier, Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law, who played a prominent part in Commonwealth politics. descamisado (Spanish: "shirtless one"), in Argentine history, during the regime of Juan Peron (ruled 1946-55, 1973-74), any of the impoverished and underprivileged Argentine workers who were Peron's chief supporters. descant (from Latin discantus, "song apart"), countermelody either composed or improvised above a familiar melody. Descant can also refer to an instrument of higher-than-normal pitch, such as a descant recorder. In late medieval music, discantus referred to a particular style of organum featuring one or more countermelodies added to a newly ... Descartes's rule of signs in algebra, rule for determining the maximum number of positive real number solutions (roots) of a polynomial equation in one variable based on the number of times that the signs of its real number coefficients change when the terms are arranged in the canonical order (from highest power to lowest ... Descartes, Rene French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. Because he was one of the first to abandon scholastic Aristotelianism, because he formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism, from which stems the mind-body problem, and because he promoted the development of a new science grounded in observation and experiment, he has been ... descent the system of acknowledged social parentage, which varies from society to society, whereby a person may claim kinship ties with another. If no limitation were placed on the recognition of kinship, everybody would be kin to everyone else; but in most societies some limitation is imposed on the perception of ... Deschamps, Emile poet prominent in the development of Romanticism. Deschamps, Eustache poet and author of L'Art de dictier (1392), the first treatise on French versification. Deschanel, Paul(-Eugene-Louis) French political figure who was an important parliamentary leader during the Third Republic and served as its 10th president (Feb. 17 to Sept. 20, 1920). descloizite vanadate mineral containing lead, copper, and zinc that usually forms brownish red to blackish brown crusts of intergrown crystals or rounded fibrous masses; its physical appearance is varied, however, and specimens have been found in shades from orange-red to black and various greens. The chemical formula for descloizite is (Zn,Cu)PbVO4(OH). ... descort a synonym for lai, a medieval Provencal lyric in which the stanzas are nonuniform. The term also refers to a poem in medieval Provencal literature with stanzas in different languages. Derived from Old French and Old Provencal, the word literally means "a quarrel" or "discord." Desdemona fictional character, the wife of Othello and the object of his unwarranted jealousy, in William Shakespeare's tragic drama Othello (written 1603-04). The daughter of a Venetian senator, Desdemona is greatly loved by Othello, an honoured and heroic Moorish general in the service of Venice. Dese town, central Ethiopia, situated on the western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley at an elevation of 7,500 feet (2,300 metres). Dese (Amharic: "My Joy") is a commercial and communications centre, 16 miles (25 km) northwest of Kembolcha, which is at the junction of roads to Addis Ababa and Asmara ... Deseado River river in southern Argentina, rising in Buenos Aires Lake in the Andes of southern Chile and Argentina. It flows generally eastward and southeastward through Santa Cruz province. Near Koluel Kayke and Jaramillo it sometimes disappears into the dry soils of Patagonia, but it reemerges and empties into the Atlantic at ... desensitization treatment that attempts to eliminate allergic reactions, as of hay fever or bronchial asthma, by a series of injections in graded strengths of the substance to which the person is sensitive (e.g., pollen, house dust). Extracts of the material to be injected are purified and put into an alkaline buffer ... Deseret News, The daily newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). It was founded as a biweekly in 1850. The word Deseret means "Land of the Honey Bee," according to the Book of Mormon, and was to have been the name of the ... desert any large, extremely dry area of land with sparse vegetation. It is one of the Earth's major types of ecosystems, supporting a community of distinctive plants and animals specially adapted to the harsh environment. For a list of selected deserts of the world, see below. Desert cultures in North America, ancient cultures centred on the Great Basin in the area of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona; they lasted from about 7000 or 8000 BC to about 2000 BC. Subsistence was based on gathering wild seeds and plants and on hunting small game; social groups were probably small and ... desert dormouse a rarely seen or captured small rodent of Central Asia. Weighing less than 28 grams (1 ounce), the desert dormouse has a stout rounded body 8 to 10 cm (3.1 to 3.9 inches) long and a slightly shorter fine-haired tail of 6 to 8 cm. Its gray fur is long, ... Desert Fathers early Christian hermits whose practice of asceticism in the Egyptian desert, beginning in the 3rd century, formed the basis of Christian monasticism. One of these hermits, Pachomius of the Thebaid (c. AD 290-346; see Pachomius, Saint), who organized nine monasteries for men and two for women, is credited with being ... desert palace any country dwelling built in Syria, Jordan, and Palestine by Umayyad (661-750 CE) rulers and aristocrats. desert pavement surface of angular, interlocking fragments of pebbles, gravel, or boulders in arid areas. Desert pavement forms on level or gently sloping desert flats, fans, or bajadas and lake and river terraces dating to the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). Desert Rats a group of British soldiers who helped defeat the Germans in North Africa during World War II. The Desert Rats, led by General Allen Francis Harding, were especially noted for a hard-fought, three-month campaign against the more experienced German Afrika Korps, led by General Erwin Rommel ("The Desert Fox"). desert varnish thin, dark red to black mineral coating (generally iron and manganese oxides and silica) deposited on pebbles and rocks on the surface of desert regions. As dew and soil moisture brought to the surface by capillarity evaporate, their dissolved minerals are deposited on the surface; studies indicate that the varnish ... Deserted Village, The pastoral elegy by Oliver Goldsmith, published in 1770. Considered to be one of his major poems, it idealizes a rural way of life that was being destroyed by the displacement of agrarian villagers, the greed of landlords, and economic and political change. In response to the poem's perceived sentimentality, George ... desertification the process by which natural or human causes reduce the biological productivity of drylands (arid and semiarid lands). Declines in productivity may be the result of climate change, deforestation, overgrazing, poverty, political instability, unsustainable irrigation practices, or combinations of these factors. The concept does not refer to the physical expansion ... Deserts of the World Desert-any large, extremely dry area of land with sparse vegetation-is one of Earth's major types of ecosystems. Deserts are found throughout the world, especially in Africa and Australia. The world's largest desert is the Sahara, which covers nearly all of northern Africa. Desgabets, Robert French Benedictine monk, writer, philosopher, and scientist who applied the ideas and methods of Rene Descartes to theology and philosophy. Desgabets held that the bread of the Eucharist is penetrated by the soul of Christ in the same way that, according to Descartes, the soul animates the human body. Basing ...