Food and culture

• abalone -  any of various large edible marine gastropods of the genus Haliotis having an ear-shaped shell with pearly interior

• Abruzzi e Molise -  a mountainous region of central Italy on the Adriatic

• absinthe -  strong green liqueur flavored with wormwood and anise; aromatic herb of temperate Eurasia and North Africa having a bitter taste used in making the liqueur absinthe

• absorption -  (chemistry) a process in which one substance permeates another; a fluid permeates or is dissolved by a liquid or solid; (physics) the process in which incident radiated energy is retained without reflection or transmission on passing through a medium; the mental state of being preoccupied by something; complete attention; intense mental effort; the process of absorbing nutrients into the body after digestion; the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another

• abstinence -  act or practice of refraining from indulging an appetite; the trait of abstaining (especially from alcohol)

• abundance -  the property of a more than adequate quantity or supply; (chemistry) the ratio of the total mass of an element in the earth's crust to the total mass of the earth's crust; expressed as a percentage or in parts per million; (physics) the ratio of the number of atoms of a specific isotope of an element to the total number of isotopes present

• achira -  canna grown especially for its edible rootstock from which arrowroot starch is obtained

• acid -  having the characteristics of an acid; harsh or corrosive in tone; being sour to the taste;  street name for lysergic acid diethylamide; any of various water-soluble compounds having a sour taste and capable of turning litmus red and reacting with a base to form a salt

• acidosis -  abnormally high acidity (excess hydrogen-ion concentration) of the blood and other body tissues

• acorn -  fruit of the oak tree: a smooth thin-walled nut in a woody cup-shaped base

• active -  characterized by energetic activity; engaged in full-time work; full of activity or engaged in continuous activity; tending to become more severe or wider in scope; disposed to take action or effectuate change; (of e.g. volcanos) erupting or liable to erupt; (of e.g. volcanos) capable of erupting; expressing action rather than a state of being; used of s (e.g. `to run') and participial adjectives (e.g. `running' in `running water'); expressing that the subject of the sentence has the semantic function of actor: "Hemingway favors active constructions"; exerting influence or producing a change or effect; of the sun; characterized by a high level activity in sunspots and flares and radio emissions; in operation; taking part in an activity; engaged in or ready for military or naval operations;  a person devoted to the active life; the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the is performing the action or causing the happening denoted by the ; chemical agent capable of activity

• adobo -  a dish of marinated vegetables and meat or fish; served with rice

• adulthood -  the state (and responsibilities) of a person who has attained maturity; the period of time in your life after your physical growth has stopped and you are fully developed

• advertising -  the business of drawing public attention to goods and services; a public promotion of some product or service

• Aeschylus -  Greek tragedian; the father of Greek tragic drama (525-456 BC)

• Afghanistan -  a mountainous landlocked country in central Asia; bordered by Iran to the west and Russia to the north and Pakistan to the east and south

• Africa -  the second largest continent; located south of Europe and bordered to the west by the South Atlantic and to the east by the Indian Ocean

• afternoon tea -  a light midafternoon meal of tea and sandwiches or cakes

• agar -  a colloidal extract of algae; used especially in culture media and as a gelling agent in foods; any culture medium that uses agar as the gelling agent

• agave -  tropical American plants with basal rosettes of fibrous sword-shaped leaves and flowers in tall spikes; some cultivated for ornament or for fiber

• aging -  growing old;  the organic process of growing older and showing the effects of increasing age; acquiring desirable qualities by being left undisturbed for some time

• agribusiness -  a large-scale farming enterprise

• agriculture -  the class of people engaged in growing food; the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock; a large-scale farming enterprise; the federal department that administers programs that provide services to farmers (including research and soil conservation and efforts to stabilize the farming economy); created in 1862

• Agrippina -  granddaughter of Augustus and mother of Caligula and Agrippina the Younger (14 BC - AD 33); wife who poisoned Claudius after her son Nero was declared heir and who was then put to death by Nero

• agronomy -  the application of soil and plant sciences to land management and crop production

• AIDS -  a serious (often fatal) disease of the immune system transmitted through blood products especially by sexual contact or contaminated needles

• alanine -  a crystalline amino acid that occurs in many proteins

• Albania -  a republic in southeastern Europe on the Adriatic coast of the Balkan Peninsula

• Alberta -  one of the three prairie provinces in western Canada; rich in oil and natural gas and minerals

• alcohol -  a liquor or brew containing alcohol as the active agent; any of a series of volatile hydroxyl compounds that are made from hydrocarbons by distillation

• alcoholic -  addicted to alcohol; characteristic of or containing alcohol;  a person who drinks alcohol to excess habitually

• alcoholism -  habitual intoxication; prolonged and excessive intake of alcoholic drinks leading to a breakdown in health and an addiction to alcohol such that abrupt deprivation leads to severe withdrawal symptoms; an intense persistent desire to drink alcoholic beverages to excess

• aldosterone -  a corticosteroid hormone that is secreted by the cortex of the adrenal gland; regulates salt (sodium and potassium) and water balance

• Aleut -  the language spoken by the Aleut; a member of the people inhabiting the Aleutian Islands and western Alaska

• alfalfa -  leguminous plant grown for hay or forage; important European leguminous forage plant with trifoliate leaves and blue-violet flowers grown widely as a pasture and hay crop

• algae -  primitive chlorophyll-containing mainly aquatic eukaryotic organisms lacking true stems and roots and leaves

• Algeria -  a republic in northwestern Africa on the Mediterranean Sea with a population that is predominantly Sunni Muslim; colonized by France in the 19th century but gained autonomy in the early 1960s

• alkalosis -  abnormally high alkalinity (low hydrogen-ion concentration) of the blood and other body tissues

• Allen -  a soldier of the American Revolution whose troops helped capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British (1738-1789); United States filmmaker and comic actor (1935-); United States comedienne remembered as the confused but imperturbable partner of her husband, George Burns (1906-1964)

• Almost - adv. (of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished

• Alsatian -  of or relating to or characteristic of Alsace or its inhabitants;  a native or inhabitant of Alsace; breed of large shepherd dogs used in police work and as a guide for the blind

• alternative -  necessitating a choice between mutually exclusive possibilities; pertaining to unconventional choices; allowing a choice;  one of a number of things from which only one can be chosen

• amaranth -  any of various plants of the genus Amaranthus having dense plumes of green or red flowers; often cultivated for food; seed of amaranth plants used as a native cereal in Central and South America

• ambrosia -  (classical mythology) the food and drink of the gods; mortals who ate it became immortal; fruit dessert made of oranges and bananas with shredded coconut; any of numerous chiefly North American weedy plants constituting the genus Ambrosia that produce highly allergenic pollen responsible for much hay fever and asthma; a mixture of nectar and pollen prepared by worker bees and fed to larvae

• America -  North America and South America and Central America; North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776

• American -  of or relating to or characteristic of the continents and islands of the Americas; of or relating to the United States of America or its people or language or culture;  a native or inhabitant of a North American or Central American or South American country; a native or inhabitant of the United States; the English language as used in the United States

• amino acid -  organic compounds containing an amino group and a carboxylic acid group

• Amish -  an American follower of the Mennonite religion

• amylase -  any of a group of proteins found in saliva and pancreatic juice and parts of plants; help convert starch to sugar

• Anasazi -  a Native American who lived in what is now southern Colorado and Utah and northern Arizona and New Mexico and who built cliff dwellings

• anatomy -  a detailed analysis; the branch of morphology that deals with the structure of animals; alternative names for the body of a human being

• ancient Greek -  the Greek language prior to the Roman Empire

• Andalusia -  a region in southern Spain on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; formerly a center of Moorish civilization

• Anderson -  United States physicist who discovered antimatter in the form of an antielectron that is called the positron (1905-1991); United States contralto noted for her performance of spirituals (1902-1993); United States dramatist (1888-1959); United States physicist who studied the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems (1923-); United States author whose works were frequently autobiographical (1876-1941)

• Andhra Pradesh -  a state of southeastern India on the Bay of Bengal

• Andrews -  United States naturalist who contributed to paleontology and geology (1884-1960)

• anemia -  genus of terrestrial or lithophytic ferns having pinnatifid fronds; chiefly of tropical America; a deficiency of red blood cells; a lack of vitality

• angel food cake -  a light sponge cake made without egg yolks

• angelica -  aromatic stems or leaves or roots of Angelica Archangelica; candied stalks of the angelica plant; any of various tall and stout herbs of the genus Angelica having pinnately compound leaves and small white or greenish flowers in compound umbels

• anglerfish -  fishes having large mouths with a wormlike filament attached for luring prey

• animal -  of the nature of or characteristic of or derived from an animal or animals; marked by the appetites and passions of the body;  a living organism characterized by voluntary movement

• animal husbandry -  breeding and caring for farm animals

• animal-worship -  the worship of animals

• anise -  liquorice-flavored seeds or oil used in cookies or cakes or pickles; native to Egypt but cultivated widely for its aromatic seeds and the oil from them used medicinally and as a flavoring in cookery

• Anne -  Queen of England and Scotland and Ireland; daughter if James II and the last of the Stuart monarchs; in 1707 she was the last English ruler to exercise the royal veto over parliament (1665-1714)

• anorexia -  a prolonged disorder of eating due to loss of appetite

• anorexia nervosa -  (psychiatry) a psychological disorder characterized by somatic delusions that you are too fat despite being emaciated

• antebellum -  belonging to a period before a war especially the American Civil War

• antelope -  graceful Old World ruminant with long legs and horns directed upward and backward; includes gazelles; springboks; impalas; addax; gerenuks; blackbucks; dik-diks

• anthropology -  the social science that studies the origins and social relationships of human beings

• anthropometry -  measurement and study of the human body and its parts and capacities

• antioxidant -  substance that inhibits oxidation or inhibits reactions promoted by oxygen or peroxides

• antiquity -  an artifact surviving from the past; the historic period preceding the Middle Ages in Europe; extreme oldness

• aphrodisiac -  exciting sexual desire;  a drug or other agent that stimulates sexual desire

• appetite -  a feeling of craving something

• apple pie -  pie (with a top crust) containing sliced apples and sugar

• applejack -  distilled from hard cider

• Apulia -  a region in southeastern Italy on the Adriatic

• aquaculture -  rearing aquatic animals or cultivating aquatic plants for food

• archaeology -  the branch of anthropology that studies prehistoric people and their cultures

• architecture -  the profession of designing buildings and environments with consideration for their esthetic effect; an architectural product or work; the discipline dealing with the principles of design and construction and ornamentation of fine buildings; (computer science) the structure and organization of a computer's hardware or system software

• Arctic -  extremely cold; of or relating to the Arctic; at or near the north pole;  a waterproof overshoe that protects shoes from water or snow; the regions north of the Arctic Circle centered on the North Pole

• Arctic char -  small trout of northern waters; landlocked populations in Quebec and northern New England

• areca nut -  seed of betel palm; chewed with leaves of the betel pepper and lime as a digestive stimulant and narcotic in southeastern Asia

• Argentina -  type genus of the Argentinidae: argentines; a republic in southern South America; second largest country in South America

• arginine -  a bitter tasting amino acid found in proteins and necessary for nutrition; its absence from the diet leads to a reduced production of spermatozoa

• Aristotle -  one of the greatest of the ancient Athenian philosophers; pupil of Plato; teacher of Alexander the Great (384-322 BC)

• Arizona -  glossy snake; a state in southwestern United States; site of the Grand Canyon

• armadillo -  burrowing chiefly nocturnal mammal with body covered with strong horny plates

• Armagnac -  dry brandy distilled in the Armagnac district of France

• Armour -  tough more-or-less rigid protective covering of an animal or plant; protective covering made of metal and used in combat; a military unit consisting of armored fighting vehicles;  equip with armor

• arrowhead -  the pointed head or striking tip of an arrow

• arrowroot -  white-flowered West Indian plant whose root yields arrowroot starch; a nutritive starch obtained from the root of the arrowroot plant; canna grown especially for its edible rootstock from which arrowroot starch is obtained

• arsenic -  a very poisonous metallic element that has three allotropic forms; arsenic and arsenic compounds are used as herbicides and insecticides and various alloys; found in arsenopyrite and orpiment and realgar; a white powdered poisonous trioxide of arsenic; used in manufacturing glass and as a pesticide (rat poison) and weed killer

• artificial -  artificially formal; contrived by art rather than nature; not arising from natural growth or characterized by vital processes

• Asclepius -  son of Apollo; a hero and the Roman god of medicine and healing; his daughters were Hygeia and Panacea

• ascorbic acid -  a vitamin found in fresh fruits (especially citrus fruits) and vegetables; prevents scurvy

• aseptic -  free of or using methods to keep free of pathological microorganisms

• Asia -  the nations of the Asian continent collectively; the largest continent with 60% of the earth's population; it is joined to Europe on the west to form Eurasia; it is the site of some of the world's earliest civilizations

• asparagine -  a crystalline amino acid found in proteins and in many plants (e.g., asparagus)

• asparagus -  edible young shoots of the asparagus plant; plant whose succulent young shoots are cooked and eaten as a vegetable

• aspartame -  an artificial sweetener made from aspartic acid; used as a calorie-free sweetener

• aspartic acid -  a crystalline amino acid found in proteins and occurring naturally in sugar beets and sugar cane

• asphodel -  any of various chiefly Mediterranean plants of the genera Asphodeline and Asphodelus having linear leaves and racemes of white or pink or yellow flowers

• aspic -  savory jelly based on fish or meat stock used as a mold for meats or vegetables

• astringency -  the ability to contract or draw together soft body tissues to check blood flow or restrict secretion of fluids; a sharp astringent taste; the taste experience when a substance causes the mouth to pucker

• atole -  eaten as mush or as a thin gruel

• au jus -  served in its natural juices or gravy

• Austen -  English novelist noted for her insightful portrayals of middle-class families (1775-1817)

• Austin -  state capital of Texas on the Colorado River; site of the University of Texas

• Australia -  a nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony; the smallest continent; between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean

• Austria -  a mountainous republic in central Europe; under the Habsburgs (1278-1918) Austria maintained control of the Holy Roman Empire and was a leader in European politics until the 19th century

• Austrian -  of or relating to Austria or its people or culture;  a native or inhabitant of Austria

• Avicenna -  Arabian physician and influential Islamic philosopher; his interpretation of Aristotle influenced St. Thomas Aquinas; writings on medicine were important for almost 500 years (980-1037)

• Ayurveda -  (Sanskrit) an ancient medical treatise summarizing the Hindu art of healing and prolonging life; sometimes regarded as a 5th Veda

• Azores -  islands in the Atlantic Ocean belonging to Portugal

• baba -  a small cake leavened with yeast

• bacteria -  (microbiology) single-celled or noncellular spherical or spiral or rod-shaped organisms lacking chlorophyll that reproduce by fission; important as pathogens and for biochemical properties; taxonomy is difficult; often considered plants

• bagel -  (Yiddish) glazed yeast-raised doughnut-shaped roll with hard crust

• baked -  (bread and pastries) cooked by dry heat (as in an oven); hardened by subjecting to intense heat; dried out by heat or excessive exposure to sunlight

• Baker -  someone who bakes bread or cake; someone who bakes commercially

• baking -  as hot as if in an oven;  cooking by dry heat in an oven; making bread or cake or pastry etc.

• baking powder -  any of various powdered mixtures used in baking as a substitute for yeast

• baking soda -  a white soluble compound (NaHCO3) used in effervescent drinks and in baking powders and as an antacid

• baklava -  rich Middle Eastern cake made of thin layers of flaky pastry filled with nuts and honey

• Balfour -  English statesman; member of the Conservative Party (1848-1930)

• Balkan -  of or denoting or relating to the Balkan countries or their inhabitants or the Balkan peninsula or the Balkan Mountains;  an inhabitant of the Balkan Peninsula

• balsamic -  of or relating to or containing balsam

• Bangladesh -  a Muslim republic in southern Asia bordered by India to the north and west and east and the Bay of Bengal to the south; formerly part of India and then part of Pakistan; it achieved independence in 1971

• bannock -  a flat bread made of oat or barley flour; common in New England and Scotland

• baobab -  African tree having an exceedingly thick trunk and fruit that resembles a gourd and has an edible pulp called monkey bread

• barbecue -  a rack to hold meat for cooking over hot charcoal usually out of doors; a cookout in which food is cooked over an open fire; especially a whole animal carcass roasted on a spit; meat that has been barbecued or grilled in a highly seasoned sauce;  cook outdoors on a barbecue grill

• barley -  a grain of barley; cultivated since prehistoric times; grown for forage and grain

• Basilicata -  a region of southern Italy (forming the instep of the Italian `boot')

• Basque -  the language of the Basque people; of no known relation to any other language; a member of a people of unknown origin living in the western Pyrenees in France and Spain

• Bastille Day -  a legal holiday in France celebrating the storming of the Paris bastille in 1789

• Bavarian cream -  a rich custard set with gelatin

• bean curd -  cheeselike food made of curdled soybean milk

• Beard -  hairy growth on or near the face of certain mammals; the hair growing on the lower part of a man's face; a person who diverts suspicion from someone (especially a woman who accompanies a male homosexual in order to conceal his homosexuality); a tuft or growth of hairs or bristles on certain plants such as iris or grasses; tuft of strong filaments by which e.g. a mussel makes itself fast to a fixed surface;  go along the rim, like a beard around the chin

• bearded seal -  medium-sized greyish to yellow seal with bristles each side of muzzle; of Arctic Ocean

• beaten -  much trodden and worn smooth or bare; formed or made thin by hammering

• Beauvoir -  French feminist and existentialist and novelist (1908-1986)

• beaver -  large semiaquatic rodent with webbed hind feet and a broad flat tail; construct complex dams and underwater lodges; a hat made with the fur of a beaver (or similar material); a movable piece of armor on a medieval helmet used to protect the lower face; a full beard; the soft brown fur of the beaver; a man's hat with a tall crown; usually covered with silk or with beaver fur; a native or resident of Oregon;  work hard on something

• Beecher -  United States clergyman who was a leader for the abolition of slavery (1813-1887)

• beef -  cattle that are reared for their meat; meat from an adult domestic bovine; informal terms for objecting;  complain

• beefsteak -  a slice of beef usually cooked by broiling

• beehive -  a man-made receptacle that houses a swarm of bees; any workplace where people are very busy; a hairdo resembling a beehive; a structure that provides a natural habitation for bees; as in a hollow tree

• beer -  a general name for alcoholic beverages made by fermenting a cereal (or mixture of cereals) flavored with hops

• beer glass -  a relatively large glass for serving beer

• begging -  a solicitation for money or food (especially in the street by an apparently penniless person)

• Beijing -  capital of the People's Republic of China in the Hebei province in northeastern China; 2nd largest Chinese city

• Belgium -  a monarchy in northwestern Europe; headquarters for the European Union and for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

• Belize -  a country on the northeastern coast of Central America on the Caribbean; formerly under British control

• Beloved -  dearly loved;  a beloved person; used as terms of endearment

• benzoic acid -  a white crystalline solid occurring in many resins

• Beowulf -  the legendary hero of an anonymous Old English epic poem composed in the early 8th century; he slays a monster and becomes king but dies fighting a dragon

• beriberi -  avitaminosis caused by lack of thiamine (vitamin B1)

• Berkeley -  a city in California on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay; site of the University of California at Berkeley; Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop who opposed the materialism of Thomas Hobbes (1685-1753)

• beta-carotene -  an isomer of carotene that is found in dark green and dark yellow fruits and vegetables

• betel -  Asian pepper plant whose dried leaves are chewed with betel nut (seed of the betel palm) by southeast Asians

• Bible -  a book regarded as authoritative in its field; the sacred writings of the Christian religions

• bicarbonate of soda -  a white soluble compound (NaHCO3) used in effervescent drinks and in baking powders and as an antacid

• bile -  a digestive juice secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder; aids in the digestion of fats

• Billy -  male goat; a short stout club used primarily by policemen

• biodiversity -  the diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat (or in the world as a whole)

• biological -  of parents and children; related by blood; pertaining to biology or to life and living things

• biome -  a major biotic community characterized by the dominant forms of plant life and the prevailing climate

• biotechnology -  the branch of engineering science in which biological science is used to study the relation between workers and their environments; the branch of molecular biology that studies the use of microorganisms to perform specific industrial processes

• biotin -  a B vitamin that aids in body growth

• birch beer -  carbonated drink containing an extract from bark of birch trees

• birthday cake -  decorated cake served at a birthday party

• bison -  any of several large humped bovids having shaggy manes and large heads and short horns

• bitterness -  a rough and bitter manner; the property of having a harsh unpleasant taste; the taste experience when quinine or coffee is taken into the mouth; a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will

• bitterroot -  showy succulent ground-hugging plant of Rocky Mountains regions having deep to pale pink flowers and fleshy farinaceous roots; the Montana state flower

• black -  marked by anger or resentment or hostility; of or belonging to a racial group having dark skin especially of sub-Saharan African origin; extremely dark; being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light; (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood; soiled with dirt or soot; dressed in black; (of coffee) without cream or sugar; (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin; stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable; (used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame; offering little or no hope; (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading; harshly ironic or sinister; distributed or sold illicitly;  black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning); (board games) the darker pieces; the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white); a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa); popular child actress of the 1930's (born in 1928); British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799); total absence of light;  make or become black

• black pepper -  pepper that is ground from whole peppercorns with husks on; climber having dark red berries (peppercorns) when fully ripe; southern India and Sri Lanka; naturalized in northern Burma and Assam

• blessed thistle -  annual of Mediterranean to Portugal having hairy stems and minutely spiny-toothed leaves and large heads of yellow flowers; tall Old World biennial thistle with large clasping white-blotched leaves and purple flower heads; naturalized in California and South America

• blood -  temperament or disposition; the fluid (red in vertebrates) that is pumped by the heart; people viewed as members of a group; the descendants of one individual; a dissolute man in fashionable society;  smear with blood, as in a hunting initiation rite, where the face of a person is smeared with the blood of the kill

• Bloody Mary -  a cocktail made with vodka and spicy tomato juice; daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon who was Queen of England from 1553 to 1558; she was the wife of Philip II of Spain and when she restored Roman Catholicism to England many Protestants were burned at the stake as heretics (1516-1558)

• blowfish -  delicacy that is highly dangerous because of a potent nerve poison in ovaries and liver; any of numerous marine fishes whose elongated spiny body can inflate itself with water or air to form a globe; several species contain a potent nerve poison; closely related to spiny puffers

• blue cheese -  cheese containing a blue mold

• blue-green -  of a bluish shade of green

• body -  the external structure of a vehicle; the entire structure of an organism (especially an animal or human being); a natural object consisting of a dead animal or person; the central message of a communication; a group of persons associated by some common tie or occupation and regarded as an entity; a collection of particulars considered as a system; an individual 3-dimensional object that has mass and that is distinguishable from other objects; the property of holding together and retaining its shape; the body excluding the head and neck and limbs;  invest with or as with a body; give body to

• Boer -  a white native of Cape Province who is a descendant of Dutch settlers and who speaks Afrikaans

• Boeuf -  meat from an adult domestic bovine

• Bohemia -  a group of artists and writers with real or pretended artistic or intellectual aspirations and usually an unconventional life style; a historical area and former kingdom in the Czech Republic

• Bohemian -  unconventional in especially appearance and behavior; of or relating to Bohemia or its language or people;  a nonconformist writer or artist who lives an unconventional life; a native or inhabitant of Bohemia in the Czech Republic; a member of a people with dark skin and hair who speak Romany and who traditionally live by seasonal work and fortunetelling; they are believed to have originated in northern India but now are living on all continents (but mostly in Europe, North Africa, and North America)

• boiling - adv. extremely;  cooking in a liquid that has been brought to a boil; the application of heat to change something from a liquid to a gas

• bok choy -  elongated head of dark green leaves on thick white stalks; Asiatic plant grown for its cluster of edible white stalks with dark green leaves

• Bolivia -  a form of canasta in which sequences can be melded; a landlocked republic in central South America; Simon Bolivar founded Bolivia in 1825 after winning independence from Spain

• bonito -  any of various scombroid fishes intermediate in size and characteristics between mackerels and tunas; fish whose flesh is dried and flaked for Japanese cookery; may be same species as skipjack tuna; flesh of mostly Pacific food fishes of the genus Sarda of the family Scombridae; related to but smaller than tuna

• boomerang -  a curved piece of wood; when properly thrown will return to thrower; a miscalculation that recoils on its maker;  return to the initial position from where it came; like a boomerang

• borecole -  a hardy cabbage with coarse curly leaves that do not form a head

• Borneo -  3rd largest island in the world; in the western Pacific north of Java; largely covered by dense jungle and rain forest; part of the Malay Archipelago

• boron -  a trivalent metalloid element; occurs both in a hard black crystal and in the form of a yellow or brown powder

• borscht -  a Russian soup usually containing beet juice as a foundation

• Bosnia-Herzegovina -  a mountainous republic of south-central Europe; formerly part of the Ottoman Empire and then a part of Yugoslavia; voted for independence in 1992 but the mostly Serbian army of Yugoslavia refused to accept the vote and began ethnic cleansing in order to rid Bosnia of its Croats and Muslims

• Boston -  state capital and largest city of Massachusetts; a major center for banking and financial services

• Boston Tea Party -  demonstration (1773) by citizens of Boston who (disguised as Indians) raided three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the harbor; organized as a protest against taxes on tea

• botanical -  of or relating to plants or botany;  a drug made from part of a plant (as the bark or root or leaves)

• Bottled Water -  drinking water (often spring water) that is put into bottles and offered for sale

• bottom fermentation -  a slow kind of alcoholic fermentation at a temperature low enough that the yeast cells can sink to the bottom of the fermenting liquid; used in the production of lager

• botulism -  food poisoning from ingesting botulin; not infectious; affects the CNS; can be fatal if not treated promptly

• bouillabaisse -  highly seasoned Mediterranean soup or stew made of several kinds of fish and shellfish with tomatoes and onions or leeks and seasoned with saffron and garlic and herbs

• Bower -  a framework that supports climbing plants;  enclose in a bower

• boxthorn -  any of various shrubs or vines of the genus Lycium with showy flowers and bright berries

• Bradford -  United States printer (born in England) whose press produced the first American prayer book and the New York City's first newspaper (1663-1752)

• Bradley -  United States general who played an important role in the Allied victory in World War II (1893-1981); United States politician who was elected the first Black may of Los Angeles (1917-1998)

• Brady -  United States financier noted for his love of diamonds and his extravagant lifestyle (1856-1917); United States pioneer photographer famous for his portraits; was the official Union photographer for the American Civil War (1823-1896)

• Brahmanism -  the religious beliefs of ancient India as prescribed in the sacred Vedas and Brahmanas and Upanishads; the religious and social system of orthodox Hinduism

• brain -  that part of the central nervous system that includes all the higher nervous centers; enclosed within the skull; continuous with the spinal cord; mental ability; the brain of certain animals used as meat; that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason; someone who has exceptional intellectual ability and originality;  kill by smashing someone's skull; hit on the head

• bran -  food prepared from the husks of cereal grains; broken husks of the seeds of cereal grains that are separated from the flour by sifting

• branding -  the act of stigmatizing

• brandy -  distilled from wine or fermented fruit juice

• brazier -  large metal container in which coal or charcoal is burned; warms people who must stay outside for long times

• Brazil -  the largest Latin American country and the largest Portuguese speaking country in the world; located in the central and northeastern part of South America; world's leading coffee exporter; three-sided tropical American nut with white oily meat and hard brown shell

• Brazilian -  of or relating to or characteristic of Brazil or the people of Brazil;  a native or inhabitant of Brazil

• bread -  food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised with yeast or baking powder and then baked; informal terms for money;  cover with bread crumbs

• bread mold -  a mold of the genus Rhizopus

• breadfruit -  a large round seedless or seeded fruit with a texture like bread; eaten boiled or baked or roasted or ground into flour; the roasted seeds resemble chestnuts; native to Pacific islands and having edible fruit with a texture like bread

• breakfast -  the first meal of the day (usually in the morning);  eat an early morning meal; provide breakfast for

• breeding -  producing offspring or set aside especially for producing offspring;  the production of animals or plants by inbreeding or hybridization; helping someone grow up to be an accepted member of the community; elegance by virtue of fineness of manner and expression; the sexual activity of conceiving and bearing offspring; the result of good upbringing (especially knowledge of correct social behavior)

• brick -  rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln; used as a building or paving material; a good fellow; helpful and trustworthy

• Brie -  soft creamy white cheese; milder than Camembert

• Britain -  a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland

• British -  of or relating to or characteristic of Great Britain or its people or culture;  the people of Great Britain

• British Columbia -  a province in western Canada

• British Isles -  Great Britain and Ireland and adjacent islands in the north Atlantic

• Brix scale -  a system for measuring the concentration of sugar solutions

• broccoli -  branched green undeveloped flower heads; plant with dense clusters of tight green flower buds

• broccoli raab -  plant grown for its pungent edible leafy shoots; slightly bitter dark green leaves and clustered flower buds

• broiling -  cooking by direct exposure to radiant heat (as over a fire or under a grill)

• broth -  a thin soup of meat or fish or vegetable stock; liquid in which meat and vegetables are simmered; used as a basis for e.g. soups or sauces

• Brown -  (of skin) deeply suntanned; of a color similar to that of wood or earth;  an orange of low brightness and saturation; abolitionist who was hanged after leading an unsuccessful raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (1800-1858); Scottish botanist who first observed the movement of small particles in fluids now known a Brownian motion (1773-1858); a university in Rhode Island;  fry in a pan until it changes color

• brown rice -  unpolished rice retaining the yellowish-brown outer layer

• browning -  English poet best remembered for love sonnets written to her husband Robert Browning (1806-1861); English poet and husband of Elizabeth Barrett Browning noted for his dramatic monologues (1812-1889); United States inventor of firearms (especially automatic pistols and repeating rifles and a machine gun called the Peacemaker) (1855-1926); cooking to a brown crispiness over a fire or on a grill

• brunch -  combination breakfast and lunch; usually served in late morning;  eat a meal in the late morning

• Brussels sprouts -  the small edible cabbage-like buds growing along a stalk of the brussels sprout plant

• buckwheat -  grain ground into flour; a member of the genus Fagopyrum; annual Asian plant with clusters of small pinkish white flowers and small edible triangular seeds which are used whole or ground into flour

• Budapest -  capital and largest city of Hungary; located on the Danube River in north-central Hungary

• Buddha -  founder of Buddhism; worshipped as a god (c 563-483 BC); one who has achieved a state of perfect enlightenment

• Buddhism -  the teaching of Buddha that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, that suffering ceases when desire ceases, and that enlightenment obtained through right conduct and wisdom and meditation releases one from desire and suffering and rebirth; a religion represented by the many groups (especially in Asia) that profess various forms of the Buddhist doctrine and that venerate Buddha

• buffalo -  meat from an American bison; a city on Lake Erie in western New York (near Niagara Falls); any of several Old World animals resembling oxen including, e.g., water buffalo; Cape buffalo; large shaggy-haired brown bison of North American plains;  intimidate or overawe

• Bulgaria -  a republic in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe

• bulgur -  parched crushed wheat

• bully beef -  beef cured or pickled in brine

• Burnett -  United States writer (born in England) remembered for her novels for children (1849-1924)

• Burns -  celebrated Scottish poet (1759-1796); United States comedian and film actor (1896-1996)

• Burr -  rough projection left on a workpiece after drilling or cutting; rotary file for smoothing rough edges left on a workpiece; United States politician who served as vice president under Jefferson; he mortally wounded his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel and fled south (1756-1836); small bit used in dentistry or surgery; seed vessel having hooks or prickles;  remove the burrs from

• Burundi -  of or relating to or characteristic of Burundi or its people;  a landlocked republic in east central Africa on the northeastern shore of Lake Tanganyika

• butter -  an edible emulsion of fat globules made by churning milk or cream; for cooking and table use; a fighter who strikes the opponent with his head;  spread butter on

• buttermilk -  residue from making butter from sour raw milk; or pasteurized milk curdled by adding a culture

• Byron -  English romantic poet notorious for his rebellious and unconventional lifestyle (1788-1824)

• Byzantine Empire -  a continuation of the Roman Empire in the Middle East after its division in 395

• cabbage -  any of various types of cabbage; any of various cultivars of the genus Brassica oleracea grown for their edible leaves or flowers; informal terms for money;  make off with belongings of others

• cabbage palm -  Brazilian palm of genus Euterpe whose leaf buds are eaten like cabbage when young; Australian palm with leaf buds that are edible when young; West Indian palm with leaf buds that are edible when young; low-growing fan-leaved palm of coastal southern United States having edible leaf buds

• cacao -  tropical American tree producing cacao beans

• cactus -  any succulent plant of the family Cactaceae native chiefly to arid regions of the New World and usually having spines

• cadmium -  a soft bluish-white ductile malleable toxic bivalent metallic element; occurs in association with zinc ores

• Caesar salad -  typically having fried croutons and dressing made with a raw egg

• caffeine -  a bitter alkaloid found in coffee and tea that is responsible for their stimulating effects

• Cain -  (Old Testament) Cain and Abel were the first children of Adam and Eve born after the Fall of Man; Cain killed Abel out of jealousy and was exiled by God

• cake -  a block of solid substance (such as soap or wax); made from or based on a mixture of flour and sugar and eggs; small flat mass of chopped food;  form a coat over

• Calabria -  a region of southern Italy (forming the toe of the Italian `boot')

• calcium -  a white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light; the fifth most abundant element in the earth's crust; an important component of most plants and animals

• calcium phosphate -  a phosphate of calcium; a main constituent of animal bones

• California -  a state in the western United States on the Pacific; the 3rd largest state; known for earthquakes

• Calorie -  unit of heat defined as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree centigrade at atmospheric pressure; a unit of heat equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree at one atmosphere pressure; used by nutritionists to characterize the energy-producing potential in food

• calorimetry -  measurement of quantities of heat

• camass -  any of several plants of the genus Camassia; North and South America

• Cambodia -  a nation in southeastern Asia; was part of Indochina under French rule until 1946

• camel -  cud-chewing mammal used as a draft or saddle animal in desert regions

• Camembert -  rich soft creamy French cheese

• Campania -  a region of southwestern Italy on the Tyrrhenian Sea including the islands of Capri and Ischia

• Canada -  a nation in northern North America; the French were the first Europeans to settle in mainland Canada

• cancer -  type genus of the family Cancridae; the fourth sign of the zodiac; the sun is in this sign from about June 21 to July 22; a small zodiacal constellation in the northern hemisphere; between Leo and Gemini; (astrology) a person who is born while the sun is in Cancer; any malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division; it may spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system or the blood stream

• candied fruit -  fruit cooked in sugar syrup and encrusted with a sugar crystals

• candy -  a rich sweet made of flavored sugar and often combined with fruit or nuts;  coat with something sweet, such as a hard sugar glaze

• cane sugar -  sugar from sugarcane used as sweetening agent; sucrose obtained from sugar cane

• Canfield -  a form of solitaire that involves gambling

• canned -  sealed in a can or jar; recorded for broadcast

• canned foods -  food preserved by canning

• cannibalism -  the practice of eating the flesh of your own kind

• Cannon -  lower part of the leg extending from the hock to the fetlock in hoofed mammals; a large artillery gun that is usually on wheels; heavy automatic gun fired from an airplane; (Middle Ages) a cylindrical piece of armor plate to protect the arm; heavy gun fired from a tank; a shot in billiards in which the cue ball contacts one object ball and then the other;  fire a cannon; make a cannon

• canola oil -  vegetable oil made from rapeseed

• cantaloupe -  a variety of muskmelon vine having fruit with a tan rind and orange flesh; the fruit of a cantaloup vine; small to medium-sized melon with yellowish flesh

• Canterbury Tales -  an uncompleted series of tales written after 1387 by Geoffrey Chaucer

• Canton -  a small administrative division of a country; a city on the Zhu Jiang delta in southern China; the capital of Guangdong province and a major deep-water port;  divide into cantons, of a country; provide housing for (military personnel)

• Capital -  uppercase; of primary important; first-rate;  the upper part of a column that supports the entablature; one of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis; the federal government of the United States; a seat of government; a center that is associated more than any other with some activity or product; wealth in the form of money or property owned by a person or business and human resources of economic value; assets available for use in the production of further assets; a book written by Karl Marx (1867) describing his economic theories

• Capon -  castrated male chicken; flesh of a castrated male chicken

• capsaicin -  colorless pungent crystalline compound derived from capsicum; source of the hotness of hot peppers of the genus Capsicum such as chili and cayenne and jalapeno

• carambola -  deeply ridged yellow-brown tropical fruit; used raw as a vegetable or in salad or when fully ripe as a dessert; East Indian tree bearing deeply ridged yellow-brown fruit

• Caravaggio -  Italian painter noted for his realistic depiction of religious subjects and his novel use of light (1573-1610)

• cardamom -  aromatic seeds used as seasoning like cinnamon and cloves especially in pickles and barbecue sauces; rhizomatous herb of India having aromatic seeds used as seasoning

• cardiovascular -  of or pertaining to or involving the heart and blood vessels

• Caribbean -  region including the Caribbean islands; an arm of the Atlantic Ocean between North and South America; the origin of the Gulf stream

• caribou -  arctic deer with large antlers in both sexes; called `reindeer' in Eurasia and `caribou' in North America

• caricature -  a representation of a person that is exaggerated for comic effect;  represent in or produce a caricature of

• carnival -  a festival marked by merrymaking and processions; a traveling show; having sideshows and rides and games of skill etc.; a frenetic disorganized (and often comic) disturbance suggestive of a large public entertainment

• carp -  any of various freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae; the lean flesh of a fish that is often farmed; can be baked or braised;  raise trivial objections

• carpel -  a simple pistil or one element of a compound pistil

• Carroll -  English author; Charles Dodgson was an Oxford don of mathematics who is remembered for the children's stories he wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

• carrot family -  plants having flowers in umbels: parsley; carrot; anise; caraway; celery; dill

• carrot pudding -  pudding made with grated carrots

• Carson -  United States frontiersman who guided Fremont's expeditions in the 1840s and served as a Union general in the American Civil War (1809-1868); United States biologist remembered for her opposition to the use of pesticides that were hazardous to wildlife (1907-1964)

• Carter -  someone whose work is driving carts; 39th President of the United States (1924-); Englishman and Egyptologist who in 1922 discovered and excavated the tomb of Tutankhamen (1873-1939)

• carving -  removing parts to create a desired shape; a sculpture created by removing material (as wood or ivory or stone) in order to create a desired shape; creating figures or designs in three dimensions

• cassava -  any of several plants of the genus Manihot having fleshy roots yielding a nutritious starch; cassava root eaten as a staple food after drying and leaching; source of tapioca; a starch made by leaching and drying the root of the cassava plant; the source of tapioca; a staple food in the tropics

• cassia -  Chinese tree with aromatic bark; yields a less desirable cinnamon than Ceylon cinnamon; any of various trees or shrubs of the genus Cassia having pinnately compound leaves and usually yellow flowers followed by long seedpods; some genus Cassia species often classified as members of the genus Senna or genus Chamaecrista

• catalogue -  a book or pamphlet containing an enumeration of things; a complete list of things; usually arranged systematically;  make an itemized list or catalog of; classify; make a catalogue, compile a catalogue

• Catalonia -  a region of northeastern Spain

• catfish -  any of numerous mostly freshwater bottom-living fishes of Eurasia and North America with barbels like whiskers around the mouth; flesh of scaleless food fish of the southern United States; often farmed; large ferocious northern deep-sea food fishes with strong teeth and no pelvic fins

• cathedral -  relating to or containing or issuing from a bishop's office or throne;  any large and important church; the principal Christian church building of a bishop's diocese

• Catholic Church -  any of several churches claiming to have maintained historical continuity with the original Christian Church

• cattle -  domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age

• cattle breeding -  breeding cattle

• cauliflower -  compact head of white undeveloped flowers; a plant having a large edible head of crowded white flower buds

• caviar -  salted roe of sturgeon or other large fish; usually served as an hors d'oeuvre

• cayenne pepper -  a long and often twisted hot red pepper; ground pods and seeds of pungent red peppers of the genus Capsicum; plant bearing very hot and finely tapering long peppers; usually red

• celeriac -  thickened edible aromatic root of a variety of celery plant; grown for its thickened edible aromatic root

• celery -  stalks eaten raw or cooked or used as seasoning; widely cultivated herb with aromatic leaf stalks that are eaten raw or cooked

• celiac disease -  a disorder in children and adults; inability to tolerate wheat protein (gluten); symptoms include foul-smelling diarrhea and emaciation; often accompanied by lactose intolerance

• cellophane -  a transparent paperlike product that is impervious to moisture and used to wrap candy or cigarettes etc.

• cellulose -  a polysaccharide that is the chief constituent of all plant tissues and fibers

• Celsius -  Swedish astronomer who devised the centigrade thermometer (1701-1744)

• Central -  in or near a center or constituting a center; the inner area; centrally located and easy to reach; used in the description of a place that in the middle of another place; serving as an essential component;  a workplace that serves as a telecommunications facility where lines from telephones can be connected together to permit communication

• Central Africa -  a landlocked country in central Africa; formerly under French control; became independent in 1960

• Central America -  the nations of Central America collectively; the isthmus joining North America and South America; extends from the southern border of Mexico to the northern border of Colombia

• century -  a period of 100 years

• ceramics -  the art of making and decorating pottery

• Ceres -  the largest asteroid and the first discovered; (Roman mythology) goddess of agriculture; counterpart of Greek Demeter

• certification -  the act of certifying or bestowing a franchise on; validating the authenticity of something or someone; a document attesting to the truth of certain stated facts; confirmation that some fact or statement is true

• Ceylon -  an island in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of India; a republic on the island of Ceylon; became independent of the United Kingdom in 1948

• chafing dish -  a metal pan over a heater; used to cook or to keep things warm at the table

• champagne -  a white sparkling wine either produced in Champagne or resembling that produced there; a region of northeastern France

• charcuterie -  a delicatessen that specializes in meats

• chard -  long succulent whitish stalks with large green leaves; beet lacking swollen root; grown as a vegetable for its edible leaves and stalks

• charity -  an activity or gift that benefits the public at large; a kindly and lenient attitude toward people; an institution set up to provide help to the needy; a foundation created to promote the public good (not for assistance to any particular individuals); pinnate-leaved European perennial having bright blue or white flowers

• Charlemagne -  king of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor; conqueror of the Lombards and Saxons (742-814)

• Charles -  a river in eastern Massachusetts that empties into Boston Harbor and that separates Cambridge from Boston; French physicist and author of Charles's law which anticipated Gay-Lussac's law (1746-1823); the eldest son of Elizabeth II and heir to the English throne (born in 1948); son of James I who was King of England and Scotland and Ireland; was deposed and executed by Oliver Cromwell (1600-1649); King of England and Scotland and Ireland during the Restoration (1630-1685); as Charles II he was Holy Roman Emperor and as Charles I he was king of France (823-877); King of France who began his reign with most of northern France under English control; after the intervention of Jeanne d'Arc the French were able to defeat the English and end the Hundred Years' War (1403-1461); King of France from 1560 to 1574 whose reign was dominated by his mother Catherine de Medicis (1550-1574); king of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor; conqueror of the Lombards and Saxons (742-814)

• Charolais -  large white or cream-colored breed from France

• Chaucer -  English poet remembered as author of the Canterbury Tales (1340-1400)

• Cheese -  a solid food prepared from the pressed curd of milk; erect or decumbent Old World perennial with axillary clusters of rosy-purple flowers; introduced in United States;  wind onto a cheese; used in the imperative (get away, or stop it)

• cheese press -  a press for shaping cheese curd

• chemical -  relating to or used in chemistry; of or made from or using substances produced by or used in reactions involving atomic or molecular changes;  produced by or used in a reaction involving changes in atoms or molecules

• chemotherapy -  the use of chemical agents to treat or control disease (or mental illness)

• cherimoya -  large tropical fruit with leathery skin and soft pulp; related to custard apples; small tropical American tree bearing round or oblong fruit

• Cherokee -  the Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee; a member of an Iroquoian people formerly living in the Appalachian Mountains but now chiefly in Oklahoma

• Chesapeake Bay -  a large inlet of the North Atlantic between Virginia and Maryland; fed by Susquehanna River

• chestnut -  (of hair) of a golden brown to reddish brown color;  a dark golden-brown or reddish-brown horse; a small horny callus on the inner surface of a horse's leg; edible nut of any of various chestnut trees of the genus Castanea; any of several attractive deciduous trees yellow-brown in autumn; yield a hard wood and edible nuts in a prickly bur; wood of any of various chestnut trees of the genus Castanea

• chewing -  biting and grinding food in your mouth so it becomes soft enough to swallow

• chewing gum -  a preparation (usually made of sweetened chicle) for chewing; a gum prepared for chewing; sweetened and flavored

• Chicago -  largest city in Illinois; a bustling Great Lakes port that extends 26 miles along the southwestern shoreline of Lake Michigan; a gambling card game in which chips are placed on the ace and king and queen and jack of separate suits (taken from a separate deck); a player plays the lowest card of a suit in his hand and successively higher cards are played until the sequence stops; the player who plays a card matching one in the layout wins all the chips on that card

• chicha -  an oriental tobacco pipe with a long flexible tube connected to a container where the smoke is cooled by passing through water

• chicken -  easily frightened;  a domestic fowl bred for flesh or eggs; believed to have been developed from the red jungle fowl; a foolhardy competition; a dangerous activity that is continued until one competitor becomes afraid and stops; the flesh of a chicken used for food; a person who lacks confidence, is irresolute and wishy-washy

• chicken broth -  a stock made with chicken

• chicken soup -  soup made from chicken broth

• chicory -  crisp spiky leaves with somewhat bitter taste; root of the chicory plant roasted and ground to substitute for or adulterate coffee; perennial Old World herb having rayed flower heads with blue florets cultivated for its root and its heads of crisp edible leaves used in salads; the dried root of the chicory plant: used as a coffee substitute

• Child -  a young person of either sex; a human offspring (son or daughter) of any age; an immature childish person; a member of a clan or tribe

• Chile -  a republic in southern South America on the western slopes of the Andes on the south Pacific coast; very hot and finely tapering pepper of special pungency

• chili con carne -  ground beef and chili peppers or chili powder often with tomatoes and kidney beans

• chili powder -  powder made of ground chili peppers mixed with e.g. cumin and garlic and oregano

• China -  high quality porcelain originally made only in China; a communist nation that covers a vast territory in eastern Asia; the most populous country in the world; dishware made of high quality porcelain; a government on the island of Taiwan established in 1949 by Chiang Kai-shek after the conquest of mainland China by the communists led by Mao Zedong

• Chinese -  of or pertaining to China or its peoples or cultures; of or relating to or characteristic of the island republic on Taiwan or its residents or their language;  any of the Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in China; regarded as dialects of a single language (even though they are mutually unintelligible) because they share an ideographic writing system; a native or inhabitant of Communist China or of Nationalist China

• Chiron -  an asteroid discovered in 1977; it is unique in having an orbit lying mainly between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus; (Greek mythology) the learned centaur who tutored Achilles, Asclepius, Hercules, Jason, and other heroes

• chitlins -  small intestines of hogs prepared as food

• chitterlings -  small intestines of hogs prepared as food

• chives -  cylindrical leaves used fresh as a mild onion-flavored seasoning; perennial having hollow cylindrical leaves used for seasoning

• chloride -  any salt of hydrochloric acid (containing the chloride ion); any compound containing a chlorine atom

• chlorosis -  iron deficiency anemia in young women; characterized by weakness and menstrual disturbances and a green color to the skin

• chocolate -  a medium brown to dark-brown color; a food made from roasted ground cacao beans; a beverage made from cocoa powder and milk and sugar; usually drunk hot

• cholera -  an acute intestinal infection caused by ingestion of contaminated water or food

• cholesterol -  an animal sterol that is normally synthesized by the liver; the most abundant steroid in animal tissues

• choline -  a B-complex vitamin that is a constituent of lecithin; essential in the metabolism of fat

• chowder -  a thick soup or stew made with milk and bacon and onions and potatoes

• Christianity -  a monotheistic system of beliefs and practices based on the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus as embodied in the New Testament and emphasizing the role of Jesus as savior; the collective body of Christians throughout the world and history (found predominantly in Europe and the Americas and Australia)

• Christmas -  a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Christ; a quarter day in England, Wales, and Ireland; period extending from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6;  spend Christmas

• chromium -  a hard brittle multivalent metallic element; resistant to corrosion and tarnishing

• chufa -  European sedge having small edible nutlike tubers

• chutney -  chopped fruits or green tomatoes cooked in vinegar and sugar with ginger and spices

• chyme -  a semiliquid mass of partially digested food that passes from the stomach through the pyloric sphincter into the duodenum

• chymosin -  an enzyme that occurs in gastric juice; causes milk to coagulate

• Cicero -  a Roman statesman and orator remembered for his mastery of Latin prose (106-43 BC); a linear unit of the size of type slightly larger than an em

• cider -  a beverage made from juice pressed from apples

• cilantro -  parsley-like herb used as seasoning or garnish; Old World herb with aromatic leaves and seed resembling parsley

• cinnamon -  spice from the dried aromatic bark of the Ceylon cinnamon tree; used as rolled strips or ground; tropical Asian tree with aromatic yellowish-brown bark; source of the spice cinnamon; aromatic bark used as a spice

• cirrhosis -  a chronic disease interfering with the normal functioning of the liver; the major cause is chronic alcoholism

• citrus -  any of numerous fruits of the genus Citrus having thick rind and juicy pulp; grown in warm regions; any of numerous tropical usually thorny evergreen trees of the genus Citrus having leathery evergreen leaves and widely cultivated for their juicy edible fruits having leathery aromatic rinds

• citrus fruit -  any of numerous fruits of the genus Citrus having thick rind and juicy pulp; grown in warm regions

• Civil War -  a war between factions in the same country

• civilization -  a society in an advanced state of social development (e.g., with complex legal and political and religious organizations); the social process whereby societies achieve civilization; the quality of excellence in thought and manners and taste; a particular society at a particular time and place

• clabber -  raw milk that has soured and thickened;  turn into curds

• clams -  informal terms for money

• classification -  restriction imposed by the government on documents or weapons that are available only to certain authorized people; the basic cognitive process of arranging into classes or categories; a group of people or things arranged by class or category; the act of distributing things into classes or categories of the same type

• clay -  United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852); United States general who commanded United States forces in Europe from 1945 to 1949 and who oversaw the Berlin airlift (1897-1978); a very fine-grained soil that is plastic when moist but hard when fired; the dead body of a human being; water soaked soil; soft wet earth

• cleaver -  a butcher's knife having a large square blade

• climate -  the weather in some location averaged over some long period of time; the prevailing psychological state

• climate change -  a change in the world's climate

• cloning -  a general term for the research activity that creates a copy of some biological entity (a gene or organism or cell)

• Club Sandwich -  made with three slices of usually toasted bread

• coal -  fossil fuel consisting of carbonized vegetable matter deposited in the Carboniferous period; a hot fragment of wood or coal that is left from a fire and is glowing or smoldering;  take in coal; supply with coal; burn to charcoal

• Coast -  the area within view; a slope down which sleds may coast; the act of moving smoothly along a surface while remaining in contact with it; the shore of a sea or ocean;  move effortlessly; by force of gravity

• cobalamin -  a B vitamin that is used to treat pernicious anemia

• cobalt -  a hard ferromagnetic silver-white bivalent or trivalent metallic element; a trace element in plant and animal nutrition

• coca -  dried leaves of the coca plant (and related plants that also contain cocaine); chewed by Andean people for their simulating effect; United States comedienne who starred in early television shows with Sid Caesar (1908-2001); a South American shrub whose leaves are chewed by natives of the Andes; a source of cocaine

• Coca Cola -  Coca Cola is a trademarked cola

• cocaine -  a narcotic (alkaloid) extracted from coca leaves; used as a surface anesthetic or taken for pleasure; can become powerfully addictive

• cochon de lait -  whole young pig suitable for roasting

• Cockaigne -  (Middle Ages) an imaginary land of luxury and idleness

• cocktail party -  an afternoon party at which cocktails are served

• coconut -  large hard-shelled oval nut with a fibrous husk containing thick white meat surrounding a central cavity filled (when fresh) with fluid or milk; the edible white meat a coconut; often shredded for use in e.g. cakes and curries; tall palm tree bearing coconuts as fruits; widely planted throughout the tropics

• coconut milk -  clear to whitish fluid from within a fresh coconut; white liquid obtained from compressing fresh coconut meat

• Codex -  an unbound manuscript of some ancient classic (as distinguished from a scroll); an official list of chemicals or medicines etc.

• coffee -  a beverage consisting of an infusion of ground coffee beans; any of several small trees and shrubs native to the tropical Old World yielding coffee beans; a medium brown to dark-brown color; a seed of the coffee tree; ground to make coffee

• Cognac -  high quality grape brandy distilled in the Cognac district of France

• cola -  carbonated drink flavored with extract from Kola nuts (`dope' is a southernism in the United States); large genus of African trees bearing kola nuts

• cold -  lacking the warmth of life; of a seeker; far from the object sought; unconscious from a blow or shock or intoxication; feeling or showing no enthusiasm; having lost freshness through passage of time; used of physical coldness; having a low or inadequate temperature or feeling a sensation of coldness or having been made cold by e.g. ice or refrigeration; extended meanings; especially of psychological coldness; without human warmth or emotion; without compunction or human feeling; sexually unresponsive; so intense as to be almost uncontrollable; no longer new; uninteresting; marked by errorless familiarity; (color) giving no sensation of warmth;  the sensation produced by low temperatures; a mild viral infection involving the nose and respiratory passages (but not the lungs); the absence of heat

• Coleridge -  English romantic poet (1772-1834)

• coleslaw -  basically shredded cabbage

• collards -  kale that has smooth leaves

• Colombia -  a republic in northwestern South America with a coastline on the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea; achieved independence from Spain in 1821 under the leadership of Simon Bolivar; Spanish is the official language

• Colonel -  a commissioned military officer in the United States Army or Air Force or Marines who ranks above a lieutenant colonel and below a brigadier general

• colonialism -  exploitation by a stronger country of weaker one; the use of the weaker country's resources to strengthen and enrich the stronger country

• color -  having or capable of producing colors;  the appearance of objects (or light sources) described in terms of a person's perception of their hue and lightness (or brightness) and saturation; a visual attribute of things that results from the light they emit or transmit or reflect; the timbre of a musical sound; interest and variety and intensity; (physics) the characteristic of quarks that determines their role in the strong interaction; each flavor of quarks comes in three colors; a race with skin pigmentation different from the white race (especially Blacks); an outward or token appearance or form that is deliberately misleading; any material used for its color;  add color to; gloss or excuse; decorate with colors; modify or bias; change color, often in an undesired manner; affect as in thought or feeling

• colostrum -  milky fluid secreted for the first day or two after parturition

• Columella -  a small column (or structure resembling a column) that is a part of a plant or animal

• Comfort -  a feeling of freedom from worry or disappointment; a state of being relaxed and feeling no pain; the act of consoling; giving relief in affliction; a freedom from financial difficulty that promotes a comfortable state;  lessen pain or discomfort; alleviate; give moral or emotional strength to

• comfort food -  food that is simply prepared and gives a sense of wellbeing; typically food with a high sugar or carbohydrate content that is associated with childhood or with home cooking

• comfrey -  leaves make a popular tisane; young leaves used in salads or cooked; perennial herbs of Europe and Iran; make rapidly growing groundcover for shaded areas

• commercial -  connected with or engaged in or sponsored by or used in commerce or commercial enterprises; of the kind or quality used in commerce; average or inferior; of or relating to commercialism;  a commercially sponsored ad on radio or television

• communion -  the act of participating in the celebration of the Eucharist; sharing thoughts and feelings; (Christianity) a group of Christians with a common religious faith who practice the same rites

• Community -  (ecology) a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other; a group of people living in a particular local area; a group of people having ethnic or cultural or religious characteristics in common; a group of nations having common interests; common ownership; agreement as to goals; the body of people in a learned occupation; a district where people live; occupied primarily by private residences

• Companion -  one paid to accompany or assist or live with another; a person who is frequently in the company of another; a traveler who accompanies you;  be a companion to somebody

• company -  an institution created to conduct business; a unit of firefighters including their equipment; a social gathering of guests or companions; organization of performers and associated personnel (especially theatrical); small military unit; usually two or three platoons; the state of being with someone; crew of a ship including the officers; the whole force or personnel of a ship; a band of people associated temporarily in some activity; a social or business visitor;  be a companion to somebody

• compost -  a mixture of decaying vegetation and manure; used as a fertilizer;  convert to compost

• compote -  dessert of stewed or baked fruit

• concept -  an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances

• conch -  any of various edible tropical marine gastropods of the genus Strombus having a brightly-colored spiral shell with large outer lip

• condensed milk -  sweetened evaporated milk

• condiment -  a preparation (a sauce or relish or spice) to enhance flavor or enjoyment

• confectioner -  someone who makes candies and other sweets

• congee -  a Chinese rice gruel eaten for breakfast;  perform a ceremonious bow; depart after obtaining formal permission

• Connecticut -  a New England state; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the British colonies that formed the United States; a river in the northeastern United States; flows south from northern New Hampshire along the border between New Hampshire and Vermont and through Massachusetts and Connecticut where it empties into Long Island Sound

• consolidation -  the act of combining into an integral whole; combining into a solid mass; something that has consolidated into a compact mass

• consumption -  the act of consuming something; the process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating); (economics) the utilization of economic goods to satisfy needs or in manufacturing; involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body

• continued -  without stop or interruption

• conversion -  a spiritual enlightenment causing a person to lead a new life; a successful free throw or try for point after a touchdown; the act of changing from one use or function or purpose to another; act of exchanging one type of money or security for another; a change in the units or form of an expression: "conversion from Fahrenheit to Centigrade"; interchange of subject and predicate of a proposition; a change of religion; an event that results in a transformation; (psychiatry) a defense mechanism represses emotional conflicts which are then converted into physical symptoms that have no organic basis

• cook -  someone who cooks food; English navigator who claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain and discovered several Pacific islands (1728-1779);  transform and make suitable for consumption by heating; transform by heating; prepare for eating by applying heat; prepare a hot meal; fake or falsify

• cookbook -  a book of recipes and cooking directions

• Cookery -  the act of preparing something (as food) by the application of heat

• cooking -  the act of preparing something (as food) by the application of heat

• Cooper -  a craftsman who makes or repairs wooden barrels or tubs; United States novelist noted for his stories of American Indians and the frontier life (1789-1851); United States film actor noted for his portrayals of strong silent heroes (1901-1961); United States industrialist who built the first American locomotive; founded Cooper Union in New York City to offer free courses in the arts and sciences (1791-1883);  make barrels and casks

• copal -  a brittle aromatic resin used in varnishes

• copper -  any of various small butterflies of the family Lycaenidae having coppery wings; a reddish-brown color resembling the color of polished copper; a copper penny; a ductile malleable reddish-brown corrosion-resistant diamagnetic metallic element; occurs in various minerals but is the only metal that occurs abundantly in large masses; used as an electrical and thermal conductor; uncomplimentary terms for a policeman;  coat with a layer of copper

• coriander -  parsley-like herb used as seasoning or garnish; dried coriander seeds used whole or ground; Old World herb with aromatic leaves and seed resembling parsley

• corn -  something sentimental or trite; ears of corn grown for human food; tall annual cereal grass bearing kernels on large ears: widely cultivated in America in many varieties; the principal cereal in Mexico and Central and South America since pre-Columbian times; (Great Britain) any of various cereal plants (especially the dominant crop of the region--wheat in England or oats in Scotland and Ireland); the dried grains or kernels or corn used as animal feed or ground for meal; a hard thickening of the skin (especially on the top or sides of the toes) caused by the pressure of ill-fitting shoes; whiskey distilled from a mash of not less than 80 percent corn;  preserve with salt; feed (cattle) with corn

• corn smut -  a smut fungus attacking Indian corn

• corn syrup -  syrup prepared from corn

• corned beef -  beef cured or pickled in brine

• Cornell University -  a university in Ithaca, New York

• cornmeal mush -  cornmeal boiled in water

• cornstarch -  starch prepared from the grains of corn; used in cooking as a thickener

• cortex -  the tissue forming the outer layer of an organ or structure in plant or animal; the layer of unmyelinated neurons (the grey matter) forming the cortex of the cerebrum

• Costa Rica -  a republic in Central America; one of the most politically stable countries in Latin America

• cottage cheese -  mild white cheese made from curds of soured skim milk

• cotton -  fabric woven from cotton fibers; thread made of cotton fibers; erect bushy mallow plant or small tree bearing bolls containing seeds with many long hairy fibers; soft silky fibers from cotton plants in their raw state;  take a liking to

• County -  a region created by territorial division for the purpose of local government; the largest administrative district within a state

• couscous -  a pasta made in northern Africa of crushed and steamed semolina; a spicy dish that originated in northern Africa; consists of pasta steamed with a meat and vegetable stew

• cows -  domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age

• crabs -  infestation of the pubic hair by crab lice

• crackers -  informal or slang terms for mentally irregular

• cranberry -  very tart red berry used for sauce or juice; any of numerous shrubs of genus Vaccinium bearing cranberries

• crawfish -  large edible marine crustacean having a spiny carapace but lacking the large pincers of true lobsters; small freshwater decapod crustacean that resembles a lobster; tiny lobster-like crustaceans usually boiled briefly;  make a retreat from an earlier commitment or activity

• crayfish -  small freshwater decapod crustacean that resembles a lobster; tiny lobster-like crustaceans usually boiled briefly; large edible marine crustacean having a spiny carapace but lacking the large pincers of true lobsters; warm-water lobsters without claws; those from Australia and South Africa usually marketed as frozen tails; caught also in Florida and California

• cream -  toiletry consisting of any of various substances in the form of a thick liquid that have a soothing and moisturizing effect when applied to the skin; the part of milk containing the butterfat; the best people or things in a group;  add cream to one's coffee, for example; put on cream, as on one's face or body; beat thoroughly and conclusively in a competition or fight; make creamy by beating; remove from the surface

• cream of tartar -  a salt used especially in baking powder

• cress -  pungent leaves of any of numerous cruciferous herbs; any of various plants of the family Cruciferae with edible leaves that have a pungent taste

• Crete -  the largest Greek island in the Mediterranean; site of the Minoan civilization that reached its peak in 1600 BC

• Croatia -  a republic in the western Balkans in south-central Europe in the eastern Adriatic coastal area; formerly part of the Habsburg monarchy and Yugoslavia; became independent in 1991

• Crohn's disease -  a serious chronic and progressive inflammation of the ileum producing frequent bouts of diarrhea with abdominal pain and nausea and fever and weight loss

• crossbreeding -  reproduction by parents of different races (especially by white and non-white persons); (genetics) the act of mixing different species or varieties of animals or plants and thus to produce hybrids

• crotalaria -  any of various plants of the genus Crotalaria having inflated pods within which the seeds rattle; used for pasture and green-manure crops

• crowberry -  a low evergreen shrub with small purple flowers and black berrylike fruit

• crushing -  physically or spiritually devastating; often used in combination;  forceful prevention; putting down by power or authority

• Cuba -  the largest island in the West Indies; a communist state in the Caribbean on the island of Cuba

• cucumber -  cylindrical green fruit with thin green rind and white flesh eaten as a vegetable; related to melons; a melon vine of the genus Cucumis; cultivated from earliest times for its cylindrical green fruit

• cuisine -  the practice or manner of preparing food or the food so prepared

• culinary -  of or relating to or used in cooking

• culture -  the raising of plants or animals; (biology) the growing of microorganisms in a nutrient medium (such as gelatin or agar); the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group; the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization; a particular society at a particular time and place; all the knowledge and values shared by a society; a highly developed state of perfection; having a flawless or impeccable quality

• cultured -  marked by refinement in taste and manners

• cumin -  aromatic seeds of the cumin herb of the carrot family; dwarf Mediterranean annual long cultivated for its aromatic seeds

• Cunningham -  United States dancer and choreographer (born in 1922)

• curry -  (East Indian cookery) a pungent dish of vegetables or meats flavored with curry powder and usually eaten with rice;  treat by incorporating fat; season with a mixture of spices; typical of Indian cooking; give a neat appearance to

• curry powder -  pungent blend of cumin and ground coriander seed and turmeric and other spices

• cush-cush -  tropical American yam with small yellow edible tubers

• Cushing's disease -  a glandular disorder caused by excessive ACTH resulting in greater than normal functioning of the adrenal gland; characterized by obesity

• custard pie -  a prop consisting of an open pie filled with real or artificial custard; thrown in slapstick comedies

• Customs Service -  the agency of the Treasury Department that enforces import tariffs

• cutlery -  tableware implements for cutting and eating food; a cutting implement; a tool for cutting

• cutting -  suitable for cutting or severing; as physically painful as if caused by a sharp instrument; (of speech) harsh or hurtful in tone or character; unpleasantly cold and damp;  the act of diluting something; a piece cut off from the main part of something; a part (sometimes a root or leaf or bud) removed from a plant to propagate a new plant through rooting or grafting; the act of shortening something by choping off the ends; the act of cutting something into parts; the act of penetrating or opening open with a sharp edge; the division of a deck of cards before dealing; removing parts to create a desired shape; the activity of selecting the scenes to be shown and putting them together to create a film; an excerpt cut from a newspaper or magazine

• cuttlefish -  ten-armed oval-bodied cephalopod with narrow fins as long as the body and a large calcareous internal shell

• cyanocobalamin -  a B vitamin that is used to treat pernicious anemia

• cysteine -  an amino acid containing sulfur that is found in most proteins; oxidizes on exposure to air to form cystine

• cystic fibrosis -  the most common congenital disease; the child's lungs and intestines and pancreas become clogged with thick mucus; caused by defect in a single gene; there is no cure

• cytogenetics -  the branch of biology that studies the cellular aspects of heredity (especially the chromosomes)

• Czech Republic -  a landlocked republic in central Europe; separated from Slovakia in 1993

• dahlia -  any of several plants of or developed from the species Dahlia pinnata having tuberous roots and showy rayed variously colored flower heads; native to the mountains of Mexico and Central America and Colombia

• dairy -  a farm where dairy products are produced

• dairy farming -  the business of a dairy

• dairy product -  milk and butter and cheese

• dandelion -  any of several herbs of the genus Taraxacum having long tap roots and deeply notched leaves and bright yellow flowers followed by fluffy seed balls

• Dante Alighieri -  an Italian poet famous for writing the Divine Comedy that describes a journey through hell and purgatory and paradise guided by Virgil and his idealized Beatrice (1265-1321)

• Darwin -  provincial capital of the Northern Territory of Australia; English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882)

• David -  (Old Testament) the 2nd king of the Israelites; as a young shepherd he fought Goliath (a giant Philistine warrior) and killed him by hitting him in the head with a stone flung from a sling; he united Israel with Jerusalem as its capital; many of the Psalms are attributed to David (circa 1000-962 BC); French neoclassical painter who actively supported the French Revolution (1748-1825); patron saint of Wales (circa 520-600)

• DDT -  an insecticide that is also toxic to animals and humans; banned in the United States since 1972

• decrease -  the act of decreasing or reducing something; the amount by which something decreases; a change downward; a process of becoming smaller or shorter;  decrease in size, extent, or range; make smaller

• deer -  distinguished from Bovidae by the male's having solid deciduous antlers

• defecation reflex -  normal response to the presence of feces in the rectum

• deficiency -  lack of an adequate quantity or number; the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable

• defined -  clearly characterized or delimited; clearly defined; showing clearly the outline or profile or boundary

• definition -  clarity of outline; a concise explanation of the meaning of a word or phrase or symbol

• Defoe -  English writer remembered particularly for his novel about Robinson Crusoe (1660-1731)

• deforestation -  the removal of trees; the state of being clear of trees

• deglutition -  the act of swallowing

• dehydration -  the process of extracting moisture; depletion of bodily fluids; dryness resulting from the removal of water

• delicatessen -  a shop selling ready-to-eat food products; ready-to-eat food products

• Demeter -  (Greek mythology) goddess of fertility and protector of marriage in ancient mythology; counterpart of Roman Ceres

• Denmark -  a constitutional monarchy in northern Europe; consists of the mainland of Jutland and many islands between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea

• density -  the amount per unit size; the spatial property of being crowded together

• dental caries -  soft decayed area in a tooth; progressive decay can lead to the death of a tooth

• dentistry -  the branch of medicine dealing with the anatomy and development and diseases of the teeth

• Denver -  the state capital and largest city of Colorado; located in central Colorado on the South Platte river

• Department -  a specialized sphere of knowledge; a specialized division of a large organization; the territorial and administrative division of some countries (such as France)

• depletion -  the act of decreasing something markedly; the state of being depleted

• desertification -  the gradual transformation of habitable land into desert; is usually caused by climate change or by destructive use of the land

• detoxification -  treatment for poisoning by neutralizing the toxic properties (normally a function of the liver); a treatment for addiction to drugs or alcohol intended to remove the physiological effects of the addictive substances

• development -  act of improving by expanding or enlarging or refining; (music) the section of a composition or movement (especially in sonata form) where the major musical themes are developed and elaborated; a recent event that has some relevance for the present situation; a district that has been developed to serve some purpose; processing a photosensitive material in order to make an image visible; a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage); a state in which things are improving; the result of developing (as in the early part of a game of chess); the act of making some area of land or water more profitable or productive or useful; (biology) the process of an individual organism growing organically; a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level

• Devi -  mother goddess; supreme power in the universe; wife or embodiment of the female energy of Siva having both beneficent and malevolent forms or aspects

• dharma -  basic principles of the cosmos; also: an ancient sage in Hindu mythology worshipped as a god by some lower castes

• diabetes -  any of several metabolic disorders marked by excessive urination and persistent thirst

• diabetes mellitus -  diabetes caused by a relative or absolute deficiency of insulin and characterized by polyuria

• Diamond -  a playing card in the minor suit that has one or more red rhombuses on it; a transparent piece of diamond that has been cut and polished and is valued as a precious gem; very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem; the baseball playing field; the area of a baseball field that is enclosed by 3 bases and home plate

• diarrhea -  frequent and watery bowel movements; can be a symptom of infection or food poisoning or colitis or a gastrointestinal tumor

• diaspora -  the dispersion or spreading of something that was originally localized (as a people or language or culture); the dispersion of the Jews outside Israel; from the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 587-86 BC when they were exiled to Babylonia up to the present time; the body of Jews (or Jewish communities) outside Palestine or modern Israel

• Dickens -  English writer whose novels depicted and criticized social injustice (1812-1870); a word used in exclamations of confusion

• Dickinson -  United States poet noted for her mystical and unrhymed poems (1830-1886)

• Diderot -  French philosopher who was a leading figure of the Enlightenment in France; principal editor of an encyclopedia that disseminated the scientific and philosophical knowledge of the time (1713-1784)

• die -  a device used for shaping metal; a cutting tool that is fitted into a diestock and used for cutting male (external) screw threads on screws or bolts or pipes or rods; small cubes with 1 to 6 spots on the faces; used to generate random numbers;  suffer spiritual death; be damned (in the religious sense); disappear or come to an end; pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life; lose sparkle or bouquet; to be on base at the end of an inning, of a player; cut or shape with a die; be brought to or as if to the point of death by an intense emotion such as embarrassment, amusement, or shame; languish as with love or desire; feel indifferent towards; suffer or face the pain of death; stop operating or functioning

• diet -  the act of restricting your food intake (or your intake of particular foods); the usual food and drink consumed by an organism (person or animal); a prescribed selection of foods; a legislative assembly in certain countries (e.g., Japan);  eat sparingly, for health reasons or to lose weight; follow a regimen or a diet, as for health reasons

• dietetics -  the scientific study of food preparation and intake

• differentiation -  the mathematical process of obtaining the derivative of a function; a discrimination between things as different and distinct; (biology) the structural adaptation of some body part for a particular function

• digestibility -  the property of being easy to digest

• digestion -  learning and coming to understand ideas and information; the organic process by which food is converted into substances that can be absorbed into the body; the process of decomposing organic matter (as in sewage) by bacteria or by chemical action or heat

• Dijon -  an industrial city in eastern France north of Lyons

• dill -  aromatic threadlike foliage of the dill plant used as seasoning; aromatic Old World herb having aromatic threadlike foliage and seeds used as seasoning

• dim sum -  traditional Chinese cuisine; a variety of foods (including several kinds of steamed or fried dumplings) are served successively in small portions

• Dinesen -  Danish writer who lived in Kenya for 19 years and is remembered for her writings about Africa (1885-1962)

• dining-room -  a room used for dining

• dinner -  the main meal of the day served in the evening or at midday; a party of people assembled to have dinner together

• Dinner Party -  a party of people assembled to have dinner together

• Diogenes -  an ancient Greek philosopher and Cynic who rejected social conventions (circa 400-325 BC)

• Dionysus -  (Greek mythology) god of wine and fertility and drama; the Greek name of Bacchus

• dioxin -  any of several toxic or carcinogenic hydrocarbons that occur as impurities in herbicides

• direct -  lacking compromising or mitigating elements; exact; direct in spatial dimensions; proceeding without deviation or interruption; straight and short; (of a current) flowing in one direction only; extended senses; direct in means or manner or behavior or language or action; similar in nature or effect or relation to another quantity; moving from west to east on the celestial sphere; or--for planets--around the sun in the same direction as the Earth; having no intervening persons, agents, conditions; in precisely the same words used by a writer or speaker; being an immediate result or consequence; in a straight unbroken line of descent from parent to child; adv. without deviation;  command with authority; give directions to; point somebody into a certain direction; guide the actors in (plays and films); be in charge of; plan and direct (a complex undertaking); specifically design a product, event, or activity for a certain public; put an address on (an envelope); intend (something) to move towards a certain goal; aim or direct at; as of blows, weapons, or objects such as photographic equipment; lead, as in the performance of a composition; direct the course; determine the direction of travelling; cause to go somewhere; take somebody somewhere

• direct marketing -  marketing via a promotion delivered directly to the individual prospective customer

• disaccharide -  any of a variety of carbohydrates that yield two monosaccharide molecules on complete hydrolysis

• disease -  an impairment of health or a condition of abnormal functioning

• disgust -  strong feelings of dislike;  cause aversion in; offend the moral sense of; fill with distaste

• dispersal -  the act of dispersing or diffusing something

• distillation -  the process of purifying a liquid by boiling it and condensing its vapors; a purified liquid produced by condensation from a vapor during distilling; the product of distilling

• distribution -  the act of distributing or spreading or apportioning; the commercial activity of transporting and selling goods from a producer to a consumer; the spatial property of being scattered about over an area or volume; (statistics) an arrangement of values of a variable showing their observed or theoretical frequency of occurrence

• diversity -  the condition or result of being changed; noticeable heterogeneity

• divinity -  the quality of being divine; white creamy fudge made with egg whites; the rational and systematic study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truth; any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force

• Djibouti -  a country in northeastern Africa on the Somali peninsula; formerly under French control but became independent in 1997; port city on the Gulf of Aden; the capital and largest city of Djibouti

• dolmas -  well-seasoned rice (with nuts or currants of minced lamb) simmered or braised in stock

• domestic science -  theory and practice of homemaking

• domestication -  accommodation to domestic life; adaptation to intimate association with human beings; the attribute of having been domesticated

• Dominica -  a volcanic island in the Windward Islands that was once a stronghold of the Carib Indians; a country on the island of Dominica

• Don Juan -  any successful womanizer (after the legendary profligate Spanish nobleman); a legendary Spanish nobleman and philanderer who became the hero of many poems and plays and operas

• Douglas -  United States politician who proposed that individual territories be allowed to decide whether they would have slavery; he engaged in a famous series of debates with Abraham Lincoln (1813-1861)

• Dove -  any of numerous small pigeons; an emblem of peace; someone who prefers negotiations to armed conflict in the conduct of foreign relations; flesh of a pigeon suitable for roasting or braising; flesh of a dove (young squab) may be broiled; a constellation in the southern hemisphere near Puppis and Caelum

• dried -  preserved by removing natural moisture; not still wet

• drier -  an appliance that removes moisture; a substance that promotes drying (e.g., calcium oxide absorbs water and is used to remove moisture)

• drinking water -  water suitable for drinking

• drug -  a substance that is used as a medicine or narcotic;  administer a drug to; use recreational drugs

• duck -  small wild or domesticated web-footed broad-billed swimming bird usually having a depressed body and short legs; a heavy cotton fabric of plain weave; used for clothing and tents; flesh of a duck (domestic or wild); (cricket) a score of nothing by a batsman;  to move (the head or body) quickly downwards or away; submerge or plunge suddenly; avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues); dip into a liquid

• dulse -  coarse edible red seaweed

• dumping -  selling goods abroad at a price below that charged in the domestic market

• dumplings -  small balls or strips of boiled or steamed dough

• duodenum -  the part of the small intestine between the stomach and the jejunum

• durian -  huge fruit native to southeastern Asia `smelling like Hell and tasting like Heaven'; seeds are roasted and eaten like nuts; tree of southeastern Asia having edible oval fruit with a hard spiny rind

• Durkheim -  French sociologist and first professor of sociology at the Sorbonne (1858-1917)

• durum wheat -  wheat with hard dark-colored kernels high in gluten and used for bread and pasta; grown especially in southern Russia, North Africa, and northern central North America

• Dust Bowl -  a region subject to dust storms; especially the central region of United States subject to dust storms in the 1930s

• Dutch -  of or relating to the Netherlands or its people or culture;  the West Germanic language of the Netherlands; the people of the Netherlands

• Dutch treat -  a dinner where each person pays for his own

• dwarf -  a person who is markedly small; a legendary creature resembling a tiny old man; lives in the depths of the earth and guards buried treasure;  check the growth of; make appear small by comparison

• Dynasty -  a sequence of powerful leaders in the same family

• dysentery -  an infection of the intestines marked by severe diarrhea

• East Africa -  a geographical area in eastern Africa

• East African -  of or relating to or located in East Africa

• East India Company -  an English company formed in 1600 to develop trade with the new British colonies in India and southeastern Asia; in the 18th century it assumed administrative control of Bengal and held it until the British army took over in 1858 after the Indian Mutiny

• Easter -  a Christian celebration of the Resurrection of Christ; celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox; a wind from the east

• eating -  the act of consuming food

• echinacea -  small genus of North American coarse perennial herbs

• ecology -  the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms and their environment; the environment as it relates to living organisms

• economic -  using the minimum of time or resources necessary for effectiveness; financially rewarding; concerned with worldly necessities of life (especially money); of or relating to the science of economics; of or relating to an economy, the system of production and management of material wealth

• economics -  the branch of social science that deals with the production and distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management

• Ecuador -  a republic in northwestern South America; became independent from Spain in 1822; the landscape is dominated by the Andes

• education -  the profession of teaching (especially at a school or college or university); the activities of educating or instructing; activities that impart knowledge or skill; the result of good upbringing (especially knowledge of correct social behavior); the gradual process of acquiring knowledge; knowledge acquired by learning and instruction; the United States federal department that administers all federal programs dealing with education (including federal aid to educational institutions and students); created 1979

• efficiency -  skillfulness in avoiding wasted time and effort; the ratio of the output to the input of any system

• egg -  animal reproductive body consisting of an ovum or embryo together with nutritive and protective envelopes; especially the thin-shelled reproductive body laid by e.g. female birds; oval reproductive body of a fowl (especially a hen) used as food; one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens;  coat with beaten egg; throw eggs at

• eggbeater -  a mixer for beating eggs or whipping cream; an aircraft without wings that obtains its lift from the rotation of overhead blades

• eggnog -  a punch made of sweetened milk or cream mixed with eggs and usually alcoholic liquor

• eggs -  oval reproductive body of a fowl (especially a hen) used as food

• Eggs Benedict -  toasted English muffin topped with ham and a poached egg (or an oyster) and hollandaise sauce

• Egypt -  a republic in northeastern Africa known as the United Arab Republic until 1971; site of an ancient civilization that flourished from 2600 to 30 BC; an ancient empire west of Israel; centered on the Nile River and ruled by a Pharaoh; figured in many events described in the Old Testament

• Ehrlich -  German bacteriologist who found a `magic bullet' to cure syphilis and was a pioneer in the study of immunology (1854-1915)

• El Salvador -  a republic on the Pacific coast of Central America

• elderberry -  berrylike fruit of an elder used for e.g. wines and jellies; a common shrub with black fruit or a small tree of Europe and Asia; fruit used for wines and jellies

• electric -  affected by emotion as if by electricity; thrilling; (of a situation) exceptionally tense; using or providing or producing or transmitting or operated by electricity;  a car that is powered by electricity

• electric mixer -  a food mixer powered by an electric motor

• Eliot -  British writer of novels characterized by realistic analysis of provincial Victorian society (1819-1880); British poet (born in the United States) who won the Nobel prize for literature; his plays are outstanding examples of modern verse drama (1888-1965)

• elk -  large northern deer with enormous flattened antlers in the male; called `elk' in Europe and `moose' in North America

• Ellison -  United States novelist who wrote about a young Black man and his struggles in American society (1914-1994)

• Emilia-Romagna -  a region of north central Italy on the Adriatic

• Emmental -  Swiss cheese with large holes

• emmer -  hard red wheat grown especially in Russia and Germany; in United States as stock feed

• Empire -  an eating apple that somewhat resembles a McIntosh; used as both an eating and a cooking apple; a group of countries under a single authority; a monarchy with an emperor as head of state; the domain ruled by an emperor or empress; the region over which imperial dominion is exercised; a group of diverse companies under common ownership and run as a single organization

• emu -  large Australian flightless bird similar to the ostrich but smaller; any of various systems of units for measuring electricity and magnetism

• emulsion -  a light-sensitive coating on paper or film; consists of fine grains of silver bromide suspended in a gelatin; (chemistry) a colloid in which both phases are liquids

• enclosed -  closed in or surrounded or included within

• energy -  an imaginative lively style (especially style of writing); enterprising or ambitious drive; forceful exertion; (physics) the capacity of a physical system to do work; the units of energy are joules or ergs; a healthy capacity for vigorous activity; the federal department responsible for maintaining a national energy policy of the United States; created in 1977

• Engels -  socialist who wrote the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx in 1848 (1820-1895)

• England -  a division of the United Kingdom

• ensete -  Old World tropical herbs: Abyssinian bananas

• enteral -  of or relating to or inside the intestines; of or relating to the enteron

• entertaining -  agreeably diverting or amusing

• entertainment -  an activity that is diverting and that holds the attention

• environment -  the area in which something exists or lives; the totality of surrounding conditions

• Environmental -  concerned with the ecological effects of altering the environment; of or relating to the external conditions or surroundings

• enzyme -  any of several complex proteins that are produced by cells and act as catalysts in specific biochemical reactions

• Epicurus -  Greek philosopher who believed that the world is a random combination of atoms and that pleasure is the highest good (341-270 BC)

• epidemiology -  the branch of medical science dealing with the transmission and control of disease

• Epiphany -  a divine manifestation; twelve days after Christmas; celebrates the visit of the three wise men to the infant Jesus

• equipment -  an instrumentality needed for an undertaking or to perform a service

• Erasmus -  Dutch humanist and theologian who was the leading Renaissance scholar of northern Europe; although his criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church led to the Reformation, he opposed violence and condemned Martin Luther (1466-1536)

• ergot -  a fungus that infects various cereal plants forming compact black masses of branching filaments that replace many grains of the plant; source of medicinally important alkaloids and of lysergic acid; a plant disease caused by the ergot fungus

• Eritrea -  an African country north of Ethiopia on the Red Sea; achieved independence from Ethiopia in 1993

• erosion -  (geology) the mechanical process of wearing or grinding something down (as by particles washing over it); a gradual decline of something; condition in which the earth's surface is worn away by the action of water and wind; erosion by chemical action

• esophagus -  the passage between the pharynx and the stomach

• essential -  basic and fundamental; absolutely required and not to be used up or sacrificed; absolutely necessary; vitally necessary; being or relating to or containing the essence of a plant etc; defining rights and duties as opposed to giving the rules by which rights and duties are established; of the greatest importance;  anything indispensable

• et al - adv. and elsewhere (used when referring to other occurrences in a text); and others (used as an abbreviation of `et alii' (masculine plural) or `et aliae' (feminine plural) or `et alia' (neutral plural) when referring to a number of people)

• Ethiopia -  Ethiopia is a republic in northeastern Africa on the Red Sea; formerly called Abyssinia

• ethnic -  not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam; denoting or deriving from or distinctive of the ways of living built up by a group of people;  a person who is a member of an ethnic group

• ethnicity -  an ethnic quality or affiliation resulting from racial or cultural ties

• ethnography -  the branch of anthropology that provides scientific description of individual human societies

• etiquette -  rules governing socially acceptable behavior

• etymology -  the study of the sources and development of words; a history of a word

• Eucharist -  a Christian sacrament commemorating the Last Supper by consecrating bread and wine

• Eugene -  a city in eastern Oregon on the Willamette River; site of a university; Austrian general in the service of the Holy Roman Empire during the War of the Spanish Succession (1663-1736)

• Europe -  the nations of the European continent collectively; the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use `Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles; an international organization of European countries formed after World War II to reduce trade barriers and increase cooperation among its members

• European Union -  an international organization of European countries formed after World War II to reduce trade barriers and increase cooperation among its members

• eutrophication -  excessive nutrients in a lake or other body of water, usually caused by runoff of nutrients (animal waste, fertilizers, sewage) from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life; the decomposition of the plants depletes the supply of oxygen, leading to the death of animal life

• evaporated milk -  milk concentrated by evaporation

• evolution -  (biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms; a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage)

• exercise -  the activity of exerting your muscles in various ways to keep fit; a task performed or problem solved in order to develop skill or understanding; systematic training by multiple repetitions; (usually plural) a ceremony that involves processions and speeches; the act of using;  do physical exercise; give a workout to; learn by repetition; put to use; carry out or practice; as of jobs and professions

• exhumation -  the act of digging something out of the ground (especially a corpse) where it has been buried

• expressive -  characterized by expression

• falafel -  small croquette of mashed chick peas or fava beans seasoned with sesame seeds

• fallow deer -  small Eurasian deer

• family -  primary social group; parents and children; people descended from a common ancestor; a social unit living together; (biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more genera; an association of people who share common beliefs or activities; a collection of things sharing a common attribute; a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized criminal activities; a person having kinship with another or others

• famine -  a severe shortage of food (as through crop failure) resulting in violent hunger and starvation and death; an acute insufficiency

• FAO -  the United Nations agency concerned with the international organization of food and agriculture

• FARM -  workplace consisting of farm buildings and cultivated land as a unit;  collect fees or profits; be a farmer; work as a farmer; cultivate by growing, often involving improvements by means of agricultural techniques

• Farmer -  a person who operates a farm; an expert on cooking whose cookbook has undergone many editions (1857-1915); United States civil rights leader who in 1942 founded the Congress of Racial Equality (born in 1920)

• farming -  relating to rural matters;  agriculture considered as an occupation or way of life; the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock

• fast food -  inexpensive food (hamburgers or chicken or milkshakes) prepared and served quickly

• fasting -  abstaining from food

• fat -  a chubby body; having much flesh (especially fat); marked by great fruitfulness; lucrative; having a relatively large diameter; containing or composed of fat;  a soft greasy substance occurring in organic tissue and consisting of a mixture of lipids (mostly triglycerides); excess bodily weight; a kind of body tissue containing stored fat that serves as a source of energy; it also cushions and insulates vital organs;  make fat or plump

• fat-soluble -  soluble in fats

• fatness -  excess bodily weight

• fatty acid -  any of a class of aliphatic monocarboxylic acids that form part of a lipid molecule and can be derived from fat by hydrolysis; fatty acids are simple molecules built around a series of carbon atoms linked together in a chain of 12 to 22 carbon atoms

• favism -  anemia resulting from eating fava beans; victims have an inherited blood abnormality and enzyme deficiency

• feasting -  eating an elaborate meal (often accompanied by entertainment)

• feed -  food for domestic livestock;  introduce continuously; give food to; take in food; used of animals only; serve as food for; be the food for; feed into; supply; provide as food; gratify; support or promote; provide with fertilizers or add nutrients to; profit from in an exploitatory manner; move along, of liquids

• felt -  a fabric made of compressed matted animal fibers;  change texture so as to become matted and felt-like; cover with felt; mat together and make felt-like

• feminism -  a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women; the movement aimed at equal rights for women

• fennel -  fennel seeds are ground and used as a spice or as an ingredient of a spice mixture; leaves used for seasoning; aromatic bulbous stem base eaten cooked or raw in salads; any of several aromatic herbs having edible seeds and leaves and stems

• fenugreek -  aromatic seeds used as seasoning especially in curry; annual herb or southern Europe and eastern Asia having off-white flowers and aromatic seeds used medicinally and in curry

• fermentation -  a process in which an agent causes an organic substance to break down into simpler substances; especially, the anaerobic breakdown of sugar into alcohol; a state of agitation or turbulent change or development

• Fern -  any of numerous flowerless and seedless vascular plants having true roots from a rhizome and fronds that uncurl upward; reproduce by spores

• ferritin -  a protein containing 20% iron that is found in the intestines and liver and spleen; it is one of the chief forms in which iron is stored in the body

• fertility -  the state of being fertile; capable of producing offspring; the property of producing abundantly and sustaining vigorous and luxuriant growth; the ratio of live births in an area to the population of that area; expressed per 1000 population per year

• festival of lights -  (Judaism) an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem in 165 BC

• fiber -  a leatherlike material made by compressing layers of paper or cloth; a slender and greatly elongated solid substance; the inherent complex of attributes that determine a persons moral and ethical actions and reactions

• field -  a particular kind of commercial enterprise; the area that is visible (as through an optical instrument); all the competitors in a particular contest or sporting event; all of the horses in a particular horse race; (mathematics) a set of elements such that addition and multiplication are commutative and associative and multiplication is distributive over addition and there are two elements 0 and 1; (computer science) a set of one or more adjacent characters comprising a unit of information; a region in which active military operations are in progress; somewhere (away from a studio or office or library or laboratory) where practical work is done or data is collected; a piece of land cleared of trees and usually enclosed; a geographic region (land or sea) under which something valuable is found; the space around a radiating body within which its electromagnetic oscillations can exert force on another similar body not in contact with it; a place where planes take off and land; a branch of knowledge; a region where a battle is being (or has been) fought; a piece of land prepared for playing a game; extensive tract of level open land; a particular environment or walk of life;  select (a team or individual player) for a game; answer adequately or successfully; play as a fielder; catch or pick up (balls) in baseball or cricket

• Fielding -  (baseball) handling the ball while playing in the field; English novelist and dramatist (1707-1754)

• Fiji -  an independent state within the British Commonwealth located on the Fiji Islands

• film -  a thin coating or layer; photographic material consisting of a base of celluloid covered with a photographic emulsion; used to make negatives or transparencies; a thin sheet of (usually plastic and usually transparent) material used to wrap or cover things; a medium that disseminates moving pictures; a form of entertainment that enacts a story by a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement;  make a film or photograph of something; record in film

• Fine -  characterized by elegance or refinement or accomplishment; minutely precise especially in differences in meaning; free from impurities; having a high or specified degree of purity; of textures that are smooth to the touch or substances consisting of relatively small particles; thin in thickness or diameter; being satisfactory or in satisfactory condition; adv. an expression of agreement normally occurring at the beginning of a sentence; in a delicate manner;  money extracted as a penalty;  issue a ticket or a fine to as a penalty

• fines herbes -  a mixture of finely chopped fresh herbs

• finger millet -  East Indian cereal grass whose seed yield a somewhat bitter flour, a staple in the Orient

• Finland -  republic in northern Europe; achieved independence from Russia in 1917

• fire -  the act of firing weapons or artillery at an enemy; a fireplace in which a relatively small fire is burning; intense adverse criticism; the event of something burning (often destructive); a severe trial; the process of combustion of inflammable materials producing heat and light and (often) smoke; once thought to be one of four elements composing the universe (Empedocles); feelings of great warmth and intensity;  bake in a kiln so as to harden; cause to go off; go off or discharge; drive out or away by or as if by fire; terminate the employment of; destroy by fire; start firing a weapon; call forth (emotions, feelings, and responses); provide with fuel

• fish -  any of various mostly cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates usually having scales and breathing through gills; the flesh of fish used as food; the twelfth sign of the zodiac; the sun is in this sign from about February 19 to March 20; (astrology) a person who is born while the sun is in Pisces;  catch or try to catch fish or shellfish; seek indirectly

• Fisher -  large dark brown North American arboreal carnivorous mammal; someone whose occupation is catching fish

• fisherman -  someone whose occupation is catching fish

• fishery -  a workplace where fish are caught and processed and sold

• fishing -  the act of someone who fishes as a diversion; the occupation of catching fish for a living

• flatbread -  any of various breads made from usually unleavened dough

• flavor -  (physics) the six kinds of quarks; the taste experience when a savoury condiment is taken into the mouth; the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people;  lend flavor to

• flour -  fine powdery foodstuff obtained by grinding and sifting the meal of a cereal grain;  convert grain into flour; cover with flour

• fluoride -  a salt of hydrofluoric acid

• fluorine -  a nonmetallic univalent element belonging to the halogens; usually a yellow irritating toxic flammable gas; a powerful oxidizing agent; recovered from fluorite or cryolite or fluorapatite

• fluorosis -  a pathological condition resulting for an excessive intake of fluorine (usually from drinking water)

• fodder -  coarse food (especially for cattle and horses) composed of entire plants or the leaves and stalks of a cereal crop;  give fodder (to domesticated animals)

• foie gras -  a pate made from goose liver (marinated in Cognac) and truffles

• folate -  a B vitamin that is essential for cell growth and reproduction

• folic acid -  a B vitamin that is essential for cell growth and reproduction

• folklore -  the unwritten literature (stories and pros and riddles and songs) of a culture

• food -  any substance that can be metabolized by an organism to give energy and build tissue; anything that provides mental stimulus for thinking; any solid substance (as opposed to liquid) that is used as a source of nourishment

• food additive -  an additive to food intended to improve its flavor or appearance or shelf-life

• food coloring -  a digestible substance used to give color to food

• food waste -  food that is discarded (as from a kitchen)

• forage -  the act of searching for food and provisions; animal food for browsing or grazing;  wander and feed; collect or look around for (food)

• foraging -  the act of searching for food and provisions

• Forbidden Fruit -  originally an apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden; it is now used to refer to anything that is tempting but dangerous (as sexuality)

• forestry -  the science of planting and caring for forests and the management of growing timber

• fork -  cutlery used for serving and eating food; an agricultural tool used for lifting or digging; has a handle and metal prongs; the region of the angle formed by the junction of two branches; the act of branching out or dividing into branches; the angle formed by the inner sides of the legs where they join the human trunk;  shape like a fork; place under attack with one's own pieces, of two enemy pieces; divide into two or more branches so as to form a fork; lift with a pitchfork

• Foundation -  lowest support of a structure; education or instruction in the fundamentals of a field of knowledge; an institution supported by an endowment; the basis on which something is grounded; the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new; a woman's undergarment worn to give shape to the contours of the body; the fundamental assumptions from which something is begun or developed or calculated or explained

• four -  being one more than three;  the cardinal number that is the sum of three and one

• fowl -  a domesticated gallinaceous bird thought to be descended from the red jungle fowl; the flesh of a bird or fowl (wild or domestic) used as food;  hunt fowl in the forest; hunt fowl

• foxglove -  any of several plants of the genus Digitalis

• foxtail millet -  coarse drought-resistant annual grass grown for grain, hay and forage in Europe and Asia and chiefly for forage and hay in United States

• France -  a republic in western Europe; the largest country wholly in Europe; French writer of sophisticated novels and short stories (1844-1924)

• Frederick -  a town in northern Maryland west of Baltimore

• free-range -  of livestock and domestic poultry; permitted to graze or forage rather than being confined to a feedlot

• Freeman -  a person who is not a serf or a slave

• freezing -  the withdrawal of heat to change something from a liquid to a solid

• French -  of or pertaining to France or the people of France;  the Romance language spoken in France and in countries colonized by France; the people of France; United States sculptor who created the seated marble figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. (1850-1931);  snap (bean) lengthwise in preparation for cooking

• french fries -  strips of potato fried in deep fat

• freshwater fish -  flesh of fish from fresh water used as food

• frozen -  not convertible to cash; turned into ice; affected by freezing or by long and severe cold; not thawed; absolutely still; incapable of being changed or moved or undone; e.g. "frozen prices"; (used of foods) preserved by freezing sufficiently rapidly to retain flavor and nutritional value; devoid of warmth and cordiality; expressive of unfriendliness or disdain

• frozen foods -  food preserved by freezing

• fructose -  a simple sugar found in honey and in many ripe fruits

• fruit -  the consequence of some effort or action; the ripened reproductive body of a seed plant; an amount of a product;  bear fruit; cause to bear fruit

• frumenty -  sweet spiced porridge made from hulled wheat

• fry bread -  usually cooked in a skillet over an open fire: especially cornbread with ham bits and sometimes Irish soda bread

• frying -  cooking in fat or oil in a pan or griddle

• frying pan -  a pan used for frying foods

• Fuchs -  British physicist who was born in Germany and fled Nazi persecution; in the 1940s he passed secret information to the USSR about the development of the atom bomb in the United States (1911-1988)

• fudge -  soft creamy candy;  fake or falsify; avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues)

• fuel -  a substance that can be consumed to produce energy;  stimulate; take in fuel, as of a ship; provide with a combustible substance that provides energy; provide with fuel

• fugu -  a blowfish highly prized as a delicacy in Japan but highly dangerous because the skin and organs are poisonous

• Fukien -  any of the forms of Chinese spoken in Fukien province

• Full House -  a poker hand with 3 of a kind and a pair

• Fuller -  a workman who fulls (cleans and thickens) freshly woven cloth for a living; United States architect who invented the geodesic dome (1895-1983); United States jurist and chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1833-1910)

• function -  the actions and activities assigned to or required or expected of a person or group; what something is used for; a formal or official social gathering or ceremony; a relation such that one thing is dependent on another; a mathematical relation such that each element of one set is associated with at least one element of another set; a set sequence of steps, part of larger computer program; a vaguely specified social event;  perform as expected when applied; perform duties attached to a particular office or place or function; serve a purpose, role, or function

• fundus -  (anatomy) the base of a hollow organ or that part of the organ farthest from its opening

• funeral -  a ceremony at which a dead person is buried or cremated

• fungal -  of or relating to fungi

• fungi -  (pun) the one who buys the drinks; the taxonomic kingdom of lower plants

• galactose -  a simple sugar found in lactose

• galactosemia -  a genetic disease (autosomal recessive) in which an enzyme needed to metabolize galactose is deficient or absent; typically develops shortly after birth

• Galen -  Greek anatomist whose theories formed the basis of European medicine until the Renaissance (circa 130-200)

• galingale -  European sedge having rough-edged leaves and spikelets of reddish flowers and aromatic roots

• Gall -  abnormal swelling of plant tissue caused by insects or microorganisms or injury; a skin sore caused by chafing; the trait of being rude and impertinent; inclined to take liberties; a digestive juice secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder; aids in the digestion of fats; a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will; an open sore on the back of a horse caused by ill-fitting or badly adjusted saddle;  irritate or vex; become or make sore by or as if by rubbing

• Gall Wasp -  small solitary wasp that produces galls on oaks and other plants

• gallbladder -  a muscular sac attached to the liver that secretes bile and stores it until needed for digestion

• Gamble -  a risky act or venture; money that is risked for possible monetary gain;  play games for money; take a risk in the hope of a favorable outcome

• game -  willing to face danger; disabled in the feet or legs;  an amusement or pastime; a contest with rules to determine a winner; a single play of a sport or other contest; frivolous or trifling behavior; your occupation or line of work; animal hunted for food or sport; the game equipment needed in order to play a particular game; the flesh of wild animals that is used for food; (games) the score at a particular point or the score needed to win; a secret scheme to do something (especially something underhand or illegal);  place a bet on

• Ganesh -  Hindu god of wisdom or prophecy; the god who removes obstacles

• garbanzo -  large white roundish Asiatic legume; usually dried; the seed of the chickpea plant

• garbology -  the study of a society by analyzing its garbage

• Garden -  a plot of ground where plants are cultivated; a yard or lawn adjoining a house; the flowers or vegetables or fruits or herbs that are cultivated in a garden;  work in the garden

• garlic -  aromatic bulb used as seasoning; bulbous herb of southern Europe widely naturalized; bulb breaks up into separate strong-flavored cloves

• gastrin -  polypeptide hormone secreted by the mucous lining of the stomach; induces the secretion of gastric juice

• gastronomy -  the art and practice of choosing and preparing and eating good food; a particular style of cookery (as of a region)

• gathering -  a group of persons together in one place; the act of gathering something; the social act of assembling; sewing consisting of small folds or puckers made by pulling tight a thread in a line of stitching

• GATT -  a United Nations agency created by a multinational treaty to promote trade by the reduction of tariffs and import quotas

• Gautama Siddhartha -  founder of Buddhism; worshipped as a god (c 563-483 BC)

• gefilte fish -  well-seasoned balls of ground fish and eggs and crushed crumbs simmered in fish stock

• gelatin -  a thin translucent membrane used over stage lights for color effects; an edible jelly (sweet or pungent) made with gelatin and used as a dessert or salad base or a coating for foods; a colorless water-soluble glutinous protein obtained from animal tissues such as bone and skin

• gender -  a grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between s and pros and adjectives; in some languages it is quite arbitrary but in Indo-European languages it is usually based on sex or animateness; the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles

• gene expression -  conversion of the information encoded in a gene first into messenger RNA and then to a protein

• genetic -  of or relating to the science of genetics; pertaining to or referring to origin; tending to occur among members of a family usually by heredity; of or relating to or produced by or being a gene

• genetic engineering -  the technology of preparing recombinant DNA in vitro by cutting up DNA molecules and splicing together fragments from more than one organism

• genetics -  the branch of biology that studies heredity and variation in organisms

• Genghis Khan -  Mongolian emperor whose empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean (1162-1227)

• genomics -  the branch of genetics that studies organisms in terms of their genomes (their full DNA sequences)

• genotype -  the particular alleles at specified loci present in an organism; a group of organisms sharing a specific genetic constitution

• Genovese -  of or relating to or characteristic of Genoa or its inhabitants

• geography -  study of the earth's surface; includes people's responses to topography and climate and soil and vegetation

• geophagy -  eating earth or clay or chalk; occurs in some primitive tribes or sometimes in cases of nutritional deficiency

• George -  Elector of Hanover and the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 to 1727 (1660-1727); King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover from 1727 to 1760 (1683-1760); King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760 to 1820; the American colonies were lost during his reign; he became insane in 1811 and his son (later George IV) acted as regent until 1820 (1738-1820); King of Great Britain and Ireland and Hanover from 1820 to 1830; his attempt to divorce his estranged wife undermined the prestige of the crown (1762-1830); King of Great Britain and Ireland and emperor of India from 1910 to 1936; gave up his German title in 1917 during World War I (1865-1936); King of Great Britain and Ireland and emperor of India from 1936 to 1947; he succeeded Edward VIII (1895-1952); Christian martyr; patron saint of England; hero of the legend of Saint George and the Dragon in which he slew a dragon and saved a princess (?-303)

• germ theory -  (medicine) the theory that all contagious diseases are caused by microorganisms

• German -  of or pertaining to or characteristic of Germany or its people or language; of a more or less German nature; somewhat German;  the standard German language; developed historically from West Germanic; a person of German nationality

• Germany -  a republic in central Europe; split into East German and West Germany after World War II and reunited in 1990

• Ghana -  a republic in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea

• ghee -  clarified butter used in Indian cookery

• giant -  of great mass; huge and bulky;  any creature of exceptional size; an unusually large enterprise; an imaginary figure of superhuman size and strength; appears in folklore and fair tales; someone or something that is abnormally large and powerful; a very large person; impressive in size or qualities; a very bright star of large diameter and low density (relative to the Sun); a person of exceptional importance and reputation

• gin -  a form of rummy in which a player can go out if the cards remaining in their hand total less than 10 points; strong liquor flavored with juniper berries; a machine that separates the seeds from raw cotton fibers; a trap for birds or small mammals; often has a slip noose;  trap with a snare; separate the seeds from (cotton) with a cotton gin

• ginger -  (used especially of hair or fur) having a bright orange-brown color;  pungent rhizome of the common ginger plant; used fresh as a seasoning especially in Oriental cookery; dried ground gingerroot; perennial plants having thick branching aromatic rhizomes and leafy reedlike stems; liveliness and energy;  add ginger to in order to add flavor

• ginger family -  a family of tropical monocotyledonous plants of order Musales

• gingerbread -  cake flavored with ginger

• ginkgo biloba -  deciduous dioecious Chinese tree having fan-shaped leaves and fleshy yellow seeds; exists almost exclusively in cultivation especially as an ornamental street tree

• ginseng -  Chinese herb with palmately compound leaves and small greenish flowers and forked aromatic roots believed to have medicinal powers; aromatic root of ginseng plants

• Giotto di Bondone -  Florentine painter who gave up the stiff Byzantine style and developed a more naturalistic style; considered the greatest Italian painter prior to the Renaissance (1267-1337)

• glass -  a container for holding liquids while drinking; glassware collectively; the quantity a glass will hold; a brittle transparent solid with irregular atomic structure; a small refracting telescope; a mirror; usually a ladies' dressing mirror; an amphetamine derivative (trade name Methedrine) used in the form of a crystalline hydrochloride; used as a stimulant to the nervous system and as an appetite suppressant;  put in a glass container; enclose with glass; scan (game in the forest) with binoculars; furnish with glass; become glassy or take on a glass-like appearance

• glasses -  optical instrument consisting of a pair of lenses for correcting defective vision

• global warming -  an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere (especially a sustained increase that causes climatic changes)

• globalization -  growth to a global or worldwide scale

• glucose -  a monosaccharide sugar that has several forms; an important source of physiological energy

• glutamate -  a salt or ester of glutamic acid

• glutamic acid -  an amino acid occurring in proteins; important in the nitrogen metabolism of plants; used in monosodium glutamate to enhance the flavor of meats

• glutamine -  a crystalline amino acid occurring in proteins; important in protein metabolism

• gluttony -  eating to excess (personified as one of the deadly sins); habitual eating to excess

• glycine -  genus of Asiatic erect or sprawling herbs: soya bean; the simplest amino acid found in proteins and the principal amino acid in sugar cane

• glycogen -  one form in which body fuel is stored; stored primarily in the liver and broken down into glucose when needed by the body

• gnocchi -  (Italian) a small dumpling made of potato or flour or semolina that is boiled or baked and is usually served with a sauce or with grated cheese

• goat -  any of numerous agile ruminants related to sheep but having a beard and straight horns; the tenth sign of the zodiac; the sun is in this sign from about December 22 to January 19; (astrology) a person who is born while the sun is in Capricorn; a victim of ridicule or pranks

• golden -  favoring or bringing good luck; suggestive of gold; marked by peace and prosperity; having the deep slightly brownish color of gold; supremely favored or fortunate; made from or covered with gold

• Golden Syrup -  a pale cane syrup

• goldenseal -  perennial herb of northeastern United States having a thick knotted yellow rootstock and large rounded leaves

• Goldsmith -  an artisan who makes jewelry and other objects out of gold; Irish writer of novels and poetry and plays and essays (1728-1774)

• Goody -  something considered choice to eat

• goosefoot -  any of various weeds of the genus Chenopodium having small greenish flowers

• Gorgonzola -  Italian blue cheese

• Gouda -  mild cream-colored Dutch cheese shaped in balls

• goulash -  a rich meat stew highly seasoned with paprika

• Gourmet -  a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink)

• government -  the act of governing; exercising authority; (government) the system or form by which a community or other political unit is governed; the organization that is the governing authority of a political unit; the study of government of states and other political units

• grading -  changing the ground level to a smooth horizontal or gently sloping surface; evaluation of performance by assigning a grade or score; the act of arranging in a graduated series

• Grainger -  United States composer (born in Australia) who lived in London and collected English folk songs (1882-1961)

• grains of paradise -  West African plant bearing pungent peppery seeds

• Grant -  the act of providing a subsidy; a right or privilege that has been granted; 18th President of the United States; commander of the Union armies in the American Civil War (1822-1885); United States actor (born in England) who was the elegant leading man in many films (1904-1986); Scottish painter; cousin of Lytton Strachey and member of the Bloomsbury Group (1885-1978); (law) a transfer of property by deed of conveyance; any monetary aid; a contract granting the right to operate a subsidiary business;  transfer by deed; bestow, especially officially; be willing to concede; allow to have; let have; give as judged due or on the basis of merit; give over; surrender or relinquish to the physical control of another

• granulated sugar -  sugar in the form of small grains

• grape -  any of various juicy fruit of the genus Vitis with green or purple skins; grow in clusters; any of numerous woody vines of genus Vitis bearing clusters of edible berries

• grape juice -  the juice of grapes

• grape sugar -  an isomer of glucose that is found in honey and sweet fruits

• grapefruit -  large yellow fruit with somewhat acid juicy pulp; usual serving consists of a half; citrus tree bearing large round edible fruit having a thick yellow rind and juicy somewhat acid pulp

• Grappa -  Italian brandy made from residue of grapes after pressing

• gravy -  basically the juices that drip from cooking meats; a sudden happening that brings good fortune (as a sudden opportunity to make money)

• Great Britain -  an island comprising England and Scotland and Wales; a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland

• Great Depression -  the economic crisis beginning with the stock market crash in 1929 and continuing through the 1930s; a period during the 1930s when there was a worldwide economic depression and mass unemployment

• Greece -  a republic in southeastern Europe on the southern part of the Balkan peninsula; known for grapes and olives and olive oil

• greed -  excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves; reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)

• Greek -  of or relating to or characteristic of Greece or the Greeks;  the Hellenic branch of the Indo-European family of languages; a native or inhabitant of Greece

• green -  of the color between blue and yellow in the color spectrum; similar to the color of fresh grass; not fully developed or mature; not ripe; looking pale and unhealthy; concerned with or supporting or in conformity with the political principles of the Green Party; naive and easily deceived or tricked;  green color or pigment; resembling the color of growing grass; an area of closely cropped grass surrounding the hole on a golf course; a river that rises in western Wyoming and flows southward through Utah to become a tributary of the Colorado River; an environmentalist who belongs to the Green Party; United States labor leader who was president of the American Federation of Labor from 1924 to 1952 and who led the struggle with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1873-1952); street names for ketamine; any of various leafy plants or their leaves and stems eaten as vegetables; a piece of open land for recreational use in an urban area;  turn or become green

• green manure -  a growing crop that is plowed under to enrich soil

• Green Party -  an environmentalist political party

• Green Revolution -  the introduction of pesticides and high-yield grains and better management during the 1960s and 1970s which greatly increased agricultural productivity

• green tea -  tea leaves that have been steamed and dried without fermenting

• Greenland -  the largest island in the world; lies between the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean; a self-governing province of Denmark

• greens -  any of various leafy plants or their leaves and stems eaten as vegetables

• grill -  a framework of metal bars used as a partition or a grate; a restaurant where food is cooked on a grill;  cook over a grill

• grilling -  cooking by direct exposure to radiant heat (as over a fire or under a grill)

• grits -  coarsely ground hulled corn boiled as a breakfast dish in the southern United States

• groundhog -  reddish brown North American marmot

• Group -  any number of entities (members) considered as a unit; a set that is closed, associative, has an identity element and every element has an inverse; (chemistry) two or more atoms bound together as a single unit and forming part of a molecule;  arrange into a group or groups; form a group or group together

• grouper -  usually solitary bottom sea basses of warm seas; flesh of a saltwater fish similar to sea bass

• growing -  increasing in size or degree or amount; relating to or suitable for growth; having or showing vigorous vegetal or animal life;  (electronics) the production of (semiconductor) crystals by slow crystallization from the molten state; (biology) the process of an individual organism growing organically; a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level

• gruel -  a thin porridge (usually oatmeal or cornmeal)

• guacamole -  a dip made of mashed avocado mixed with chopped onions and other seasonings

• Guangzhou -  a city on the Zhu Jiang delta in southern China; the capital of Guangdong province and a major deep-water port

• Guatemala -  a republic in Central America; achieved independence from Spain in 1821; noted for low per capita income and illiteracy; politically unstable

• Guatemala City -  the capital and largest city of Guatemala

• guinea fowl -  a west African bird having dark plumage mottled with white; native to Africa but raised for food in many parts of the world

• gumbo -  a soup or stew thickened with okra pods; long mucilaginous green pods; may be simmered or sauteed but used especially in soups and stews; any of various fine-grained silty soils that become waxy and very sticky mud when saturated with water; tall coarse annual of Old World tropics widely cultivated in southern United States and West Indies for its long mucilaginous green pods used as basis for soups and stews; sometimes placed in genus Hibiscus

• haddock -  important food fish on both sides of the Atlantic; related to cod but usually smaller; lean white flesh of fish similar to but smaller than cod; usually baked or poached or as fillets sauteed or fried

• Haggadah -  Talmudic literature that does not deal with law but is still part of Jewish tradition

• haggis -  made of sheep's or calf's viscera minced with oatmeal and suet and onions and boiled in the animal's stomach

• Haiti -  a republic in the West Indies on the western part of the island of Hispaniola; achieved independence from France in 1804; the poorest and most illiterate nation in the western hemisphere; an island in the West Indies

• hake -  any of several marine food fishes related to cod; the lean flesh of a fish similar to cod

• halibut -  marine food fish of the northern Atlantic or northern Pacific; the largest flatfish and one of the largest teleost fishes; lean flesh of very large flatfish of Atlantic or Pacific

• Halloween -  the evening before All Saints' Day; often devoted to pranks played by young people

• hamburger -  a sandwich consisting of a fried cake of minced beef served on a bun, often with other ingredients; beef that has been ground

• Hamlet -  a community of people smaller than a village; the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy who hoped to avenge the murder of his father; a settlement smaller than a town

• Hammurabi -  Babylonian king who codified the laws of Sumer and Mesopotamia (died 1750 BC)

• hands -  (with `in') guardianship over; in divorce cases it is the right to house and care for and discipline a child; the force of workers available

• handwritten -  written by hand

• Hanseatic League -  a commercial and defensive confederation of free cities in northern Germany and surrounding areas; formed in 1241 and most influential in the 14th century when it included over 100 towns and functioned as an independent political power; the last official assembly was held in 1669

• Hardy -  able to survive under unfavorable conditions; having rugged physical strength; inured to fatigue or hardships; resolute and without fear;  English novelist and poet (1840-1928); United States slapstick comedian who played the pompous and oearing member of the Laurel and Hardy duo who made many films (1892-1957)

• harmful -  causing or capable of causing harm; able or likely to do harm; constituting a disadvantage; tending to cause great harm; contrary to your interests or welfare; injurious to physical or mental health

• Harris -  publisher of the first newspaper printed in America (1673-1713); British marshal of the Royal Air Force; during World War II he directed mass bombing raids against German cities that resulted in heavy civilian casualties (1892-1984); Irish writer noted for his sexually explicit but unreliable autobiography (1856-1931); United States diplomat who was instrumental in opening Japan to foreign trade (1804-1878)

• Hartley -  English philosopher who introduced the theory of the association of ideas (1705-1757)

• harvest -  the season for gathering crops; the gathering of a ripened crop; the consequence of an effort or activity; the yield from plants in a single growing season;  remove from a culture or a living or dead body, as for the purposes of transplantation; gather, as of natural products

• harvesting -  the gathering of a ripened crop

• hasty pudding -  cornmeal mush served with sweetening (maple syrup or brown sugar); sweetened porridge made of tapioca or flour or oatmeal cooked quickly in milk or water

• haute cuisine -  (French) an elaborate and skillful manner of preparing food

• Hawaii -  a state in the United States in the central Pacific on the Hawaiian Islands; the largest and southernmost of the Hawaii islands; has several volcanic peaks

• health -  the general condition of body and mind; a healthy state of wellbeing free from disease

• health food -  any natural or prepared food popularly believed to promote good health

• heart disease -  a disease of the heart

• Heartburn -  a painful burning sensation in the chest caused by gastroesophageal reflux (backflow from the stomach irritating the esophagus); symptomatic of an ulcer or a diaphragmatic hernia or other disorder

• hearth -  home symbolized as a part of the fireplace; an area near a fireplace (usually paved and extending out into a room); an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire can be built

• heat exhaustion -  a condition marked by dizziness and nausea and weakness caused by depletion of body fluids and electrolytes

• height -  the vertical dimension of extension; distance from the base of something to the top; (of a standing person) the distance from head to foot; elevation especially above sea level or above the earth's surface; the highest level or degree attainable; the highest stage of development

• hemochromatosis -  pathology in which iron accumulates in the tissues; characterized by bronzed skin and enlarged liver and diabetes mellitus and abnormalities of the pancreas and the joints

• hemolytic anemia -  anemia resulting from destruction of erythrocytes

• Henry -  United States physicist who studied electromagnetic phenomena (1791-1878); a leader of the American Revolution and a famous orator who spoke out against British rule of the American colonies (1736-1799); English chemist who studied the quantities of gas absorbed by water at different temperatures and under different pressures (1775-1836); a unit of inductance in which an induced electromotive force of one volt is produced when the current is varied at the rate of one ampere per second

• hepatitis -  inflammation of the liver caused by a virus or a toxin

• herb garden -  a garden for growing herbs

• herbal -  of or relating to herbs;  tea-like drink made of leaves of various herbs

• Hero -  the principal character in a play or movie or novel or poem; (Greek mythology) priestess of Aphrodite who killed herself when her lover Leander drowned while trying to swim the Hellespont to see her; (classical mythology) a being of great strength and courage celebrated for bold exploits; often the offspring of a mortal and a god; a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength; Greek mathematician and inventor who devised a way to determine the area of a triangle and who described various mechanical devices (first century); a large sandwich made of a long crusty roll split lengthwise and filled with meats and cheese (and tomato and onion and lettuce and condiments); different names are used in different sections of the United States; someone who fights for a cause

• Herodotus -  the ancient Greek known as the father of history; his accounts of the wars between the Greeks and Persians are the first known examples of historical writing (485-425 BC)

• herring -  commercially important food fish of northern waters of both Atlantic and Pacific; valuable flesh of fatty fish from shallow waters of northern Atlantic or Pacific; usually salted or pickled

• Hesiod -  Greek poet whose existing works describe rural life and the genealogies of the gods and the beginning of the world (eighth century BC)

• high tea -  substantial early evening meal including tea

• high technology -  highly advanced technological development (especially in electronics)

• Hindu -  of or relating to or supporting Hinduism;  a person who adheres to Hinduism; a native or inhabitant of Hindustan or India

• Hinduism -  a body of religious and philosophical beliefs and cultural practices native to India and characterized by a belief in reincarnation and a supreme being of many forms and natures, by the view that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth, and by a desire for liberation from earthly evils; the predominant religion of India; characterized by a caste system and belief in reincarnation

• Hippocrates -  medical practitioner who is regarded as the father of medicine; author of the Hippocratic oath (circa 460-377 BC)

• Hippocratic Oath -  an oath taken by physicians to observe medical ethics deriving from Hippocrates

• histidine -  an essential amino acid found in proteins that is important for the growth and repair of tissue

• historical -  having once lived or existed or taken place in the real world as distinct from being legendary; of or relating to the study of history; belonging to the past; of what is important or famous in the past; used of the study of a phenomenon (especially language) as it changes through time

• history -  the discipline that records and interprets past events involving human beings; all that is remembered of the past as preserved in writing; a body of knowledge; a record or narrative description of past events; the aggregate of past events; the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future

• Hmong -  of or related to the Hmong people or their language or their culture;  a language of uncertain affiliation spoken by the Hmong; a people living traditionally in mountain villages in southern China and adjacent areas of Vietnam and Laos and Thailand; many have emigrated to the United States

• Ho Chi Minh -  Vietnamese communist statesman who fought the Japanese in World War II and the French until 1954 and South Vietnam until 1975 (1890-1969)

• Hobbes -  English materialist and political philosopher who advocated absolute sovereignty as the only kind of government that could resolve problems caused by the selfishness of human beings (1588-1679)

• hog plum -  yellow oval tropical fruit; fruit of the wild plum of southern United States; tropical American tree having edible yellow fruit; small native American shrubby tree bearing small edible yellow to reddish fruit

• Hogmanay -  New Year's Eve in Scotland

• holiness -  the quality of being holy

• Holland -  a constitutional monarchy in western Europe on the North Sea; half the country lies below sea level

• home -  inside the country; used of your own ground; relating to or being where one lives or where one's roots are; adv. at or to or in the direction of one's home or family; to the fullest extent; to the heart; on or to the point aimed at;  an institution where people are cared for; the country or state or city where you live; where you live at a particular time; place where something began and flourished; an environment offering affection and security; housing that someone is living in; (baseball) base consisting of a rubber slab where the batter stands; it must be touched by a base runner in order to score; a social unit living together; the place where you are stationed and from which missions start and end;  return home accurately from a long distance; provide with, or send to, a home

• home economics -  theory and practice of homemaking

• homelessness -  the state or condition of having no home (especially the state of living in the streets)

• Homer -  a base hit on which the batter scores a run; ancient Greek epic poet who is believed to have written the Iliad and the Odyssey (circa 850 BC); United States painter best known for his seascapes (1836-1910); an ancient Hebrew unit of capacity equal to 10 baths or 10 ephahs; pigeon trained to return home;  hit a home run

• Homo erectus -  extinct species of primitive hominid with upright stature but small brain

• Homo sapiens -  the only surviving hominid; species to which modern man belongs; bipedal primate having language and ability to make and use complex tools; brain volume at least 1400 cc

• homogenization -  the act of making something homogeneous or uniform in composition

• Honduras -  a republic in Central America; achieved independence from Spain in 1821; an early center of Mayan culture

• honey -  of something having the color of honey;  a sweet yellow liquid produced by bees; a beloved person; used as terms of endearment;  sweeten with honey

• Hong Kong -  formerly a Crown Colony on the coast of southern China in Guangdong province; leased by China to Britain in 1842 and returned in 1997; one of the world's leading commercial centers

• hop -  the act of hopping; jumping upward or forward (especially on one foot); an informal dance where popular music is played; twining perennials having cordate leaves and flowers arranged in conelike spikes; the dried flowers of this plant are used in brewing to add the characteristic bitter taste to beer;  travel by means of an aircraft, bus, etc.; jump lightly; make a jump forward or upward; jump across; make a quick trip especially by air; move quickly from one place to another

• Hope -  one of the three Christian virtues; a specific instance of feeling hopeful; the general feeling that some desire will be fulfilled; someone (or something) on which expectations are centered; United States comedian (born in England) who appeared in films with Bing Crosby (1903-2003); grounds for feeling hopeful about the future;  intend with some possibility of fulfilment; be optimistic; be full of hope; have hopes; expect and wish

• hope chest -  chest for storage of clothing (trousseau) and household goods in anticipation of marriage

• Hopi -  the Shoshonean language spoken by the Hopi; a member of the Shoshonean people of northeastern Arizona

• Hopper -  funnel-shaped receptacle; contents pass by gravity into a receptacle below; someone who hops; (baseball) a hit that travels along the ground; terrestrial plant-eating insect with hind legs adapted for leaping; a machine used for picking hops

• hops -  twining perennials having cordate leaves and flowers arranged in conelike spikes; the dried flowers of this plant are used in brewing to add the characteristic bitter taste to beer

• Horace -  Roman lyric poet said to have influenced English poetry (65-8 BC)

• hormone -  the secretion of an endocrine gland that is transmitted by the blood to the tissue on which it has a specific effect

• horse -  solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped domesticated since prehistoric times; a padded gymnastic apparatus on legs; a chessman shaped to resemble the head of a horse; can move two squares horizontally and one vertically (or vice versa); a framework for holding wood that is being sawed; troops trained to fight on horseback;  provide with a horse or horses

• horsemeat -  the flesh of horses as food

• horseradish -  grated horseradish root; coarse Eurasian plant cultivated for its thick white pungent root; the root of the horseradish plant; it is grated or ground and used for seasoning

• Horticulture -  the cultivation of plants

• hospitality -  kindness in welcoming guests or strangers

• House -  play in which children take the roles of father or mother or children and pretend to interact like adults; a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families; a building in which something is sheltered or located; aristocratic family line; an official assembly having legislative powers; the audience gathered together in a theatre or cinema; the members of a religious community living together; the management of a gambling house or casino; a building where theatrical performances or motion-picture shows can be presented; the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; a social unit living together; (astrology) one of 12 equal areas into which the zodiac is divided;  provide housing for; contain or cover

• house cat -  any domesticated member of the genus Felis

• household -  a social unit living together

• Housman -  English poet (1859-1936)

• Huckleberry Finn -  a mischievous boy in a novel by Mark Twain

• human body -  alternative names for the body of a human being

• human ecology -  the branch of sociology that studies the characteristics of human populations

• humidity -  wetness in the atmosphere

• Hungary -  a republic in central Europe

• hunger -  strong desire for something (not food or drink); a physiological need for food; the consequence of food deprivation;  feel the need to eat; be hungry; go without food; have a craving, appetite, or great desire for

• hunter-gatherer -  a member of a hunting and gathering society

• hunting -  the pursuit and killing or capture of wild animals regarded as a sport; the work of finding and killing or capturing animals for food or pelts; the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone

• Huxley -  English biologist and a leading exponent of Darwin's theory of evolution (1825-1895); English writer; grandson of Thomas Huxley who is remembered mainly for his depiction of a scientifically controlled utopia (1894-1963); English physiologist who, with Alan Hodgkin, discovered the role of potassium and sodium ions in the transmission of the nerve impulse (born in 1917)

• hybridization -  (genetics) the act of mixing different species or varieties of animals or plants and thus to produce hybrids

• hydrogenation -  a chemical process that adds hydrogen atoms to an unsaturated oil

• hydroponics -  a technique of growing plants (without soil) in water containing dissolved nutrients

• hygiene -  the science concerned with the prevention of illness and maintenance of health; a condition promoting sanitary practices

• hypercalcemia -  the presence of abnormally high levels of calcium in the blood; usually the result of excessive bone resorption in hyperparathyroidism or Paget's disease

• hyperkalemia -  higher than normal levels of potassium in the circulating blood; associated with kidney failure or sometimes with the use of diuretic drugs

• hypertension -  a common disorder in which blood pressure remains abnormally high (a reading of 140/90 mm Hg or greater)

• hypoglycemia -  abnormally low blood sugar usually resulting from excessive insulin or a poor diet

• hypokalemia -  abnormally low level of potassium in the circulating blood leading to weakness and heart abnormalities; associated with adrenal tumors or starvation or taking diuretics

• hyponatremia -  abnormally low level of sodium in the blood; associated with dehydration

• hypotension -  abnormally low blood pressure

• hypothalamus -  a basal part of the diencephalon governing autonomic nervous system

• hypovolemia -  a blood disorder consisting of a decrease in the volume of circulating blood

• hyssop -  bitter leaves used sparingly in salads; dried flowers used in soups and tisanes; a European mint with aromatic and pungent leaves used in perfumery and as a seasoning in cookery; often cultivated as a remedy for bruises; yields hyssop oil

• IAEA -  the United Nations agency concerned with atomic energy

• Iberian Peninsula -  a peninsula in southwestern Europe

• ice cream -  frozen dessert containing cream and sugar and flavoring

• ice plant -  Old World annual widely naturalized in warm regions having white flowers and fleshy foliage covered with hairs that resemble ice

• iced tea -  strong tea served over ice

• Iceland -  a volcanic island in the North Atlantic near the Arctic Circle; an island republic on the island of Iceland; became independent of Denmark in 1944

• identity -  the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; exact sameness; the individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognized or known; an operator that leaves unchanged the element on which it operates

• idiosyncratic -  peculiar to the individual

• iguana -  large herbivorous tropical American arboreal lizards with a spiny crest along the back; used as human food in Central America and South America

• ileum -  the part of the small intestine between the jejunum and the cecum

• Iliad -  a Greek epic poem (attributed to Homer) describing the siege of Troy

• Illinois -  the Algonquian language of the Illinois and Miami; a Midwest state in north-central United States; a member of the Algonquian people formerly of Illinois and regions to the west

• imbalance -  a lack of balance or state of disequilibrium; (mathematics) a lack of symmetry

• immune system -  a system (including the thymus and bone marrow and lymphoid tissues) that protects the body from foreign substances and pathogenic organisms by producing the immune response

• important -  of great significance or value; having or suggesting a consciousness of high position; of extreme importance; vital to the resolution of a crisis; having authority or ascendancy or influence; important in effect or meaning

• incense tree -  any of various tropical trees of the family Burseraceae yielding fragrant gums or resins that are burned as incense

• income -  the financial gain (earned or unearned) accruing over a given period of time

• Independence Day -  a legal holiday in the United States

• INDEX -  the finger next to the thumb; an alphabetical listing of names and topics along with page numbers where they are discussed; a number or ratio (a value on a scale of measurement) derived from a series of observed facts; can reveal relative changes as a function of time; a numerical scale used to compare variables with one another or with some reference number; a mathematical notation indicating the number of times a quantity is multiplied by itself;  adjust through indexation; provide with an index; list in an index

• India -  a republic in the Asian subcontinent in southern Asia; second most populous country in the world; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1947

• Indian corn -  tall annual cereal grass bearing kernels on large ears: widely cultivated in America in many varieties; the principal cereal in Mexico and Central and South America since pre-Columbian times

• Indian potato -  very tall American perennial of central and the eastern United States to Canada having edible tuberous roots; a North American vine with fragrant blossoms and edible tubers; important food crop of Native Americans

• indigo -  having a color between blue and violet;  a blue-violet color; deciduous subshrub of southeastern Asia having pinnate leaves and clusters of red or purple flowers; a source of indigo dye; a blue dye obtained from plants or made synthetically

• Indonesia -  a republic in southeastern Asia on an archipelago including more than 13,000 islands; achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1945; the principal oil producer in the Far East and Pacific regions

• industrialization -  the development of industry on an extensive scale

• industry -  the organized action of making of goods and services for sale; the people or companies engaged in a particular kind of commercial enterprise; persevering determination to perform a task

• inflation -  the act of filling something with air; (cosmology) a brief exponential expansion of the universe (faster than the speed of light) postulated to have occurred shortly after the big bang; a general and progressive increase in prices; lack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity

• infusion -  the act of infusing or introducing a certain modifying element or quality; (medicine) the passive introduction of a substance (a fluid or drug or electrolyte) into a vein or between tissues (as by gravitational force); the process of extracting certain active properties (as a drug from a plant) by steeping or soaking (usually in water); a solution obtained by steeping or soaking a substance (usually in water)

• ingestion -  the process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating)

• innate immunity -  immunity to disease that occurs as part of an individual's natural biologic makeup

• inositol -  an optically inactive alcohol that is a component of the vitamin B complex

• inspection -  a formal or official examination

• instant -  in or of the present month; demanding attention; occurring with no delay;  a particular point in time; a very short time (as the time it takes the eye blink or the heart to beat)

• insulin -  hormone secreted by the isles of Langerhans in the pancreas; regulates storage of glycogen in the liver and accelerates oxidation of sugar in cells

• intake -  an opening through which fluid is admitted to a tube or container; the process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating)

• Internet -  a computer network consisting of a worldwide network of computer networks that use the TCP/IP network protocols to facilitate data transmission and exchange

• intestinal flora -  harmless microorganisms (as Escherichia coli) that inhabit the intestinal tract and are essential for its normal functioning

• intestine -  the part of the alimentary canal between the stomach and the anus

• intolerance -  impatience with annoyances; unwillingness to recognize and respect differences in opinions or beliefs

• intoxication -  excitement and elation beyond the bounds of sobriety; a temporary state resulting from excessive consumption of alcohol; the physiological state produced by a poison or other toxic substance

• intracellular fluid -  liquid contained inside the cell membranes (usually containing dissolved solutes)

• intrauterine -  within the womb

• intravenous feeding -  administration of nutrients through a vein

• introduction -  the act of beginning something new; the first section of a communication; a basic or elementary instructional text; a new proposal; the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new; the act of putting one thing into another; formally making a person known to another or to the public

• Inuit -  a member of a people inhabiting the Arctic (northern Canada or Greenland or Alaska or eastern Siberia); the Algonquians called them Eskimo (`eaters of raw flesh') but they call themselves the Inuit (`the people')

• iodide -  a salt or ester of hydriodic acid

• iodine -  a nonmetallic element belonging to the halogens; used especially in medicine and photography and in dyes; occurs naturally only in combination in small quantities (as in sea water or rocks); a tincture consisting of a solution of iodine in ethyl alcohol; applied topically to wounds as an antiseptic

• iodized -  treated with iodine

• Iowa -  a dialect of the Chiwere language spoken by the Iowa; a state in midwestern United States; a member of the Siouan people formerly living in Iowa and Minnesota and Missouri

• Iran -  a theocratic Islamic republic in the Middle East in western Asia; Iran was the core of the ancient empire that was known as Persia until 1935; rich in oil

• Iraq -  a republic in the Middle East in western Asia; the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia was in the area now known as Iraq

• Ireland -  an island comprising the republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland; a republic consisting of 26 of 32 counties comprising the island of Ireland; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1921

• Irish moss -  dark purple edible seaweed of the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North America

• iron -  extremely robust;  home appliance consisting of a flat metal base that is heated and used to smooth cloth; a golf club that has a relatively narrow metal head; implement used to brand live stock; a heavy ductile magnetic metallic element; is silver-white in pure form but readily rusts; used in construction and tools and armament; plays a role in the transport of oxygen by the blood;  press and smooth with a heated iron

• Iroquois -  any member of the warlike North American Indian peoples formerly living in New York state; the Iroquois League were allies of the British during the American Revolution; a family of North American Indian languages spoken by the Iroquois

• irradiation -  (Pavolvian conditioning) the elicitation of a conditioned response by stimulation similar but not identical to the original stimulus; the apparent enlargement of a bright object when viewed against a dark background; (physiology) the spread of sensory neural impulses in the cortex; the condition of being exposed to radiation; (medicine) the treatment of disease (especially cancer) by exposure to a radioactive substance; a column of light (as from a beacon)

• irrigation -  (medicine) cleaning a wound or body organ by flushing or washing out with water or a medicated solution; supplying dry land with water by means of ditches etc

• isinglass -  any of various minerals consisting of hydrous silicates of aluminum or potassium etc. that crystallize in forms that allow perfect cleavage into very thin leaves; used as dielectrics because of their resistance to electricity

• Isis -  Egyptian goddess of fertility; daughter of Geb; sister and wife of Osiris

• Islam -  the monotheistic religious system of Muslims founded in Arabia in the 7th century and based on the teachings of Muhammad as laid down in the Koran; the civilization of Muslims collectively which is governed by the Muslim religion

• Islamic -  of or relating to or supporting Islamism

• Islamic law -  the code of law derived from the Koran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed

• isoleucine -  an essential amino acid found in proteins; isomeric with leucine

• Israel -  an ancient kingdom of the Hebrew tribes at the southeastern end of the Mediterranean Sea; founded by Saul around 1025 BC and destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 BC; Jewish republic in southwestern Asia at eastern end of Mediterranean; formerly part of Palestine

• Istanbul -  the largest city and former capital of Turkey; rebuilt on the site of ancient Byzantium by Constantine I in the fourth century; renamed Constantinople by Constantine who made it the capital of the Byzantine Empire; now the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church

• Italian -  of or pertaining to or characteristic of Italy or its people or culture or language;  the Romance language spoken in Italy; a native or inhabitant of Italy

• Italy -  a republic in southern Europe on the Italian Peninsula; was the core of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire between the 4th century BC and the 5th century AD

• Ivan the Terrible -  the first czar of Russia (1530-1584)

• jack -  male donkey; any of several fast-swimming predacious fishes of tropical to warm temperate seas; tool for exerting pressure or lifting; one of four face cards in a deck bearing a picture of a young prince; small flag indicating a ship's nationality; game equipment consisting of one of several small six-pointed metal pieces that are picked up while bouncing a ball in the game of jacks; an electrical device consisting of a connector socket designed for the insertion of a plug; a small ball at which players aim in lawn bowling; a small worthless amount; immense East Indian fruit resembling breadfruit; it contains an edible pulp and nutritious seeds that are commonly roasted; someone who works with their hands; someone engaged in manual labor; a man who serves as a sailor;  lift with a special device; hunt with a jacklight

• jackfruit -  immense East Indian fruit resembling breadfruit; it contains an edible pulp and nutritious seeds that are commonly roasted; East Indian tree cultivated for its immense edible fruit and seeds

• jackrabbit -  large hare of western North America;  go forward or start with a fast, sudden movement

• Jainism -  religion founded in the 6th century BC as a revolt against Hinduism; emphasizes asceticism and immortality and transmigration of the soul; denies existence of a perfect or supreme being; sect founded in the 6th century BC as a revolt against Hinduism

• jambalaya -  spicy Creole dish of rice and ham, sausage, chicken, or shellfish with tomatoes, peppers, onions, and celery

• James -  a river that rises in North Dakota and flows southward across South Dakota to the Missouri; a river in Virginia that flows east into Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Roads; (New Testament) disciple of Jesus; brother of John; author of the Epistle of James in the New Testament; writer who was born in the United States but lived in England (1843-1916); United States pragmatic philosopher and psychologist (1842-1910); United States outlaw who fought as a Confederate soldier and later led a band of outlaws that robbed trains and banks in the West until he was murdered by a member of his own gang (1847-1882); the first Stuart to be king of England and Ireland from 1603 to 1625 and king of Scotland from 1567 to 1625; he was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and he succeeded Elizabeth I; he alienated the British Parliament by claiming the divine right of kings (1566-1625); the last Stuart to be king of England and Ireland and Scotland; overthrown in 1688 (1633-1701); a Stuart king of Scotland who married a daughter of Henry VII; when England and France went to war in 1513 he invaded England and died in defeat at Flodden (1473-1513); a New Testament book attributed to Saint James the Apostle

• Japan -  lacquer with a durable glossy black finish, originally from the orient; lacquerware decorated and varnished in the Japanese manner with a glossy durable black lacquer; a string of more than 3,000 islands east of Asia extending 1,300 miles between the Sea of Japan and the western Pacific Ocean; a constitutional monarchy occupying the Japanese Archipelago; a world leader in electronics and automobile manufacture and ship building;  coat with a lacquer, as done in Japan

• Japanese -  of or relating to or characteristic of Japan or its people or their culture or language;  the language (usually considered to be Altaic) spoken by the Japanese; a native or inhabitant of Japan

• Jefferson -  3rd President of the United States; chief drafter of the Declaration of Independence; made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and sent out the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore it (1743-1826)

• jejunum -  the part of the small intestine between the duodenum and the ileum

• Jell-O -  fruit-flavored dessert (trade mark Jell-O) made from a commercially prepared gelatin powder

• jelly -  a preserve made of the jelled juice of fruit; a substance having the consistency of semisolid foods; an edible jelly (sweet or pungent) made with gelatin and used as a dessert or salad base or a coating for foods;  make into jelly

• jerky -  having or revealing stupidity; marked by abrupt transitions; not having a steady rhythm;  meat (especially beef) cut in strips and dried in the sun

• Jewish -  of or relating to Jews or their culture or religion

• John -  the last of the four Gospels in the New Testament; (New Testament) disciple of Jesus; traditionally said to be the author of the 4th Gospel and three epistles and the book of Revelation; youngest son of Henry II; King of England from 1199 to 1216; succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother Richard I; lost his French possessions; in 1215 John was compelled by the barons to sign the Magna Carta (1167-1216); a room or building equipped with one or more toilets; a prostitute's customer

• johnnycake -  cornbread usually cooked pancake-style on a griddle (chiefly New England)

• joke -  a triviality not to be taken seriously; a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement; activity characterized by good humor;  act in a funny or teasing way; tell a joke; speak humorously

• Jones -  English phonetician (1881-1967); one of the first great English architects and a theater designer (1573-1652); American naval commander in the American Revolution (1747-1792); United States golfer (1902-1971); United States railroad engineer who died trying to stop his train from crashing into another train; a friend wrote a famous ballad describing the incident (1864-1900); United States labor leader (born in Ireland) who helped to found the Industrial Workers of the World (1830-1930)

• Jonson -  English dramatist and poet who was the first real poet laureate of England (1572-1637)

• joule -  English physicist who established the mechanical theory of heat and discovered the first law of thermodynamics (1818-1889); a unit of electrical energy equal to the work done when a current of one ampere passes through a resistance of one ohm for one second

• Journal -  the part of the axle contained by a bearing; a record book as a physical object; a periodical dedicated to a particular subject; a daily written record of (usually personal) experiences and observations; a ledger in which transactions have been recorded as they occurred

• Judaism -  the monotheistic religion of the Jews having its spiritual and ethical principles embodied chiefly in the Torah and in the Talmud; Jews collectively who practice a religion based on the Torah and the Talmud

• juice -  any of several liquids of the body; the liquid part that can be extracted from plant or animal tissue; electric current; energetic vitality

• juneberry -  any of various North American trees or shrubs having showy white flowers and edible blue-black or purplish fruit; edible purple or red berries

• junk food -  food that tastes good but is high in calories having little nutritional value

• Juvenal -  Roman satirist who deced the vice and folly of Roman society during the reign of the emperor Domitian (60-140)

• Kabbalah -  an esoteric theosophy of rabbinical origin based on the Hebrew scriptures and developed between the 7th and 18th centuries; an esoteric or occult matter resembling the Kabbalah that is traditionally secret

• Kaiser -  the title of the Holy Roman Emperors or the emperors of Austria or of Germany until 1918

• kale -  coarse curly-leafed cabbage; a hardy cabbage with coarse curly leaves that do not form a head; informal terms for money

• Kampuchea -  a nation in southeastern Asia; was part of Indochina under French rule until 1946

• karma -  (Hinduism and Buddhism) the effects of a person's actions that determine his destiny in his next incarnation

• Karnataka -  state in southern India; formerly Mysore

• kasha -  boiled or baked buckwheat

• Kashmir -  an area in southwestern Asia whose sovereignty is disputed between Pakistan and India

• Kaufman -  United States playwright who collaborated with many other writers including Moss Hart (1889-1961)

• Keats -  Englishman and romantic poet (1795-1821)

• kedgeree -  a dish of rice and hard-boiled eggs and cooked flaked fish

• Kellogg -  United States food manufacturer who (with his brother) developed a breakfast cereal of crisp flakes of rolled and toasted wheat and corn; he established a company to manufacture the cereal (1860-1951)

• Kelly -  United States dancer who performed in many musical films (1912-1996); United States film actress who retired when she married into the royal family of Monaco (1928-1982); United States circus clown (1898-1979)

• kelp -  large brown seaweeds having fluted leathery fronds

• Kennedy -  a large airport on Long Island east of New York City; 35th President of the United States; established the Peace Corps; assassinated in Dallas (1917-1963)

• Kenya -  a republic in eastern Africa; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1963; major archeological discoveries have been made in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya

• Kerouac -  United States writer who was a leading figure of the beat generation (1922-1969)

• ketchup -  thick spicy sauce made from tomatoes

• ketchup bottle -  a bottle that holds catsup

• ketosis -  an abnormal increase of ketone bodies in the blood as in diabetes mellitus

• khat -  the leaves of the shrub Catha edulis which are chewed like tobacco or used to make tea; has the effect of a euphoric stimulant

• kidney -  either of two bean-shaped excretory organs that filter wastes (especially urea) from the blood and excrete them and water in urine

• King of France -  the sovereign ruler of France

• Kitchen -  a room equipped for preparing meals

• kitchen garden -  a small garden where vegetables are grown

• kitchen range -  a kitchen appliance used for cooking food

• Klondike -  a form of solitaire that begins with seven piles of cards with the top cards facing up; descending sequences of cards of alternating colors are built on these piles; as aces become available they are placed above the seven piles; the object is to build sequences in suit from ace to king as the remaining cards are dealt out one at a time; a region in northwestern Canada where gold was discovered in 1896 but exhausted by 1910

• Kodagu -  a Dravidian language spoken by the Kodagu; a member of an aboriginal people living in the hills in southeastern India

• Kohl -  a cosmetic preparation used by women in Egypt and Arabia to darken the edges of their eyelids

• kohlrabi -  fleshy turnip-shaped edible stem of the kohlrabi plant; plant cultivated for its enlarged fleshy turnip-shaped edible stem

• kola nut -  bitter brown seed containing caffein; source of cola extract; tree bearing large brown nuts containing e.g. caffeine; source of cola extract

• Korea -  an Asian peninsula (off Manchuria) separating the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan; the Korean name is Dae-Han-Min-Gook or Han-Gook

• Korean -  of or relating to or characteristic of Korea or its people or language;  the Altaic language spoken by Koreans; a native or inhabitant of Korea who speaks the Korean language

• koumiss -  an alcoholic beverage made from fermented mare's milk; made originally by nomads of central Asia

• Kubla Khan -  Mongolian emperor of China and grandson of Genghis Khan who completed his grandfather's conquest of China; he establish the Yuan dynasty and built a great capital on the site of modern Beijing where he received Marco Polo (1216-1294)

• kudzu -  fast-growing vine from eastern Asia having tuberous starchy roots and hairy trifoliate leaves and racemes of purple flowers followed by long hairy pods containing many seeds; grown for fodder and forage and root starch; widespread in the southern United States

• kurrat -  coarse Old World perennial having a large bulb and tall stalk of greenish purple-tinged flowers; widely naturalized

• kuru -  100 kurus equal 1 lira in Turkey; a progressive disease of the central nervous system marked by increasing lack of coordination and advancing to paralysis and death within a year of the appearance of symptoms; thought to have been transmitted by cannibalistic consumption of diseased brain tissue since the disease virtually disappeared when cannibalism was abandoned

• Kwan-Yin -  (Buddhism) a female Bodhisattva; often called goddess of mercy and considered an aspect of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara; identified with Japanese Kwannon

• Kwanzaa -  a festival featuring African-American culture; celebrated between Christmas and New Year

• kwashiorkor -  severe malnutrition in children resulting from a diet excessively high in carbohydrates and low in protein

• lactation -  the production and secretion of milk by the mammary glands; the period following birth during which milk is secreted; feeding an infant by giving suck at the breast

• lactose -  a sugar comprising one glucose molecule linked to a galactose molecule; occurs only in milk

• Lamb -  young sheep; the flesh of a young domestic sheep eaten as food; a sweet innocent mild-mannered person (especially a child); a person easily deceived or cheated (especially in financial matters); English essayist (1775-1834);  give birth to a lamb

• Lamiaceae -  the mints: aromatic herbs and shrubs having flowers resembling the lips of a mouth and four-lobed ovaries yielding four one-seeded nutlets and including thyme; sage; rosemary

• lamprey -  primitive eellike freshwater or anadromous cyclostome having round sucking mouth with a rasping tongue

• Lancaster -  the English royal house that reigned from 1399 to 1461; its emblem was a red rose; a city in northwestern England

• Lao-tzu -  Chinese philosopher regarded as the founder of Taoism (6th century BC)

• Laos -  a mountainous landlocked communist state in southeastern Asia; achieved independence from France in 1949

• Lapp -  the language of nomadic Lapps in northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula; a member of an indigenous nomadic people living in northern Scandinavia and herding reindeer

• lard -  soft white semisolid fat obtained by rendering the fatty tissue of the hog;  prepare or cook with lard; add details to

• larder -  a supply of food especially for a household; a small storeroom for storing foods or wines

• large -  having broad power and range and scope; above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent; fairly large or important in effect; influential; in an advanced stage of pregnancy; conspicuous in position or importance; generous and understanding and tolerant; ostentatiously lofty in style; adv. with the wind abaft the beam; at a distance, wide of something (as of a mark); in a boastful manner;  a garment size for a large person

• Last Supper -  the traditional Passover supper of Jesus with his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion

• Lauraceae -  a family of Lauraceae

• laurel family -  a family of Lauraceae

• lavender -  of a pale purple color;  any of various Old World aromatic shrubs or subshrubs with usually mauve or blue flowers; widely cultivated

• layout -  the act of laying out (as by making plans for something); a plan or design of something that is laid out

• Leach -  the process of leaching;  remove substances from by a percolating liquid; permeate or penetrate gradually; cause (a liquid) to leach or percolate

• lead -  the playing of a card to start a trick in bridge; a position of leadership (especially in the phrase `take the lead'); mixture of graphite with clay in different degrees of hardness; the marking substance in a pencil; thin strip of metal used to separate lines of type in printing; an advantage held by a competitor in a race; evidence pointing to a possible solution; the introductory section of a story; a news story of major importance; (baseball) the position taken by a base runner preparing to advance to the next base; (sports) the score by which a team or individual is winning; the angle between the direction a gun is aimed and the position of a moving target (correcting for the flight time of the missile); a soft heavy toxic malleable metallic element; bluish white when freshly cut but tarnishes readily to dull grey; a jumper that consists of a short piece of wire; restraint consisting of a rope (or light chain) used to restrain an animal; the timing of ignition relative to the position of the piston in an internal-combustion engine; an indication of potential opportunity; an actor who plays a principal role;  cause to undertake a certain action; travel in front of; go in advance of others; take somebody somewhere; tend to or result in; be ahead of others; be the first; pass or spend; preside over; lead, as in the performance of a composition; move ahead (of others) in time or space; be in charge of; be conducive to; have as a result or residue; stretch out over a distance, space, time, or scope; run or extend between two points or beyond a certain point; lead, extend, or afford access; cause something to pass or lead somewhere

• lecithin -  a yellow phospholipid essential for the metabolism of fats; found in egg yolk and in many plant and animal cells; used commercially as an emulsifier

• lectin -  any of several plant glycoproteins that act like specific antibodies but are not antibodies in that they are not evoked by an antigenic stimulus

• leisure -  freedom to choose a pastime or enjoyable activity; time available for ease and relaxation

• lemon meringue pie -  pie containing lemon custard and topped with meringue

• lemonade -  sweetened beverage of diluted lemon juice

• Lent -  a period of 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday

• Lenten -  of or relating to or suitable for Lent

• Leonardo da Vinci -  Italian painter and sculptor and engineer and scientist and architect; the most versatile genius of the Italian Renaissance (1452-1519)

• letterhead -  a sheet of stationery with name and address of the organization printed at the top

• lettuce -  leaves of any of various plants of Lactuca sativa; any of various plants of the genus Lactuca; informal terms for money

• leucine -  a white crystalline amino acid occurring in proteins that is essential for nutrition; obtained by the hydrolysis of most dietary proteins

• Leviathan -  monstrous sea creature symbolizing evil in the Old Testament; the largest or most massive thing of its kind

• light -  characterized by or emitting light; (used of color) having a relatively small amount of coloring agent; (of sleep) easily disturbed; demanding little effort; not burdensome; having relatively few calories; easily assimilated in the alimentary canal; not rich or heavily seasoned; of comparatively little physical weight or density; designed for ease of movement or to carry little weight; psychologically light; especially free from sadness or troubles; not great in degree or quantity or number; (physics, chemistry) not having atomic weight greater than average; of little intensity or power or force; moving easily and quickly; nimble; of the military or industry; using (or being) relatively small or light arms or equipment; intended primarily as entertainment; not serious or profound; having little importance; less than the correct or legal or full amount often deliberately so; casual and unrestrained in sexual behavior; (used of soil) loose and large-grained in consistency; (of sound or color) free from anything that dulls or dims; silly or trivial; used of vowels or syllables; proced with little or no stress; marked by temperance in indulgence; very thin and insubstantial; weak and likely to lose consciousness; adv. with few burdens;  any device serving as a source of illumination; the visual effect of illumination on objects or scenes as created in pictures; public awareness; mental understanding as an enlightening experience; a particular perspective or aspect of a situation; a visual warning signal; an illuminated area; a person regarded very fondly; (physics) electromagnetic radiation that can produce a visual sensation; having abundant light or illumination; a condition of spiritual awareness; divine illumination; a device for lighting or igniting fuel or charges or fires; merriment expressed by a brightness or gleam or animation of countenance; the quality of being luminous; emitting or reflecting light; a divine presence believed by Quakers to enlighten and guide the soul;  make lighter or brighter; begin to smoke; get off (a horse); to come to rest, settle; fall to somebody by assignment or lot; cause to start burning; subject to fire or great heat

• lignin -  a complex polymer; the chief constituent of wood other than carbohydrates; binds to cellulose fibers to harden and strengthen cell walls of plants

• Liguria -  region of northwestern Italy on the Ligurian Sea

• Lima -  capital and largest city and economic center of Peru; located in western Peru; was capital of the Spanish empire in the New World until the 19th century

• lime -  the green acidic fruit of any of various lime trees; any of various related trees bearing limes; any of various deciduous trees of the genus Tilia with heart-shaped leaves and drooping cymose clusters of yellowish often fragrant flowers; several yield valuable timber; a sticky adhesive that is smeared on small branches to capture small birds; a white crystalline oxide used in the production of calcium hydroxide; a caustic substance produced by heating limestone;  cover with lime so as to induce growth; spread birdlime on branches to catch birds

• Lincoln -  long-wooled mutton sheep originally from Lincolnshire; capital of the state of Nebraska; located in southeastern Nebraska; site of the University of Nebraska; 16th President of the United States; saved the Union during the American Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865)

• lingcod -  food fish of the northern Pacific related to greenlings; the lean flesh of a fish caught off the Pacific coast of the United States

• Linnaeus -  Swedish botanist who proposed the modern system of biological nomenclature (1707-1778)

• linoleic acid -  a liquid polyunsaturated fatty acid abundant in plant fats and oils; a fatty acid essential for nutrition; used to make soap

• linolenic acid -  a liquid polyunsaturated fatty acid that occurs in some plant oils; an essential fatty acid

• lipase -  an enzyme secreted in the digestive tract that catalyzes the breakdown of fats into individual fatty acids that can be absorbed into the bloodstream

• listeriosis -  an infectious disease of animals and humans (especially newborn or immunosuppressed persons) caused by the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes; in sheep and cattle the infection frequently involves the central nervous system and causes various neurological symptoms

• literature -  the profession or art of a writer; the humanistic study of a body of literature; creative writing of recognized artistic value; published writings in a particular style on a particular subject

• lithium -  a soft silver-white univalent element of the alkali metal group; the lightest metal known; occurs in several minerals

• liver -  having a reddish-brown color;  large and complicated reddish-brown glandular organ located in the upper right portion of the abdominal cavity; secretes bile and functions in metabolism of protein and carbohydrate and fat; synthesizes substances involved in the clotting of the blood; synthesizes vitamin A; detoxifies poisonous substances and breaks down worn-out erythrocytes; liver of an animal used as meat; someone who lives in a place; a person who has a special life style

• livestock -  not used technically; any animals kept for use or profit

• Loaf -  a shaped mass of baked bread;  be about; be lazy or idle

• loaf sugar -  a large conical loaf of concentrated refined sugar

• lobster -  any of several edible marine crustaceans of the families Homaridae and Nephropsidae and Palinuridae; flesh of a lobster

• Lombardy -  a region of north central Italy bordering Switzerland

• London -  the capital and largest city of England; located on the Thames in southeastern England; financial and industrial and cultural center; United States writer of novels based on experiences in the Klondike gold rush (1876-1916)

• longevity -  the property of being long-lived; duration of service

• loss -  the act of losing; the disadvantage that results from losing something; the experience of losing a loved one; the amount by which the cost of a business exceeds its revenue; something that is lost; gradual decline in amount or activity; euphemistic expressions for death; military personnel lost by death or capture

• lotus -  white Egyptian lotus: water lily of Egypt to southeastern Africa; held sacred by the Egyptians; native to eastern Asia; widely cultivated for its large pink or white flowers; annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs

• Louis IX -  king of France and son of Louis VIII; he led two unsuccessful crusades; considered an ideal medieval king (1214-1270)

• Louis XIV -  king of France from 1643 to 1715; his long reign was marked by the expansion of French influence in Europe and by the magnificence of his court and the Palace of Versailles (1638-1715)

• Love -  any object of warm affection or devotion; a deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction; a strong positive emotion of regard and affection; a score of zero in tennis or squash; sexual activities (often including sexual intercourse) between two people; a beloved person; used as terms of endearment;  have a great affection or liking for; be enamored or in love with; get pleasure from; have sexual intercourse with

• Low Countries -  the lowland region of western Europe on the North Sea: Belgium and Luxembourg and the Netherlands

• lox -  brine-cured salmon that is lightly smoked; a bluish translucent magnetic liquid obtained by compressing gaseous oxygen and then cooling it below its boiling point; used as an oxidizer in rocket propellants

• Lucullus -  Roman general famous for self-indulgence and giving lavish banquets (circa 110-57 BC)

• lunch -  a midday meal;  take the midday meal; provide a midday meal for

• lunching -  the act of eating lunch

• lust -  self-indulgent sexual desire (personified as one of the deadly sins); a strong sexual desire;  have a craving, appetite, or great desire for

• lutefisk -  dried cod soaked in a lye solution before boiling to give it a gelatinous consistency

• lutein -  yellow carotenoid pigments in plants and animal fats and egg yolks

• Lutheranism -  teachings of Martin Luther emphasizing the cardinal doctrine of justification by faith alone

• luxury -  something that is an indulgence rather than a necessity; wealth as evidenced by sumptuous living; the quality possessed by something that is excessively expensive

• lycopene -  carotenoid that makes tomatoes red; may lower the risk of prostate cancer

• lysine -  an essential amino acid found in proteins; occurs especially in gelatin and casein

• lysozyme -  an enzyme found in saliva and sweat and tears that destroys the cell walls of certain bacteria

• macaroni -  pasta in the form of slender tubes; a British dandy in the 18th century who affected Continental mannerisms

• mace -  a ceremonial staff carried as a symbol of office or authority; spice made from the dried fleshy covering of the nutmeg seed; (trademark) a liquid that temporarily disables a person; prepared as an aerosol and sprayed in the face, it irritates the eyes and causes dizziness and immobilization; an official who carries a mace of office

• Macedonia -  landlocked republic on the Balkan Peninsula; achieved independence from Yugoslavia in 1991; the ancient kingdom of Philip II and Alexander the Great in the southeastern Balkans that is now divided among modern Macedonia and Greece and Bulgaria

• Machu Picchu -  Inca fortress city in the Andes in Peru discovered in 1911; it may have been built in the 15th century

• mackerel -  any of various fishes of the family Scombridae; flesh of very important usually small (to 18 in) fatty Atlantic fish

• macrobiotics -  the theory of promoting health and longevity by means of diet (especially whole beans and grains)

• mad cow disease -  a fatal disease of cattle that affects the central nervous system; causes staggering and agitation

• magazine -  a storehouse (as a compartment on a warship) where weapons and ammunition are stored; product consisting of a paperback periodic publication as a physical object; a light-tight supply chamber holding the film and supplying it for exposure as required; a periodic publication containing pictures and stories and articles of interest to those who purchase it or subscribe to it; a business firm that publishes magazines; a metal frame or container holding cartridges; can be inserted into an automatic gun

• Magdalena -  a river that rises in the Andes mountains in southwestern Colombia and flows generally northward to empty into the Caribbean Sea at Barranquilla

• magic -  possessing or using or characteristic of or appropriate to supernatural powers;  any art that invokes supernatural powers; an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers

• Magna Carta -  the royal charter of political rights given to rebellious English barons by King John in 1215

• magnesium -  a light silver-white ductile bivalent metallic element; in pure form it burns with brilliant white flame; occurs naturally only in combination (as in magnesite and dolomite and carnallite and spinel and olivine)

• Magritte -  Belgian surrealist painter (1898-1967)

• maguey -  Philippine plant yielding a hard fibre used in making coarse twine; Mexican plant used especially for making pulque which is the source of the colorless Mexican liquor, mescal

• Mahabharata -  (Hinduism) a sacred epic Sanskrit poem of India dealing in many episodes with the struggle between two rival families

• Maimonides -  Spanish philosopher considered the greatest Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages who codified Jewish law in the Talmud (1135-1204)

• Maine -  a state in New England

• maize -  a strong yellow color; tall annual cereal grass bearing kernels on large ears: widely cultivated in America in many varieties; the principal cereal in Mexico and Central and South America since pre-Columbian times

• making -  (usually plural) the components needed for making or doing something; the act that results in something coming to be; an attribute that must be met or complied with and that fits a person for something

• malabsorption -  abnormal absorption of nutrients from the digestive tract

• malanga -  tropical American aroid having edible tubers that are cooked and eaten like yams or potatoes

• malaria -  an infective disease caused by sporozoan parasites that are transmitted through the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito; marked by paroxysms of chills and fever

• Malaysia -  a constitutional monarchy in southeastern Asia on Borneo and the Malay Peninsula; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1957

• mallow -  any of various plants of the family Malvaceae

• malnutrition -  a state of poor nutrition; can result from insufficient or excessive or unbalanced diet or from inability to absorb foods

• malt whiskey -  whiskey distilled in Scotland; especially whiskey made from malted barley in a pot still

• Malthus -  an English economist who argued that increases in population would outgrow increases in the means of subsistence (1766-1834)

• maltose -  a white crystalline sugar formed during the digestion of starches

• Manet -  French painter whose work influenced the impressionists (1832-1883)

• manganese -  a hard brittle grey polyvalent metallic element that resembles iron but is not magnetic; used in making steel; occurs in many minerals

• mangosteen -  two- to three-inch tropical fruit with juicy flesh suggestive of both peaches and pineapples; East Indian tree with thick leathery leaves and edible fruit

• manioc -  cassava with long tuberous edible roots and soft brittle stems; used especially to make cassiri (an intoxicating drink) and tapioca; cassava root eaten as a staple food after drying and leaching; source of tapioca; a starch made by leaching and drying the root of the cassava plant; the source of tapioca; a staple food in the tropics

• Mann -  German writer concerned about the role of the artist in bourgeois society (1875-1955); United States educator who introduced reforms that significantly altered the system of public education (1796-1859)

• manna -  hardened sugary exudation of various trees; (Old Testament) food that God gave the Israelites during the Exodus

• manners -  social deportment

• mannitol -  a diuretic (trade name Osmitrol) used to promote the excretion of urine

• manure -  any animal or plant material used to fertilize land especially animal excreta usually with litter material;  spread manure, as for fertilization

• manuscript -  the form of a literary work submitted for publication; handwritten book or document

• map -  a diagrammatic representation of the earth's surface (or part of it); a function such that for every element of one set there is a unique element of another set;  to establish a mapping (of mathematical elements or sets); explore or survey for the purpose of making a map; make a map of; show or establish the features of details of; depict as if on a map; plan, delineate, or arrange in detail; locate within a specific region of a chromosome in relation to known DNA or gene sequences

• maple syrup -  made by concentrating sap from sugar maples

• mara -  hare-like rodent of the pampas of Argentina; god of death; opposite of Kama

• marasmus -  extreme malnutrition and emaciation (especially in children); can result from inadequate intake of food or from malabsorption or metabolic disorders

• Mardi Gras -  a carnival held in some countries on Shrove Tuesday (the last day before Lent) but especially in New Orleans; the last day before Lent

• margarine -  a spread made chiefly from vegetable oils and used as a substitute for butter

• marginal -  being close to a lower limit or or of lower class; producing at a rate that barely covers production costs; of a bare living gained by great labor; at or constituting a border or edge; of questionable or minimal quality; just barely adequate or within a lower limit

• Maritime Provinces -  the collective name for the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island

• market -  the world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold; the securities markets in the aggregate; the customers for a particular product or service; a marketplace where groceries are sold;  engage in the commercial promotion, sale, or distribution of; deal in a market; buy household supplies; make commercial

• market gardening -  the growing of vegetables or flowers for market

• marmalade -  a preserve made of the pulp and rind of citrus fruits

• Marmite -  a large pot especially one with legs used e.g. for cooking soup; soup cooked in a large pot

• Marshall -  United States jurist; as chief justice of the Supreme Court he established the principles of United States constitutional law (1755-1835); United States general and statesman who as Secretary of State organized the European Recovery Program (1880-1959); United States actor (1914-1998); a law officer having duties similar to those of a sheriff in carrying out the judgments of a court of law; (in some countries) a military officer of highest rank

• Martial -  of or relating to the armed forces; (of persons) befitting a warrior; suggesting war or military life;  Roman poet noted for epigrams (first century BC)

• Martin -  any of various swallows with squarish or slightly forked tail and long pointed wings; migrate around Martinmas; United States singer (1917-1995); United States actress (1913-1990); United States actor and comedian (born in 1945); French bishop who is a patron saint of France (died in 397)

• martini -  a cocktail made of gin (or vodka) with dry vermouth

• Marx -  founder of modern communism; wrote the Communist Manifesto with Engels in 1848; wrote Das Kapital in 1867 (1818-1883); United States comedian; oldest of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1890-1977); United States comedian; one of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1891-1961); United States comedian; one of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1893-1964); United States comedian; one of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1901-1979)

• marzipan -  almond paste and egg whites

• Mason Jar -  a glass jar with an air-tight screw top; used in home canning

• mastitis -  inflammation of a breast (or udder)

• Matisse -  French painter and sculptor; leading figure of fauvism (1869-1954)

• matzo -  brittle flat bread eaten at Passover

• mayhaw -  hawthorn of southern United States bearing juicy acid scarlet fruit often used in jellies or preserves

• mayonnaise -  egg yolks and oil and vinegar

• Mead -  made of fermented honey and water; United States philosopher of pragmatism (1863-1931); United States anthropologist noted for her claims about adolescence and sexual behavior in Polynesian cultures (1901-1978)

• meat -  the flesh of animals (including fishes and birds and snails) used as food; the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience; the inner and usually edible part of a seed or grain or nut or fruit stone

• meat packing -  wholesale packaging of meat for future sale (including slaughtering and processing and distribution to retailers)

• medicine -  the learned profession that is mastered by graduate training in a medical school and that is devoted to preventing or alleviating or curing diseases and injuries; (medicine) something that treats or prevents or alleviates the symptoms of disease; the branches of medical science that deal with nonsurgical techniques; punishment for one's actions;  treat medicinally, treat with medicine

• medieval -  as if belonging to the Middle Ages; old-fashioned and unenlightened; relating to or belonging to the Middle Ages; characteristic of the time of chivalry and knighthood in the Middle Ages

• medlar -  crabapple-like fruit used for preserves; a South African globular fruit with brown leathery skin and pithy flesh having a sweet-acid taste; small deciduous Eurasian tree cultivated for its fruit that resemble crab apples; small deciduous tree of southern Africa having edible fruit

• melon -  any of numerous fruits of the gourd family having a hard rind and sweet juicy flesh; any of various fruit of cucurbitaceous vines including: muskmelons; watermelons; cantaloupes; cucumbers

• Melville -  United States writer of novels and short stories (1819-1891)

• men -  the force of workers available

• menhaden oil -  a fatty oil obtained from the menhaden fish and used in paint and ink and in treating leather

• mercury -  temperature measured by a mercury thermometer; the smallest planet and the nearest to the sun; (Roman mythology) messenger of Jupiter and god of commerce; counterpart of Greek Hermes; a heavy silvery toxic univalent and bivalent metallic element; the only metal that is liquid at ordinary temperatures

• Meredith -  English novelist and poet (1828-1909); United States civil rights leader whose college registration caused riots in traditionally segregated Mississippi (born in 1933)

• Merino -  white sheep originating in Spain and producing a heavy fleece of exceptional quality

• Merino sheep -  white sheep originating in Spain and producing a heavy fleece of exceptional quality

• Mesoamerica -  Mexico and Central America

• Mesopotamia -  the land between the Tigris and Euphrates; site of several ancient civilizations; part of what is now known as Iraq

• metabolic disorder -  a disorder or defect of metabolism

• metabolism -  the organic processes (in a cell or organism) that are necessary for life; the marked and rapid transformation of a larva into an adult that occurs in some animals

• methionine -  a crystalline amino acid containing sulfur; found in most proteins and essential for nutrition

• method -  a way of doing something, especially a systematic way; implies an orderly logical arrangement (usually in steps); an acting technique introduced by Stanislavsky in which the actor recalls emotions or reactions from his or her own life and uses them to identify with the character being portrayed

• Mexico -  a republic in southern North America; became independent from Spain in 1810

• Michael -  (Old Testament) the guardian archangel of the Jews

• Michelangelo -  Florentine sculptor and painter and architect; one of the outstanding figures of the Renaissance (1475-1564)

• Michigan -  a gambling card game in which chips are placed on the ace and king and queen and jack of separate suits (taken from a separate deck); a player plays the lowest card of a suit in his hand and successively higher cards are played until the sequence stops; the player who plays a card matching one in the layout wins all the chips on that card; a midwestern state in north central United States in the Great Lakes region; the 3rd largest of the Great Lakes; the largest freshwater lake entirely within the United States borders

• microbiology -  the branch of biology that studies microorganisms and their effects on humans

• Micronesia -  the islands in the northwestern part of Oceania; a country scattered over Micronesia with a constitutional government in free association with the United States; achieved independence in 1986

• microwave oven -  kitchen appliance that cooks food by passing an electromagnetic wave through it; heat results from the absorption of energy by the water molecules in the food

• Middle Ages -  the period of history between classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance

• Middle Atlantic -  of a region of the United States generally including Delaware; Maryland; Virginia; and usually New York; Pennsylvania; New Jersey

• Middle East -  the area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to Iran; the site of such ancient civilizations as Phoenicia and Babylon and Egypt and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and Islam; had continuous economic and political turmoil in the 20th century

• Midwest -  the north central region of the United States (sometimes called the heartland or the breadbasket of America)

• Milan -  the capital of Lombardy in northern Italy; has been an international center of trade and industry since the Middle Ages

• mile -  a footrace extending one mile; a unit of length equal to 1760 yards; a Swedish unit of length equivalent to 10 km; an ancient Roman unit of length equivalent to 1620 yards; a large distance; a unit of length used in navigation; equivalent to the distance spanned by one minute of arc in latitude; 1,852 meters; a British unit of length equivalent to 1,853.18 meters (6,082 feet); a former British unit of length once used in navigation; equivalent to 1828.8 meters (6000 feet)

• milk -  produced by mammary glands of female mammals for feeding their young; a white nutritious liquid secreted by mammals and used as food by human beings; any of several nutritive milklike liquids; a river that rises in the Rockies in northwestern Montana and flows eastward to become a tributary of the Missouri River;  take milk from female mammals; add milk to; exploit as much as possible

• milk thistle -  tall Old World biennial thistle with large clasping white-blotched leaves and purple flower heads; naturalized in California and South America; any of several Old World coarse prickly-leaved shrubs and subshrubs having milky juice and yellow flowers; widely naturalized; often noxious weeds in cultivated soil

• Miller -  machine tool in which metal that is secured to a carriage is fed against rotating cutters that shape it; someone who works in a mill (especially a grain mill); United States playwright (born 1915); United States novelist whose novels were originally banned as pornographic (1891-1980); United States bandleader of a popular big band (1909-1944); any of various moths that have powdery wings

• millet -  small seed of any of various annual cereal grasses especially Setaria italica; French painter of rural scenes (1814-1875); any of various small-grained annual cereal and forage grasses of the genera Panicum, Echinochloa, Setaria, Sorghum, and Eleusine

• milling -  corrugated edge of a coin

• mills -  United States architect who was the presidentially appointed architect of Washington D.C. (1781-1855)

• Milton -  English poet; remembered primarily as the author of an epic poem describing humanity's fall from grace (1608-1674)

• miner's lettuce -  succulent herb sometimes grown as a salad or pot herb; grows on dunes and waste ground of Pacific coast of North America

• mint -  as if new;  a plant where money is coined by authority of the government; a candy that is flavored with a mint oil; the leaves of a mint plant used fresh or candied; any north temperate plant of the genus Mentha with aromatic leaves and small mauve flowers; (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent;  form by stamping, punching, or printing

• mint family -  the mints: aromatic herbs and shrubs having flowers resembling the lips of a mouth and four-lobed ovaries yielding four one-seeded nutlets and including thyme; sage; rosemary

• Mitchell -  United States dancer who formed the first Black classical ballet company (born in 1934); United States labor leader; president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1898 to 1908 (1870-1919); United States writer noted for her novel about the South during the American Civil War (1900-1949); United States astronomer who studied sunspots and nebulae (1818-1889); United States aviator and general who was an early advocate of military air power (1879-1936); English aeronautical engineer (1895-1937)

• mithan -  ox of southeast Asia sometimes considered a domesticated breed of the gaur

• model -  worthy of imitation;  the act of representing something (usually on a smaller scale); representation of something (sometimes on a smaller scale); a type of product; a hypothetical description of a complex entity or process; a representative form or pattern; a person who poses for a photographer or painter or sculptor; someone worthy of imitation; something to be imitated; a woman who wears clothes to display fashions;  form in clay, wax, etc; construct a model of; create a representation or model of; plan or create according to a model or models; display (clothes) as a mannequin; assume a posture as for artistic purposes

• modern -  characteristic of present-day art and music and literature and architecture; used of a living language; being the current stage in its development; belonging to the modern era; since the Middle Ages; relating to a recently developed fashion or style; ahead of the times;  a typeface (based on an 18th century design by Gianbattista Bodoni) distinguished by regular shape and hairline serifs and heavy downstrokes; a contemporary person

• Modern Times -  the circumstances and ideas of the present age

• molasses -  thick dark syrup produced by boiling down juice from sugar cane; especially during sugar refining

• mold -  container into which liquid is poured to create a given shape when it hardens; sculpture produced by molding; a fungus that produces a superficial growth on various kinds of damp or decaying organic matter; loose soil rich in organic matter; the process of becoming mildewed; the distinctive form in which a thing is made;  become moldy; spoil due to humidity; fit tightly, follow the contours of; shape or influence; give direction to; make something, usually for a specific function; form by pouring (e.g., wax or hot metal) into a cast or mold; form in clay, wax, etc

• mole -  small velvety-furred burrowing mammal having small eyes and fossorial forefeet; a small congenital pigmented spot on the skin; spicy sauce often containing chocolate; a protective structure of stone or concrete; extends from shore into the water to prevent a beach from washing away; a spy who works against enemy espionage; the molecular weight of a substance expressed in grams; the basic unit of amount of substance adopted under the Systeme International d'Unites

• molybdenum -  a polyvalent metallic element that resembles chromium and tungsten in its properties; used to strengthen and harden steel

• monkfish -  flesh of a large-headed anglerfish of the Atlantic waters of North America; sharks with broad flat bodies and winglike pectoral fins but that swim the way sharks do; fishes having large mouths with a wormlike filament attached for luring prey

• monoculture -  the cultivation of a single crop (on a farm or area or country)

• mood -   inflections that express how the action or state is conceived by the speaker; a characteristic (habitual or relatively temporary) state of feeling; the prevailing psychological state

• moose -  large northern deer with enormous flattened antlers in the male; called `elk' in Europe and `moose' in North America

• morality -  concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct; motivation based on ideas of right and wrong

• morning sickness -  nausea early in the day; a characteristic symptom in the early months of pregnancy

• Morocco -  a kingdom (constitutional monarchy) in northwestern Africa with a largely Muslim population; achieved independence from France in 1956; a soft pebble-grained leather made from goatskin; used for shoes and book bindings etc.

• morphology -  the branch of biology that deals with the structure of animals and plants; the branch of geology that studies the characteristics and configuration and evolution of rocks and land forms; the admissible arrangement of sounds in words; studies of the rules for forming admissible words

• Morrison -  United States writer whose novels describe the lives of African-Americans (born in 1931); United States rock singer (1943-1971)

• Morton -  United States jazz musician who moved from ragtime to New Orleans jazz (1885-1941)

• Moscow -  a city of central European Russia; formerly capital of both the Soviet Union and Soviet Russia; since 1991 the capital of the Russian Federation

• Mote -  (nontechnical usage) a tiny piece of anything

• mouflon -  wild mountain sheep of Corsica and Sardinia

• mouth -  the opening of a jar or bottle; the externally visible part of the oral cavity on the face and the system of organs surrounding the opening; the opening through which food is taken in and vocalizations emerge; the point where a stream issues into a larger body of water; an opening that resembles a mouth (as of a cave or a gorge); a person conceived as a consumer of food; an impudent or insolent rejoinder; a spokesperson (as a lawyer);  articulate silently; form words with the lips only; touch with the mouth; express in speech

• movement -  the act of changing the location of something; the driving and regulating parts of a mechanism (as of a watch or clock); a major self-contained part of a symphony or sonata; a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something; a group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals; the act of changing location from one place to another; a change of position that does not entail a change of location; a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end; a general tendency to change (as of opinion); an optical illusion of motion produced by viewing a rapid succession of still pictures of a moving object; a euphemism for defecation

• Mozambique -  a republic on the southeastern coast of Africa on the Mozambique Channel; became independent from Portugal in 1975

• Mozart -  the music of Mozart; prolific Austrian composer and child prodigy; master of the classical style in all its forms of his time (1756-1791)

• mozzarella -  mild white Italian cheese

• Muenster -  semisoft pale-yellow cheese

• muesli -  mixture of untoasted dry cereals and fruits

• mulch -  a protective covering of rotting vegetable matter spread to reduce evaporation and soil erosion;  cover with mulch

• mulled wine -  wine heated with sugar and spices and often citrus fruit

• mullet -  bottom dwelling marine warm water fishes with two barbels on the chin; freshwater or coastal food fishes a spindle-shaped body; found worldwide; highly valued lean flesh of marine or freshwater mullet

• multiculturalism -  the doctrine that several different cultures (rather than one national culture) can coexist peacefully and equitably in a single country

• Murray -  an southeast Australian river; flows westward and then south into the Indian Ocean at Adelaide; Scottish philologist and the lexicographer who shaped the Oxford English Dictionary (1837-1915); British classical scholar (born in Australia) who advocated the League of Nations and the United Nations (1866-1957)

• mustard -  leaves eaten as cooked greens; pungent powder or paste prepared from ground mustard seeds; any of several cruciferous plants of the genus Brassica

• mustard greens -  leaves eaten as cooked greens

• mutton -  meat from a mature domestic sheep; the square of a body of any size of type

• Myanmar -  a mountainous republic in southeastern Asia on the Bay of Bengal

• Myrtaceae -  trees and shrubs yielding a fragrant oil

• myrtle family -  trees and shrubs yielding a fragrant oil

• mysticism -  obscure or irrational thought; a religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality

• NADP -  a coenzyme similar to NAD and present in most living cells but serves as a reductant in different metabolic processes

• NAFTA -  an agreement for free trade between the United States and Canada and Mexico; became effective in 1994 for ten years

• naming -  inclined to or serving for the giving of names;  the al act of naming; the act of putting a person into a non-elective position

• Naples -  a port and tourist center in southwestern Italy; capital of the Campania region

• nardoo -  Australian clover fern

• NASA -  an independent agency of the United States government responsible for aviation and spaceflight

• natural -  being talented through inherited qualities; related by blood; not adopted; in accordance with nature; relating to or concerning nature; existing in or produced by nature; not artificial or imitation; existing in or in conformity with nature or the observable world; neither supernatural nor magical; (of a key) containing no sharps or flats; (of a note) being neither raised nor lowered by one chromatic semitone; functioning or occurring in a normal way; lacking abnormalities or deficiencies; (used especially of commodities) being unprocessed or manufactured using only simple or minimal processes; unthinking; prompted by (or as if by) instinct; free from artificiality;  (craps) a first roll of 7 or 11 that immediately wins the stake; a notation cancelling a previous sharp or flat; someone regarded as certain to succeed

• Natural history -  the scientific study of plants or animals (more observational than experimental) usually published in popular magazines rather than in academic journals

• nature -  the complex of emotional and intellectual attributes that determine a person's characteristic actions and reactions; the essential qualities or characteristics by which something is recognized; a particular type of thing; the natural physical world including plants and animals and landscapes etc.; a causal agent creating and controlling things in the universe

• Navajo -  the Athapaskan language spoken by the Navaho; a member of an Athapaskan people that migrated to Arizona and New Mexico and Utah

• Neanderthal -  relating to or belonging to or resembling Neanderthal man; ill-mannered and coarse and contemptible in behavior or appearance;  extinct robust human of Middle Paleolithic in Europe and western Asia

• Near East -  the area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to Iran; the site of such ancient civilizations as Phoenicia and Babylon and Egypt and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and Islam; had continuous economic and political turmoil in the 20th century

• needs - adv. in such a manner as could not be otherwise

• Nepal -  a small landlocked Asian country high in the Himalayas between India and China

• Neruda -  Chilean poet (1904-1973)

• Netherlands -  a constitutional monarchy in western Europe on the North Sea; half the country lies below sea level

• New Brunswick -  a province in southeastern Canada; a university town in central New Jersey

• New Caledonia -  an island east of Australia and north of New Zealand

• New Deal -  a reapportioning of something; the economic policy of F. D. Roosevelt; the historic period (1933-1940) in the United States during which President Franklin Roosevelt's economic policies were implemented

• New England -  a region of northeastern United States comprising Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont and Massachusetts and Rhode Island and Connecticut

• New Guinea -  a Pacific island north of Australia; the 2nd largest island in the world; governed by Australia and Indonesia

• New World -  of or relating to the New World;  the hemisphere that includes North America and South America

• New Year's Day -  the first day of the year

• New Year's Eve -  the last day of the year

• New York -  a Mid-Atlantic state; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the British colonies that formed the United States; the largest city in New York State and in the United States; located in southeastern New York at the mouth of the Hudson river; a major financial and cultural center

• New York City -  the largest city in New York State and in the United States; located in southeastern New York at the mouth of the Hudson river; a major financial and cultural center

• New York state -  a Mid-Atlantic state; one of the original 13 colonies

• New Zealand -  North Island and South Island and adjacent small islands in the South Pacific; an independent country within the British Commonwealth; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1907; known for sheep and spectacular scenery

• Newfoundland -  a breed of very large heavy dogs with a thick coarse usually black coat; highly intelligent and vigorous swimmers; developed in Newfoundland; an island in the north Atlantic

• niacin -  a B vitamin essential for the normal function of the nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract

• Nicaragua -  a republic in Central America; achieved independence from Spain in 1821

• nickel -  a United States coin worth one twentieth of a dollar; five dollars worth of a drug; a hard malleable ductile silvery metallic element that is resistant to corrosion; used in alloys; occurs in pentlandite and smaltite and garnierite and millerite;  plate with nickel

• nicotine -  an alkaloid poison that occurs in tobacco; used in medicine and as an insecticide

• nicotinic acid -  a B vitamin essential for the normal function of the nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract

• Nigeria -  a republic in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea; gained independence from Britain in 1960; most populous African country

• nitrogen -  a common nonmetallic element that is normally a colorless odorless tasteless inert diatomic gas; constitutes 78 percent of the atmosphere by volume; a constituent of all living tissues

• NOAA -  an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; provides weather reports and forecasts floods and hurricanes and other natural disasters related to weather

• nonessential -  not of prime or central importance;  anything that is not essential

• nopal -  any of several cacti of the genus Nopalea resembling prickly pears; cactus having yellow flowers and purple fruits

• Nordic -  resembling peoples of Scandinavia; relating to Germany and Scandinavia; of or relating to or constituting the Scandinavian group of languages;  the northern family of Germanic languages that are spoken in Scandinavia and Iceland

• North Africa -  an area of northern Africa between the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea

• North America -  the nations of the North American continent collectively; a continent (the third largest) in the western hemisphere connected to South America by the Isthmus of Panama

• North Korea -  a communist country in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula; established in 1948

• Northern Europe -  the northernmost countries of Europe

• Norway -  a constitutional monarchy in northern Europe on the western side of the Scandinavian Peninsula; achieved independence from Sweden in 1905

• nostalgia -  longing for something past

• Nostradamus -  French astrologer who wrote cryptic predictions whose interpretations are still being debated (1503-1566)

• nougat -  nuts or fruit pieces in a sugar paste

• nouvelle cuisine -  a school of French cooking that uses light sauces and tries to bring out the natural flavors of foods instead of making heavy use of butter and cream

• Nova Scotia -  the Canadian province in the Maritimes consisting of the Nova Scotia peninsula and Cape Breton Island; French settlers who called the area Acadia were exiled to Louisiana by the British in the 1750s and their descendants are know as Cajuns; a peninsula in eastern Canada between the Bay of Fundy and the Saint Lawrence River

• novel -  pleasantly new or different; original and of a kind not seen before;  a printed and bound book that is an extended work of fiction; a extended fictional work in prose; usually in the form of a story

• Nunavut -  an Arctic territory in northern Canada created in 1999 and governed solely by the Inuit; includes the eastern part of what was the Northwest Territories and most of the islands of the Arctic Archipelago

• nutmeg -  hard aromatic seed of the nutmeg tree used as spice when grated or ground; East Indian tree widely cultivated in the tropics for its aromatic seed; source of two spices: nutmeg and mace

• nutrition -  the scientific study of food and drink (especially in humans); (physiology) the organic process of nourishing or being nourished; the processes by which an organism assimilates food and uses it for growth and maintenance; a source of materials to nourish the body

• nutritional -  of or relating to or providing nutrition

• nuts -  informal or slang terms for mentally irregular

• obesity -  more than average fatness

• oca -  South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers

• Oceania -  a large group of islands in the south Pacific including Melanesia and Micronesia and Polynesia (and sometimes Australasia and the Malay Archipelago)

• octopus -  bottom-living cephalopod having a soft oval body with eight long tentacles; tentacles of octopus prepared as food

• Odyssey -  a long wandering and eventful journey; a Greek epic poem (attributed to Homer) describing the journey of Odysseus after the fall of Troy

• oil -  oil paint containing pigment that is used by an artist; a slippery or viscous liquid or liquefiable substance not miscible with water; any of a group of liquid edible fats that are obtained from plants;  cover with oil, as if by rubbing; administer an oil or ointment to ; often in a religious ceremony of blessing

• ois -  agency that oversees the intelligence relationships of the Treasury's offices and bureaus and provides a link between the Intelligence Community and officials responsible for international economic policy

• okra -  tall coarse annual of Old World tropics widely cultivated in southern United States and West Indies for its long mucilaginous green pods used as basis for soups and stews; sometimes placed in genus Hibiscus; long green edible beaked pods of the okra plant; long mucilaginous green pods; may be simmered or sauteed but used especially in soups and stews

• Oktoberfest -  an autumn festival that involves merrymaking and drinking beer; a strong lager made originally in Germany for the Oktoberfest celebration; sweet and copper-colored

• Olduvai Gorge -  a gorge in northeastern Tanzania where anthropologists have found some of the earliest human remains

• oleic acid -  a colorless oily liquid occurring as a glyceride; it is the major fatty acid in olive oil and canola oil; used in making soap and cosmetics and ointments and lubricating oils

• olive -  of a yellow-green color similar to that of an unripe olive;  a yellow-green color of low brightness and saturation; one-seeded fruit of the European olive tree usually pickled and used as a relish; hard yellow often variegated wood of an olive tree; used in cabinetwork; evergreen tree cultivated in the Mediterranean region since antiquity and now elsewhere; has edible shiny black fruits; small ovoid fruit of the European olive tree; important food and source of oil

• olive oil -  oil from olives

• omega -  the last (24th) letter of the Greek alphabet; the ending of a series or sequence

• onion -  an aromatic flavorful bulb; bulbous plant having hollow leaves cultivated worldwide for its rounded edible bulb; edible bulb of an onion plant

• onion bagel -  bagel flavored with onion

• Ontario -  a prosperous and industrialized province in central Canada; the smallest of the Great Lakes

• open-hearth -  of or relating to or produced by the open-hearth process

• Opera -  a building where musical dramas are performed; a commercial browser; a drama set to music; consists of singing with orchestral accompaniment and an orchestral overture and interludes

• orach -  any of various herbaceous plants of the genus Atriplex that thrive in deserts and salt marshes

• orange juice -  bottled or freshly squeezed juice of oranges

• Oregon -  a state in northwestern United States on the Pacific

• Organ -  wind instrument whose sound is produced by means of pipes arranged in sets supplied with air from a bellows and controlled from a large complex musical keyboard; a fully differentiated structural and functional unit in an animal that is specialized for some particular function; a periodical that is published by a special interest group; a government agency or instrument devoted to the performance of some specific function; (music) an electronic simulation of a pipe organ; a free-reed instrument in which air is forced through the reeds by bellows

• organic -  involving or affecting physiology or bodily organs; simple and healthful and close to nature; relating or belonging to the class of chemical compounds having a carbon basis; being or relating to or derived from or having properties characteristic of living organisms; of or relating to foodstuff grown or raised without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides or hormones; of or relating to or derived from living organisms; constitutional in the structure of something (especially your physical makeup);  a fertilizer that is derived from animal or vegetable matter

• original -  not derived or copied or translated from something else; preceding all others in time or being as first made or performed; being or productive of something fresh and unusual; or being as first made or thought of; (of e.g. information) not secondhand or by way of something intermediary;  an original model on which something is patterned; an original creation (i.e., an audio recording) from which copies can be made

• ormer -  an abalone found near the Channel Islands

• Orwell -  imaginative British writer concerned with social justice (1903-1950)

• Osiris -  Egyptian god of the underworld and judge of the dead; husband and sister of Isis; father of Horus

• osteomalacia -  abnormal softening of bones caused by deficiencies of phosphorus or calcium or vitamin D

• osteoporosis -  abnormal loss of bony tissue resulting in fragile porous bones attributable to a lack of calcium; most common in postmenopausal women

• ostrich -  fast-running African flightless bird with two-toed feet; largest living bird; a person who refuses to face reality or recognize the truth (a reference to the popular notion that the ostrich hides from danger by burying its head in the sand)

• Ovid -  Roman poet remembered for his elegiac verses on love (43 BC - AD 17)

• Oviedo -  a city in northwestern Spain near the Cantabrian Mountains

• oxygen -  a nonmetallic bivalent element that is normally a colorless odorless tasteless nonflammable diatomic gas; constitutes 21 percent of the atmosphere by volume; the most abundant element in the earth's crust

• paca -  large burrowing rodent of South America and Central America; highly esteemed as food

• Pacific Northwest -  a region of the northwestern United States usually including Washington and Oregon and sometimes southwestern British Columbia

• packaged -  enclosed in a package or protective covering

• packaging -  the business of packing; material used to make packages; a message issued in behalf of some product or cause or idea or person or institution

• packing -  carrying something in a pack on the back; the enclosure of something in a package or box; any material used especially to protect something

• paella -  saffron-flavored dish made of rice with shellfish and chicken

• page -  one side of one leaf (of a book or magazine or newspaper or letter etc.) or the written or pictorial matter it contains; in medieval times a youth acting as a knight's attendant as the first stage in training for knighthood; a youthful attendant at official functions or ceremonies such as legislative functions and weddings; a boy who is employed to run errands; United States diplomat and writer about the Old South (1853-1922); English industrialist who pioneered in the design and manufacture of aircraft (1885-1962);  call out somebody's name over a P.A. system; work as a page; number the pages of a book or manuscript

• Pahlavi -  the script (derived from the Aramaic alphabet) used to write the Pahlavi language; the Iranian language of the Zoroastrian literature of the 3rd to 10th centuries; Shah of Iran who was deposed in 1979 by Islamic fundamentalists (1919-1980)

• Pakistan -  a Muslim republic that occupies the heartland of ancient south Asian civilization in the Indus River valley; formerly part of India; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1947

• palm oil -  oil from nuts of oil palms especially the African oil palm

• Palmer -  United States golfer (born in 1929)

• palmitic acid -  a saturated fatty acid that is the major fat in meat and dairy products

• Panama -  a republic on the Isthmus of Panama; achieved independence from Colombia in 1903; a stiff hat made of straw with a flat crown

• Pancake Day -  the last day before Lent

• pancreas -  a large elongated exocrine gland located behind the stomach; secretes pancreatic juice and insulin

• pantothenic acid -  a vitamin of the vitamin B complex that performs an important role in the oxidation of fats and carbohydrates and certain amino acids; occurs in many foods

• papa -  an informal term for a father; probably derived from baby talk

• paprika -  a mild powdered seasoning made from dried pimientos; plant bearing large mild thick-walled usually bell-shaped fruits; the principal salad peppers

• Papua New Guinea -  a parliamentary democracy on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea

• papyrus -  a document written on papyrus; tall sedge of the Nile valley yielding fiber that served many purposes in historic times; paper made from the papyrus plant by cutting it in strips and pressing it flat; used by ancient Egyptians and Greeks and Romans

• Paracelsus -  Swiss physician who introduced treatments of particular illnesses based on his observation and experience; he saw illness as having an external cause (rather than an imbalance of humors) and replaced traditional remedies with chemical remedies (1493-1541)

• Paraguay -  a landlocked republic in south central South America; achieved independence from Spain in 1811

• Paris -  the capital and largest city of France; and international center of culture and commerce; a town in northeastern Texas; (Greek mythology) the prince of Troy who abducted Helen from her husband Menelaus and provoked the Trojan War; sometimes placed in subfamily Trilliaceae

• Parker -  United States writer noted for her sharp wit (1893-1967); United States saxophonist and leader of the bop style of jazz (1920-1955)

• Parkinson -  British historian noted for ridicule of bureaucracies (1909-1993); English surgeon (1755-1824)

• parsley -  aromatic herb with flat or crinkly leaves that are cut finely and used to garnish food; annual or perennial herb with aromatic leaves

• Partridge -  small Old World gallinaceous game birds; flesh of either quail or grouse; valued as a game bird in eastern United States and Canada; a popular North American game bird; named for its call; heavy-bodied small-winged South American game bird resembling a gallinaceous bird but related to the ratite birds

• passion fruit -  egg-shaped tropical fruit of certain passionflower vines; used for sherbets and confectionery and drinks

• Passover -  (Judaism) a Jewish festival (traditionally 8 days from Nissan 15) celebrating the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt

• pasta -  shaped and dried dough made from flour and water and sometimes egg; a dish that contains pasta as its main ingredient

• paste -  an adhesive made from water and flour or starch; used on paper and paperboard; any mixture of a soft and malleable consistency; a tasty mixture to be spread on bread or crackers;  cover the surface of; hit with the fists; join or attach with or as if with glue

• Pasteur -  French chemist and biologist whose discovery that fermentation is caused by microorganisms resulted in the process of pasteurization (1822-1895)

• pasteurization -  partial sterilization of foods at a temperature that destroys harmful microorganisms without major changes in the chemistry of the food

• pastis -  similar to absinthe but containing no wormwood

• pastry -  any of various baked foods made of dough or batter; a dough of flour and water and shortening

• Patent Office -  the government bureau in the Department of Commerce that keeps a record of patents and trademarks and grants new ones

• Patten -  footwear usually with wooden soles

• pea -  seed of a pea plant used for food; a leguminous plant of the genus Pisum with small white flowers and long green pods containing edible green seeds; the fruit or seed of a pea plant

• Peace Corps -  a civilian organization sponsored by the United States government; helps people in developing countries

• peach Melba -  ice cream and peaches with a liqueur

• peanut -  of little importance or influence or power; of minor status;  pod of the peanut vine containing usually 2 nuts or seeds; `groundnut' and `monkey nut' are British terms; a young child who is small for his age; widely cultivated American plant cultivated in tropical and warm regions; showy yellow flowers on stalks that bend over to the soil so that seed pods ripen underground; underground pod of the peanut vine

• peanut butter -  a spread made from ground peanuts

• peanuts -  an insignificant sum of money; a trifling amount

• pearl millet -  tall grass having cattail like spikes; grown in Africa and Asia for its grain and in the United States chiefly for forage; sometimes used in making beer

• pease pudding -  a pudding made with strained split peas mixed with egg

• pectic -  of or relating to or derived from pectin

• pectin -  any of various water-soluble colloidal carbohydrates that occur in ripe fruit and vegetables; used in making fruit jellies and jams

• Peking -  capital of the People's Republic of China in the Hebei province in northeastern China; 2nd largest Chinese city

• pellagra -  a disease caused by deficiency of niacin or tryptophan (or by a defect in the metabolic conversion of tryptophan to niacin); characterized by gastrointestinal disturbances and erythema and nervous or mental disorders; may be caused by malnutrition or alcoholism or other nutritional impairments

• pemmican -  lean dried meat pounded fine and mixed with melted fat; used especially by North American Indians

• Pennsylvania -  a Mid-Atlantic state; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the British colonies that formed the United States; a university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

• Pennsylvania Dutch -  a dialect of High German spoken in parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland

• penuche -  fudge made with brown sugar and butter and milk and nuts

• people -  (plural) any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively; members of a family line; the body of citizens of a state or country; the common people generally;  fill with people or supply with inhabitants; furnish with people

• pepper -  sweet and hot varieties of fruits of plants of the genus Capsicum; pungent seasoning from the berry of the common pepper plant of East India; use whole or ground; climber having dark red berries (peppercorns) when fully ripe; southern India and Sri Lanka; naturalized in northern Burma and Assam; any of various tropical plants of the genus Capsicum bearing peppers;  attack and bombard with or as if with missiles; add pepper to

• Pepsi -  Pepsi Cola is a trademarked cola

• pepsin -  an enzyme produced in the stomach that splits proteins into peptones

• perception -  the process of perceiving; knowledge gained by perceiving; a way of conceiving something; becoming aware of something via the senses; the representation of what is perceived; basic component in the formation of a concept

• perch -  any of numerous spiny-finned fishes of various families of the order Perciformes; spiny-finned freshwater food and game fishes; support consisting of a branch or rod that serves as a resting place (especially for a bird); any of numerous fishes of America and Europe; an elevated place serving as a seat; a square rod of land; a linear measure of 16.5 feet;  sit, as on a branch; cause to perch or sit; to come to rest, settle

• percolator -  a coffeepot in which boiling water ascends through a central tube and filters back down through a basket of ground coffee beans

• Pericles -  Athenian statesman whose leadership contributed to Athens' political and cultural supremacy in Greece; he ordered the construction of the Parthenon (died in 429 BC)

• Persephone -  (Greek mythology) daughter of Zeus and Demeter; made queen of the underworld by Pluto in ancient mythology; identified with Roman Proserpina

• Peru -  a republic in western South America; achieved independence from Spain in 1821; was the heart of the Inca empire from the 12th to 16th centuries

• pesticide -  a chemical used to kill pests (as rodents or insects)

• pesto -  a sauce typically served with pasta; contains crushed basil leaves and garlic and pine nuts and Parmesan cheese in olive oil

• Peter the Great -  czar of Russia who introduced ideas from western Europe to reform the government; he extended his territories in the Baltic and founded St. Petersburg (1682-1725)

• Petronius -  Roman satirist (died in 66)

• peyote -  the hallucinatory alkaloid that is the active agent in mescal buttons; a small spineless globe-shaped cactus; source of mescal buttons

• pharmacokinetics -  the study of the action of drugs in the body: method and rate of excretion; duration of effect; etc.

• pheasant -  large long-tailed gallinaceous bird native to the Old World but introduced elsewhere; flesh of a pheasant; usually braised

• phenomenon -  any state or process known through the senses rather than by intuition or reasoning; a remarkable development

• phenylalanine -  an essential amino acid found in proteins and needed for growth of children and for protein metabolism in children and adults; abundant in milk and eggs; it is normally converted to tyrosine in the human body

• phenylketonuria -  a genetic disorder of metabolism; lack of the enzyme needed to turn phenylalanine into tyrosine results in an accumulation of phenylalanine in the body fluids which causes various degrees of mental deficiency

• Philadelphia -  the largest city in Pennsylvania; located in the southeastern part of the state on the Delaware river; site of Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed; site of the University of Pennsylvania

• Philip -  Englishman and husband of Elizabeth II (born 1921)

• Philippines -  an archipelago in the southwestern Pacific including some 7000 islands; a republic on the Philippine Islands; achieved independence from the United States in 1946

• phosphorus -  a multivalent nonmetallic element of the nitrogen family that occurs commonly in inorganic phosphate rocks and as organic phosphates in all living cells; is highly reactive and occurs in several allotropic forms; a planet (usually Venus) seen just before sunrise in the eastern sky

• photosynthesis -  synthesis of compounds with the aid of radiant energy (especially in plants)

• phylloxera -  type genus of the Phylloxeridae: plant lice

• pica -  magpies; eating earth or clay or chalk; occurs in some primitive tribes or sometimes in cases of nutritional deficiency; a linear unit (1/6 inch) used in printing

• pickled -  (used of foods) preserved in a pickling liquid

• picnic -  any informal meal eaten outside or on an excursion; any undertaking that is easy to do; a day devoted to an outdoor social gathering;  eat alfresco, in the open air

• pie -  dish baked in pastry-lined pan often with a pastry top; a prehistoric unrecorded language that was the ancestor of all Indo-European languages

• Piedmont -  the region of northwestern Italy; includes the Po valley; the plateau between the coastal plain and the Appalachian Mountains: parts of Virginia and North and South Carolina and Georgia and Alabama

• pig -  a crude block of metal (lead or iron) poured from a smelting furnace; domestic swine; mold consisting of a bed of sand in which pig iron is cast; uncomplimentary terms for a policeman; a person regarded as greedy and pig-like; a coarse obnoxious person;  live like a pig, in squalor; give birth; eat greedily

• pigeon -  wild and domesticated birds having a heavy body and short legs

• pigweed -  leaves sometimes used as potherbs; seeds used as cereal; southern United States to Central America; India and China; leaves collected from the wild; common weedy European plant introduced into North America; often used as a potherb

• pilaf -  rice cooked in well-seasoned broth with onions or celery and usually poultry or game or shellfish and sometimes tomatoes

• Pilsen -  a town in Czech Republic where Pilsner beer originated

• pilsner -  a pale lager with strong flavor of hops; first brewed in the Bohemian town of Pilsen

• pimento -  fully ripened sweet red pepper; usually cooked; plant bearing large mild thick-walled usually bell-shaped fruits; the principal salad peppers

• pineapple -  large sweet fleshy tropical fruit with a terminal tuft of stiff leaves; widely cultivated; a tropical American plant bearing a large fleshy edible fruit with a terminal tuft of stiff leaves; widely cultivated in the tropics

• pirogi -  small fruit or meat turnover baked or fried

• pirozhki -  small fruit or meat turnover baked or fried

• Pisum sativum -  plant producing peas usually eaten fresh rather than dried

• pizza -  Italian open pie made of thin bread dough spread with a spiced mixture of e.g. tomato sauce and cheese

• planting -  putting seeds or young plants in the ground to grow; the act of fixing firmly in place; a collection of plants (trees or shrubs or flowers) in a particular area

• plasmin -  an enzyme that dissolves the fibrin of blood clots

• Plato -  ancient Athenian philosopher; pupil of Socrates; teacher of Aristotle (428-347 BC)

• pleasure -  sexual gratification; an activity that affords enjoyment; a formal expression; a fundamental feeling that is hard to define but that people desire to experience; something or someone that provides pleasure; a source of happiness

• Pliny -  Roman author of an encyclopedic natural history; died while observing the eruption of Vesuvius (23-79); Roman writer and nephew of Pliny the Elder; author of books of letters that commented on affairs of the day (62-113)

• Pliny the Elder -  Roman author of an encyclopedic natural history; died while observing the eruption of Vesuvius (23-79)

• plum pudding -  a rich steamed or boiled pudding that resembles cake

• Plutarch -  Greek biographer who wrote Parallel Lives (46?-120 AD)

• Plzen -  a town in Czech Republic where Pilsner beer originated

• poached -  cooked in hot water

• poaching -  cooking in simmering liquid

• poetry -  literature in metrical form; any communication resembling poetry in beauty or the evocation of feeling

• Point -  sharp end; a wall socket; the gun muzzle's direction; an outstanding characteristic; a distinguishing or individuating characteristic; the property of a shape that tapers to a sharp tip; a geometric element that has position but no extension; the object of an activity; a brief version of the essential meaning of something; a V-shaped mark at one end of an arrow pointer; the precise location of something; a spatially limited location; a promontory extending out into a large body of water; the unit of counting in scoring a game or contest; a linear unit used to measure the size of type; approximately 1/72 inch; a style in speech or writing that arrests attention and has a penetrating or convincing quality or effect; a V shape; a very small circular shape; an instant of time; a contact in the distributor; as the rotor turns its projecting arm contacts them and current flows to the spark plugs; an isolated fact that is considered separately from the whole; a distinct part that can be specified separately in a group of things that could be enumerated on a list; a punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations; any of 32 horizontal directions indicated on the card of a compass; a specific identifiable position in a continuum or series or especially in a process;  repair the joints of bricks; be positionable in a specified manner; mark (a psalm text) to indicate the points at which the music changes; mark with diacritics; mark (Hebrew words) with diacritics; give a point to; be a signal for or a symptom of; indicate a place, direction, person, or thing; either spatially or figuratively; intend (something) to move towards a certain goal; direct into a position for use; sail close to the wind; direct the course; determine the direction of travelling; be oriented

• poisoning -  the act of giving poison to a person or animal with the intent to kill; the physiological state produced by a poison or other toxic substance

• pokeweed -  perennial of the genus Phytolacca

• Poland -  a republic in central Europe; the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939 started World War II

• polenta -  a thick mush made of cornmeal boiled in stock or water

• Polish -  of or relating to Poland or its people or culture;  the property of being smooth and shiny; the Slavic language of Poland; a highly developed state of perfection; having a flawless or impeccable quality; a preparation used in polishing;  bring to a highly developed, finished, or refined state; improve or perfect by pruning or polishing; make (a surface) shine

• political economy -  the branch of social science that deals with the production and distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management

• politics -  the profession devoted to governing and to political affairs; the study of government of states and other political units; the opinion you hold with respect to political questions; social relations involving authority or power

• pollen -  the fine spores that contain male gametes and that are borne by an anther in a flowering plant

• pollution -  undesirable state of the natural environment being contaminated with harmful substances as a consequence of human activities; the act of contaminating or polluting; including (either intentionally or accidentally) unwanted substances or factors; the state of being polluted

• Polo -  a game similar to field hockey but played on horseback using long-handled mallets and a wooden ball; Venetian traveler who explored Asia in the 13th century and served Kublai Khan (1254-1324)

• polyethylene -  a lightweight thermoplastic; used especially in packaging and insulation

• Polynesia -  the islands in the eastern part of Oceania

• polyunsaturated -  (of long-chain carbon compounds especially fats) having many unsaturated bonds

• polyvinyl chloride -  a polymer of vinyl chloride used instead of rubber in electric cables

• Pompeii -  ancient city southeast of Naples that was buried by a volcanic eruption from Vesuvius

• Pond -  a small lake

• poor -  unsatisfactory; having little money or few possessions; lacking in specific resources, qualities or substances; characterized by or indicating poverty; deserving or inciting pity; not sufficient to meet a need;  people without possessions or wealth (considered as a group)

• popcorn -  small kernels of corn exploded by heat; corn having small ears and kernels that burst when exposed to dry heat

• popsicle -  ice cream or water ice on a small wooden stick

• population -  the act of populating (causing to live in a place); (statistics) the entire aggregation of items from which samples can be drawn; a group of organisms of the same species populating a given area; the people who inhabit a territory or state; the number of inhabitants (either the total number or the number of a particular race or class) in a given place (country or city etc.)

• pork -  meat from a domestic hog or pig; a legislative appropriation designed to ingratiate legislators with their constituents

• porridge -  soft food made by boiling oatmeal or other meal or legumes in water or milk until thick

• port wine -  sweet dark-red dessert wine originally from Portugal

• Portrait -  any likeness of a person; a painting of a person's face; a word picture of a person's appearance and character

• Portugal -  a republic in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula; Portuguese explorers and colonists in the 15th and 16th centuries created a vast overseas empire (including Brazil)

• pot-au-feu -  traditional French stew of vegetables and beef

• potassium -  a light soft silver-white metallic element of the alkali metal group; oxidizes rapidly in air and reacts violently with water; is abundant in nature in combined forms occurring in sea water and in carnallite and kainite and sylvite

• potato -  an edible tuber native to South America; a staple food of Ireland; annual native to South America having underground stolons bearing edible starchy tubers; widely cultivated as a garden vegetable; vines are poisonous

• potato salad -  any of various salads having chopped potatoes as the base

• potlatch -  a ceremonial feast held by some Indians of the northwestern coast of North America (as in celebrating a marriage or a new accession) in which the host gives gifts to tribesmen and others to display his superior wealth (sometimes, formerly, to his own impoverishment)

• potpie -  deep-dish meat and vegetable pie or a meat stew with dumplings

• pottage -  a stew of vegetables and (sometimes) meat; thick (often creamy) soup

• pottery -  the craft of making earthenware; ceramic ware made from clay and baked in a kiln; a workshop where clayware is made

• poultry -  flesh of chickens or turkeys or ducks or geese raised for food; a domesticated gallinaceous bird thought to be descended from the red jungle fowl

• Pound Cake -  rich loaf cake made of a pound each of butter and sugar and flour

• poverty -  the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions

• powder -  any of various cosmetic or medical preparations dispensed in the form of a pulverized powder; a solid substance in the form of tiny loose particles; a solid that has been pulverized; a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur in a 75:15:10 ratio which is used in gunnery, time fuses, and fireworks;  apply powder to; make into a powder by breaking up or cause to become dust

• powdered -  consisting of fine particles

• Powell -  English physicist who discovered the pion (the first known meson) which is a subatomic particle involved in holding the nucleus together (1903-1969); United States general who was the first African American to serve as chief of staff; later served as Secretary of State under President George W. Bush (born 1937)

• Prague -  the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic in the western part of the country; a cultural and commercial center since the 14th century

• pregnancy -  the state of being pregnant; the period from conception to birth when a woman carries a developing fetus in her uterus

• prehistoric -  no longer fashionable; belonging to or existing in times before recorded history; of or relating to times before written history

• preparation -  the activity of putting or setting in order in advance of some act or purpose; (music) a note that produces a dissonant chord is first heard in a consonant chord; the act of preparing something (as food) by the application of heat; preparatory school work done outside school (especially at home); activity leading to skilled behavior; the cognitive process of thinking about what you will do in the event of something happening; the state of having been made ready or prepared for use or action (especially military action); a substance prepared according to a formula

• preserves -  fruit preserved by cooking with sugar

• Prevention -  the act of preventing

• prickly pear cactus -  cacti having spiny flat joints and oval fruit that is edible in some species; often used as food for stock

• primates -  an animal order including lemurs and tarsiers and monkeys and apes and human beings

• prix fixe -  (of a restaurant meal) complete but with limited choices and at a fixed price;  a menu listing fixed meals at fixed prices

• processing -  preparing or putting through a prescribed procedure

• product development -  improving an existing product or developing new kinds of products

• production -  (law) the act of exhibiting in a court of law; the act or process of producing something; the creation of value or wealth by producing goods and services; (economics) manufacturing or mining or growing something (usually in large quantities) for sale; a presentation for the stage or screen or radio or television; a display that is exaggerated or unduly complicated; an artifact that has been created by someone or some process; the quantity of something (as a commodity) that is created (usually within a given period of time)

• productivity -  (economics) the ratio of the quantity and quality of units produced to the labor per unit of time; the quality of being productive or having the power to produce

• professional -  engaged in a profession or engaging in as a profession or means of livelihood; characteristic of or befitting a profession or one engaged in a profession; engaged in by members of a profession; of or relating to a profession; of or relating to or suitable as a profession;  a person engaged in one of the learned professions; an athlete who plays for pay; an authority qualified to teach apprentices

• professionalization -  the social process whereby people come to engage in an activity for pay or as a means of livelihood

• Program -  a performance (or series of performances) at a public presentation; a system of projects or services intended to meet a public need; (computer science) a sequence of instructions that a computer can interpret and execute; an ancement of the events that will occur as part of a theatrical or sporting event; a series of steps to be carried out or goals to be accomplished; a document stating the aims and principles of a political party; a radio or television show; an integrated course of academic studies;  arrange a program of or for; write a computer program

• Prohibition -  the action of prohibiting or inhibiting or forbidding (or an instance thereof); a law forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages; a decree that prohibits something; refusal to approve or assent to; the period from 1920 to 1933 when the sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited in the United States by a constitutional amendment

• proline -  an amino acid that is found in many proteins (especially collagen)

• proof -  (used in combination or as a suffix) able to withstand;  a trial photographic print from a negative; any factual evidence that helps to establish the truth of something; (printing) an impression made to check for errors; a formal series of statements showing that if one thing is true something else necessarily follows from it; a measure of alcoholic strength expressed as an integer twice the percentage of alcohol present (by volume); the act of validating; finding or testing the truth of something;  make resistant (to harm); activate by mixing with water and sometimes sugar or milk; knead to reach proper lightness; make or take a proof of, such as a photographic negative, an etching, or typeset; read for errors

• propagation -  the spreading of something (a belief or practice) into new regions; the movement of a wave through a medium; the act of producing offspring or multiplying by such production

• propionic acid -  a liquid fatty acid found in milk and sweat and in fuel distillates

• Prosper -  grow stronger; gain in wealth

• prosperity -  the condition of prospering; having good fortune; an economic state of growth with rising profits and full employment

• protein -  any of a large group of nitrogenous organic compounds that are essential constituents of living cells; consist of polymers of amino acids; essential in the diet of animals for growth and for repair of tissues; can be obtained from meat and eggs and milk and legumes

• Protestantism -  the theological system of any of the churches of western Christendom that separated from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation

• protozoa -  in some classifications considered a superphylum or a subkingdom; comprises flagellates; ciliates; sporozoans; amoebas; foraminifers

• Proust -  French novelist (1871-1922)

• Proven -  established beyond doubt

• Pros -  an Old Testament book consisting of pros from various Israeli sages (including Solomon)

• psyllium -  plantain of Mediterranean regions whose seeds swell and become gelatinous when moist and are used as a mild laxative

• ptarmigan -  large arctic and subarctic grouse with feathered feet and usually white winter plumage

• Puccini -  Italian operatic composer noted for the dramatic realism of his operas (1858-1924)

• pudding -  any of various soft sweet desserts thickened usually with flour and baked or boiled or steamed; (British) the dessert course of a meal (`pud' is used informally); any of various soft thick unsweetened baked dishes

• Puerto Rico -  the smallest and easternmost of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean; a self-governing commonwealth associated with the United States occupying the island of Puerto Rico

• puffed rice -  puffy rice kernels

• puffer -  any of numerous marine fishes whose elongated spiny body can inflate itself with water or air to form a globe; several species contain a potent nerve poison; closely related to spiny puffers; delicacy that is highly dangerous because of a potent nerve poison in ovaries and liver

• pulque -  fermented Mexican drink from juice of various agave plants especially the maguey

• punch -  (boxing) a blow with the fist; a tool for making holes or indentations; an iced mixed drink usually containing alcohol and prepared for multiple servings; normally served in a punch bowl;  deliver a quick blow to; make a hole into or between, as for ease of separation; drive forcibly as if by a punch

• pungency -  a strong odor or taste property; wit having a sharp and caustic quality

• Punjab -  a historical region on northwestern India and northern Pakistan

• Purim -  (Judaism) a Jewish holy day commemorating their deliverance from massacre by Haman

• Puritanism -  strictness and austerity in conduct and religion; the beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans (most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects)

• purple -  of a color intermediate between red and blue; belonging to or befitting a supreme ruler; excessively elaborate or showily expressed;  a purple color or pigment; of imperial status;  color purple; become purple

• purslane -  a plant of the family Portulacaceae having fleshy succulent obovate leaves often grown as a potherb or salad herb; a weed in some areas

• pylorus -  a small circular opening between the stomach and the duodenum

• pyridoxine -  a B vitamin that is essential for metabolism of amino acids and starch

• Pythagoras -  Greek philosopher and mathematician who proved the Pythagorean theorem; considered to be the first true mathematician (circa 580-500 BC)

• Q fever -  an acute disease resembling influenza

• quail -  small gallinaceous game birds; flesh of quail; suitable for roasting or broiling if young; otherwise must be braised;  draw back, as with fear or pain

• Quakers -  a Christian sect founded by George Fox about 1660; commonly called Quakers

• quality -  of high social status; of superior grade;  an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone; a degree or grade of excellence or worth; a characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something; high social status; (music) the distinctive property of a complex sound (a voice or noise or musical sound)

• Quark -  (physics) hypothetical truly fundamental particle in mesons and baryons; there are supposed to be six flavors of quarks (and their antiquarks), which come in pairs; each has an electric charge of +2/3 or -1/3; fresh unripened cheese of a smooth texture made from pasteurized milk, a starter, and rennet

• Quebec -  the largest province of Canada; a French colony from 1663 to 1759 when it was lost to the British; the French-speaking capital of the province of Quebec; situated on the Saint Lawrence River

• Queen -  the only fertile female in a colony of social insects such as bees and ants and termites; its function is to lay eggs; an especially large mole rat and the only member of a colony of naked mole rats to bear offspring which are sired by only a few males; (chess) the most powerful piece; one of four face cards in a deck bearing a picture of a queen; a female sovereign ruler; the wife or widow of a king; something personified as a woman who is considered the best or most important of her kind; female cat; offensive terms for an openly homosexual man; a competitor who holds a preeminent position;  become a queen; promote to a queen, as of a pawn in chess

• quern -  a primitive stone mill for grinding corn by hand

• quiche -  the Mayan language spoken by the Quiche; a tart filled with rich unsweetened custard; often contains other ingredients (as cheese or ham or seafood or vegetables); a member of the Mayan people of south central Guatemala

• Rabelais -  author of satirical attacks on medieval scholasticism (1494-1553)

• radicchio -  prized variety of chicory having globose heads of red leaves

• radon -  a radioactive gaseous element formed by the disintegration of radium; the heaviest of the inert gasses; occurs naturally (especially in areas over granite) and is considered a hazard to health

• raising -  increasing in quantity or value;  the properties acquired as a consequence of the way you were treated as a child; helping someone grow up to be an accepted member of the community; the event of something being raised upward

• Ramadan -  (Islam) a fast (held from sunrise to sunset) that is carried out during the Islamic month of Ramadan; the ninth month of the Islamic calendar; the month of fasting; the holiest period for the Islamic faith

• Ramayana -  one of two classical Hindu epics telling of the banishment of Rama from his kingdom and the abduction of his wife by a demon and Rama's restoration to the throne

• rambutan -  pleasantly acid bright red oval Malayan fruit covered with soft spines; Malayan tree bearing spiny red fruit

• rampion -  bellflower of Europe and Asia and North Africa having bluish flowers and an edible tuberous root used with the leaves in salad

• rancidity -  the state of being rancid; having a rancid scent or flavor (as of old cooking oil)

• range -  a place for shooting (firing or driving) projectiles of various kinds; a variety of different things or activities; the limits within which something can be effective; a large tract of grassy open land on which livestock can graze; a series of hills or mountains; the limits of the values a function can take; a kitchen appliance used for cooking food; an area in which something acts or operates or has power or control: "the range of a supersonic jet"; the limit of capability;  let eat; lay out orderly or logically in a line or as if in a line; range or extend over; occupy a certain area; change or be different within limits; have a range; be capable of projecting over a certain distance, as of a gun; assign a rank or rating to; feed as in a meadow or pasture; move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment

• rationing -  the act of rationing

• Read -  something that is read;  to hear and understand; interpret something that is written or printed; look at, interpret, and say out loud something that is written or printed; interpret the significance of, as of palms, tea leaves, intestines, the sky; also of human behavior; obtain data from magnetic tapes; indicate a certain reading; of gauges and instruments; audition for a stage role by reading parts of a role; have or contain a certain wording or form; make sense of a language; be a student of a certain subject; interpret something in a certain way; convey a particular meaning or impression

• recipe -  directions for making something

• Rector -  a person authorized to conduct religious worship

• red -  red with or characterized by blood; of a color at the end of the color spectrum (next to orange); resembling the color of blood or cherries or tomatoes or rubies; characterized by violence or bloodshed; (especially of the face) reddened or suffused with or as if with blood from emotion or exertion;  red color or pigment; the chromatic color resembling the hue of blood; a tributary of the Mississippi River that flows eastward from Texas along the southern boundary of Oklahoma and through Louisiana; emotionally charged terms used to refer to extreme radicals or revolutionaries; the amount by which the cost of a business exceeds its revenue

• Red Cross -  an international organization that cares for the sick or wounded or homeless in wartime

• red mullet -  brightly colored tropical fishes with chin barbels

• refined -  (used of persons and their behavior) cultivated and genteel; freed from impurities by processing; free from what is tawdry or unbecoming; suggesting taste, ease, and wealth; made pure; showing a high degree of refinement and the assurance that comes from wide social experience

• refrigeration -  deliberately lowering the body's temperature for therapeutic purposes; the process of cooling or freezing (e.g., food) for preservative purposes

• registered -  (of a boat or vessel) furnished with necessary official documents specifying ownership etc; listed or recorded officially; (of animals) officially recorded with or certified by a recognized breed association; especially in a stud book

• reincarnation -  the Hindu or Buddhist doctrine that person may be reborn successively into one of five classes of living beings (god or human or animal or hungry ghost or denizen of hell) depending on the person's own actions; a second or new birth; embodiment in a new form (especially the reappearance or a person in another form)

• reindeer -  arctic deer with large antlers in both sexes; called `reindeer' in Eurasia and `caribou' in North America

• rejection -  the act of rejecting something; the speech act of rejecting; (medicine) an immunological response that refuses to accept substances or organisms that are recognized as foreign; the state of being rejected

• religion -  a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; an institution to express belief in a divine power

• Rembrandt -  influential Dutch artist (1606-1669)

• removal -  dismissal from office; the act of removing

• Renaissance -  the period of European history at the close of the Middle Ages and the rise of the modern world; a cultural rebirth from the 14th through the middle of the 17th centuries; the revival of learning and culture

• Renoir -  French impressionist painter (1841-1919)

• replication -  the repetition of an experiment in order to test the validity of its conclusion; (law) a pleading made by a plaintiff in reply to the defendant's plea or answer; (genetics) the process whereby DNA makes a copy of itself before cell division; the act of making copies; copy that is not the original; something that has been copied; the persistence of a sound after its source has stopped; a quick reply to a question or remark (especially a witty or critical one)

• research -  systematic investigation to establish facts; a search for knowledge;  inquire into; attempt to find out in a systematically and scientific manner

• resistant -  impervious to being affected; incapable of absorbing or mixing with; disposed to or engaged in defiance of established authority; relating to or conferring immunity (to disease or infection); able to tolerate environmental conditions or physiological stress

• restaurant -  a building where people go to eat

• retinal -  in or relating to the retina of the eye;  either of two yellow to red retinal pigments formed from rhodopsin by the action of light

• retinol -  an unsaturated alcohol that occurs in marine fish-liver oils and is synthesized biologically from carotene

• Retsina -  Greek wine flavored with resin

• Revel -  unrestrained merrymaking;  celebrate noisily, often indulging in drinking; engage in uproarious festivities; take delight in

• review -  practice intended to polish performance or refresh the memory; (law) a judicial reexamination of the proceedings of a court (especially by an appellate court); an essay or article that gives a critical evaluation (as of a book or play); a periodical that publishes critical essays on current affairs or literature or art; (accounting) a service (less exhaustive than an audit) that provides some assurance to interested parties as to the reliability of financial data; a subsequent examination of a patient for the purpose of monitoring earlier treatment; a formal or official examination; a new appraisal or evaluation; a summary at the end that repeats the substance of a longer discussion; a variety show with topical sketches and songs and dancing and comedians;  look at again; examine again; look back upon (a period of time, sequence of events); remember; hold a review (of troops); refresh one's memory; appraise critically

• Revolution -  the overthrow of a government by those who are governed; a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving; a single complete turn (axial or orbital)

• Reynolds -  English portrait painter and first president of the Royal Academy (1723-1792)

• rhubarb -  plants having long green or reddish acidic leafstalks growing in basal clumps; stems (and only the stems) are edible when cooked; leaves are poisonous; long pinkish sour leafstalks usually eaten cooked and sweetened

• riboflavin -  a B vitamin that prevents skin lesions and weight loss

• ribonucleic acid -  (biochemistry) a long linear polymer of nucleotides found in the nucleus but mainly in the cytoplasm of a cell where it is associated with microsomes; it transmits genetic information from DNA to the cytoplasm and controls certain chemical processes in the cell

• rice -  grains used as food either unpolished or more often polished; United States playwright (1892-1967); English lyricist who frequently worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber (born in 1944); annual or perennial rhizomatous marsh grasses; seed used for food; straw used for paper;  sieve so that it becomes the consistency of rice

• rich -  pleasantly full and mellow; very productive; possessing material wealth; having an abundant supply of desirable qualities or substances (especially natural resources); suggestive of or characterized by great expense; high in mineral content; having a high proportion of fuel to air; of great worth or quality; containing plenty of fat, or eggs, or sugar; affording an abundant supply; strong; intense; marked by great fruitfulness; marked by richness and fullness of flavor;  people who have possessions and wealth (considered as a group)

• Richards -  English literary critic who collaborated with C. K. Ogden and contributed to the development of Basic English (1893-1979)

• rickets -  childhood disease caused by deficiency of vitamin D and sunlight associated with impaired metabolism of calcium and phosphorus

• rickettsia -  any of a group of very small rod-shaped bacteria that live in biting arthropods (as ticks and mites) and cause disease in vertebrate hosts; they cause typhus and other febrile diseases in human beings

• ricotta -  soft Italian cheese like cottage cheese

• rijstafel -  dish originating in Indonesia; a wide variety of foods and sauces are served with rice

• Riley -  United States poet (1849-1916)

• ring-shaped -  shaped like a ring

• risotto -  rice cooked with broth and sprinkled with grated cheese

• Ritz -  an ostentatiously elegant hotel; ostentatious display of elegance; Swiss hotelier who created a chain of elegant hotels (1850-1918)

• roasting -  cooking (meat) by dry heat in an oven (usually with fat added)

• Robert -  United States parliamentary authority and author (in 1876) of Robert's Rules of Order (1837-1923)

• Robertson -  United States basketball guard (born in 1938)

• rockfish -  marine food fish found among rocks along the northern coasts of Europe and America; the lean flesh of any of various valuable market fish caught among rocks; marine food and game fish with dark longitudinal stripes; migrates upriver to spawn; sometimes placed in the genus Morone

• Rockwell -  United States illustrator whose works present a sentimental idealized view of everyday life (1894-1978)

• roller -  a grounder that rolls along the infield; pigeon that executes backward somersaults in flight or on the ground; Old World bird that tumbles or rolls in flight; related to kingfishers; a cylinder that revolves; a small wheel without spokes (as on a roller skate); a long heavy sea wave as it advances towards the shore; a mechanical device consisting of a cylindrical tube around which the hair is wound to curl it

• Roman -  of or relating to or derived from Rome (especially ancient Rome); relating to or characteristic of people of Rome; of or relating to or supporting Romanism; characteristic of the modern type that most directly represents the type used in ancient Roman inscriptions;  a typeface used in ancient Roman inscriptions; a resident of modern Rome; an inhabitant of the ancient Roman Empire

• Roman Empire -  an empire established by Augustus in 27 BC and divided in AD 395 into the Western Roman Empire and the eastern or Byzantine Empire; at its peak lands in Europe and Africa and Asia were ruled by ancient Rome

• Romania -  a Balkan republic in southeastern Europe

• Rome -  the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church; capital and largest city of Italy; on the Tiber; seat of the Roman Catholic Church; formerly the capital of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire

• rooms -  apartment consisting of a series of connected rooms used as a living unit (as in a hotel)

• Roquefort -  French blue cheese

• rosemary -  extremely pungent leaves used fresh or dried as seasoning for especially meats; widely cultivated for its fragrant grey-green leaves used in cooking and in perfumery

• Rossini -  Italian composer remembered for his operas (1792-1868)

• rotavirus -  the reovirus causing infant enteritis

• rotisserie -  a restaurant that specializes in roasted and barbecued meats; an oven or broiler equipped with a rotating spit on which meat cooks as it turns

• Rousseau -  French philosopher and writer born in Switzerland; believed that the natural goodness of man was warped by society; ideas influenced the French Revolution (1712-1778); French primitive painter (1844-1910)

• roux -  a mixture of fat and flour heated and used as a basis for sauces

• rum -  beyond or deviating from the usual or expected;  liquor distilled from fermented molasses; a card game based on collecting sets and sequences; the winner is the first to meld all their cards

• runner -  fish of western Atlantic: Cape Cod to Brazil; device consisting of the parts on which something can slide along; a long narrow carpet; a person who is employed to deliver messages or documents; someone who travels on foot by running; a trained athlete who competes in foot races; a baseball player on the team at bat who is on base (or attempting to reach a base); someone who imports or exports without paying duties; a horizontal branch from the base of plant that produces new plants from buds at its tips

• Russell -  English philosopher and mathematician who collaborated with Whitehead (1872-1970); Irish writer whose pen name was A.E. (1867-1935); United States astronomer who developed a theory of stellar evolution (1877-1957); United States entertainer remembered for her roles in comic operas (1861-1922); United States basketball center (born in 1934); English film director (born in 1927); United States religious leader who founded the sect that is now called Jehovah's Witnesses (1852-1916)

• Russia -  a former empire in eastern Europe and northern Asia created in the 14th century with Moscow as the capital; powerful in the 17th and 18th centuries under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great when Saint Petersburg was the capital; overthrown by revolution in 1917; a federation in northeastern Europe and northern Asia; formerly Soviet Russia; since 1991 an independent state; a former communist country in eastern Europe and northern Asia; established in 1922; included Russia and 14 other soviet socialist republics (Ukraine and Byelorussia and others); officially dissolved 31 December 1991; formerly the largest Soviet Socialist Republic in the USSR occupying eastern Europe and northern Asia

• Russian -  of or pertaining to or characteristic of Russia or its people or culture or language;  the Slavic language that is the official language of Russia; a native or inhabitant of Russia

• Rwanda -  a landlocked republic in central Africa; formerly a German colony

• rye -  whiskey distilled from rye or rye and malt; hardy annual cereal grass widely cultivated in northern Europe where its grain is the chief ingredient of black bread and in North America for forage and soil improvement; the seed of the cereal grass

• Saami -  the language of nomadic Lapps in northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula; a member of an indigenous nomadic people living in northern Scandinavia and herding reindeer

• Sabbath -  a day of rest and worship: Sunday for most Christians; Saturday for the Jews and a few Christians; Friday for Muslims

• saccharin -  a crystalline substance 500 times sweeter than sugar; used as a calorie-free sweetener

• sacrifice -  (sacrifice) an out that advances the base runners; the act of killing (an animal or person) in order to propitiate a deity; personnel that are sacrificed (e.g., surrendered or lost in order to gain an objective); a loss entailed by giving up or selling something at less than its value; the act of losing or surrendering something as a penalty for a mistake or fault or failure to perform etc.;  kill or destroy; make a sacrifice of; in religious rituals; endure the loss of; sell at a loss

• safflower oil -  oil from seeds of the safflower plant; oil from safflower seeds used as food as well as in medicines and paints

• saffron -  dried pungent stigmas of the Old World saffron crocus; Old World crocus having purple or white flowers with aromatic pungent orange stigmas used in flavoring food; a shade of yellow tinged with orange

• saffron crocus -  Old World crocus having purple or white flowers with aromatic pungent orange stigmas used in flavoring food

• sage -  of the grey-green color of sage leaves; having wisdom that comes with age and experience;  aromatic fresh or dried grey-green leaves used widely as seasoning for meats and fowl and game etc; a mentor in spiritual and philosophical topics who is renowned for profound wisdom; any of various plants of the genus Salvia; a cosmopolitan herb

• sago -  powdery starch from certain sago palms; used in Asia as a food thickener and textile stiffener

• sago palm -  dwarf palmlike cycad of Japan that yields sago; any of various tropical Asian palm trees the trunks of which yield sago

• sake -  a reason for wanting something done; the purpose of achieving or obtaining; Japanese alcoholic beverage made from fermented rice; usually served hot

• salad -  food mixtures either arranged on a plate or tossed and served with a moist dressing; usually consisting of or including greens

• salad dressing -  savory dressings for salads; basically of two kinds: either the thin French or vinaigrette type or the creamy mayonnaise type

• salami -  highly seasoned fatty sausage of pork and beef usually dried

• saleratus -  a white soluble compound (NaHCO3) used in effervescent drinks and in baking powders and as an antacid

• Salisbury steak -  ground beef patty usually with a sauce

• salmon -  of orange tinged with pink;  any of various large food and game fishes of northern waters; usually migrate from salt to fresh water to spawn; flesh of any of various marine or freshwater fish of the family Salmonidae; a tributary of the Snake River in Idaho

• Salmonella -  rod-shaped Gram-negative enterobacteria; cause typhoid fever and food poisoning; can be used as a bioweapon

• salt -  (of speech) painful or bitter; one of the four basic taste sensations; like the taste of sea water;  the taste experience when common salt is taken into the mouth; white crystalline form of especially sodium chloride used to season and preserve food; a compound formed by replacing hydrogen in an acid by a metal (or a radical that acts like a metal); negotiations between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics opened in 1969 in Helsinki designed to limit both countries' stock of nuclear weapons;  preserve with salt; add zest or liveliness to; sprinkle as if with salt; add salt to

• salt cod -  codfish preserved in salt; must be desalted and flaked by soaking in water and pounding; used in e.g. codfish cakes

• salt pork -  fat from the back and sides and belly of a hog carcass cured with salt

• saltbush -  any of various shrubby plants of the genus Atriplex that thrive in dry alkaline soil

• salted -  (used especially of meats) preserved in salt

• salting -  the act of adding salt to food

• Salvation Army -  a charitable and religious organization to evangelize and to care for the poor and homeless

• Sami -  the language of nomadic Lapps in northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula; a member of an indigenous nomadic people living in northern Scandinavia and herding reindeer

• samovar -  a metal urn with a spigot at the base; used in Russia to boil water for tea

• sampling -  (statistics) the selection of a suitable sample for study; measurement at regular intervals of the amplitude of a varying waveform (in order to convert it to digital form); items selected at random from a population and used to test hypotheses about the population

• San Francisco -  a port in western California near the Golden Gate that is one of the major industrial and transportation centers; it has one of the world's finest harbors; site of the Golden Gate Bridge

• sandalwood -  close-grained fragrant yellowish heartwood of the true sandalwood; has insect repelling properties and is used for carving and cabinetwork

• sanitation -  making something sanitary (free of germs) as by sterilizing; the state of being clean and conducive to health

• sashimi -  very thinly sliced raw fish

• sassafras -  dried root bark of the sassafras tree; yellowwood tree with brittle wood and aromatic leaves and bark; source of sassafras oil; widely distributed in eastern North America

• sate -  fill to satisfaction

• satiety -  the state of being satisfactorily full and unable to take on more

• sauce -  flavorful relish or dressing or topping served as an accompaniment to food;  add zest or flavor to, make more interesting; dress (food) with a relish; behave saucy or impudently towards

• Saudi Arabia -  an absolute monarchy occupying most of the Arabian Peninsula in southwest Asia; vast oil reserves dominate the economy

• sauerkraut -  shredded cabbage fermented in brine

• sausage -  highly seasoned minced meat stuffed in casings; a small nonrigid airship used for observation or as a barrage balloon

• savoy cabbage -  head of soft crinkly leaves; cabbage plant with a compact head of crinkled leaves

• scale -  a flattened rigid plate forming part of the body covering of many animals; an indicator having a graduated sequence of marks; a measuring instrument for weighing; shows amount of mass; (music) a series of notes differing in pitch according to a specific scheme (usually within an octave); a thin flake of dead epidermis shed from the surface of the skin; a specialized leaf or bract that protects a bud or catkin; relative magnitude; the ratio between the size of something and a representation of it; an ordered reference standard; a metal sheathing of uniform thickness (such as the shield attached to an artillery piece to protect the gunners);  size or measure according to a scale; measure with or as if with scales; remove the scales from; pattern, make, regulate, set, measure, or estimate according to some rate or standard; climb up by means of a ladder; reach the highest point of; take by attacking with scaling ladders; measure by or as if by a scale

• scallop shell -  a shell of a scallop

• scampi -  large shrimp sauteed in oil or butter and garlic

• Scandinavia -  a group of culturally related countries in northern Europe; Finland and Iceland are sometimes considered Scandinavian; the peninsula in northern Europe occupied by Norway and Sweden

• Science -  a particular branch of scientific knowledge; ability to produce solutions in some problem domain

• Scotch whisky -  whiskey distilled in Scotland; especially whiskey made from malted barley in a pot still

• Scotland -  one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; located on the northern part of the island of Great Britain; famous for bagpipes and plaids and kilts

• scrapie -  a fatal disease of sheep characterized by chronic itching and loss of muscular control and progressive degeneration of the central nervous system

• scrapple -  scraps of meat (usually pork) boiled with cornmeal and shaped into loaves for slicing and frying

• scurvy -  of the most contemptible kind;  a condition caused by deficiency of ascorbic acid (vitamin C)

• scythe -  an edge tool for cutting grass; has a long handle that must be held with both hands and a curved blade that moves parallel to the ground;  cut with a scythe

• sea kale -  perennial of coastal sands and shingles of northern Europe and Baltic and Black Seas having racemes of small white flowers and large fleshy blue-green leaves often used as potherbs

• seabird -  a bird that frequents coastal waters and the open ocean: gulls; pelicans; gannets; cormorants; albatrosses; petrels; etc.

• seafood -  edible fish (broadly including freshwater fish) or shellfish or roe etc

• seal oil -  a pale yellow to red-brown fatty oil obtained from seal blubber; used in making soap and dressing leather and as a lubricant

• SEARCH -  an investigation seeking answers; boarding and inspecting a ship on the high seas; the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone; the examination of alternative hypotheses; an operation that determines whether one or more of a set of items has a specified property;  try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of; subject to a search; search or seek; inquire into

• Seattle -  a major port of entry and the largest city in Washington; located in west central Washington on the protected waters of Puget Sound with the snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Range and Mount Ranier visible to the south and east; an aerospace and computer center; site of the University of Washington

• Seder -  (Judaism) the ceremonial dinner on the first night (or both nights) of Passover

• selenium -  a toxic nonmetallic element related to sulfur and tellurium; occurs in several allotropic forms; a stable grey metallike allotrope conducts electricity better in the light than in the dark and is used in photocells; occurs in sulfide ores (as pyrite)

• self-service -  of or denoting an establishment (a restaurant or shop etc.) where customers serve themselves;  the practice of serving yourself (as in a grocery or cafeteria)

• Seneca -  the Iroquoian language spoken by the Seneca; a member of the Iroquoian people formerly living in New York state south of Lake Ontario; Roman statesman and philosopher who was an advisor to Nero; his nine extant tragedies are modeled on Greek tragedies (circa 4 BC - 65 AD)

• Senegal -  a republic in northwestern Africa on the coast of the Atlantic; formerly a French colony but achieved independence in 1960

• senna -  any of various plants of the genus Senna having pinnately compound leaves and showy usually yellow flowers; many are used medicinally

• sense of smell -  the faculty that enables us to distinguish scents

• September -  the month following August and preceding October

• series -  (mathematics) the sum of a finite or infinite sequence of expressions; a periodical that appears at scheduled times; (sports) several contests played successively by the same teams; similar things placed in order or happening one after another; a group of postage stamps having a common theme or a group of coins or currency selected as a group for study or collection; (electronics) connection of components in such a manner that current flows first through one and then through the other; a serialized set of programs

• serine -  a sweetish crystalline amino acid involved in the synthesis by the body of cysteine

• serotonin -  a neurotransmitter involved in e.g. sleep and depression and memory

• service -  the performance of duties by a waiter or servant; the act of delivering a writ or summons upon someone; work done by one person or group that benefits another; (law) the acts performed by an English feudal tenant for the benefit of his lord which formed the consideration for the property granted to him; employment in or work for another; the act of public worship following prescribed rules; an act of help or assistance; tableware consisting of a complete set of articles (silver or dishware) for use at table; a company or agency that performs a public service; subject to government regulation; Canadian writer (born in England) who wrote about life in the Yukon Territory (1874-1958); periodic maintenance on a car or machine; (sports) a stroke that puts the ball in play; the act of mating by male animals; a means of serving; a force that is a branch of the armed forces;  make fit for use; be used by; as of a utility; mate with

• Services -  performance of duties or provision of space and equipment helpful to others

• serving -  the act of delivering a writ or summons upon someone; an individual quantity of food or drink taken as part of a meal

• sesame -  East Indian annual erect herb; source of sesame seed or benniseed and sesame oil

• sex -  the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles; all of the feelings resulting from the urge to gratify sexual impulses; either of the two categories (male or female) into which most organisms are divided; activities associated with sexual intercourse;  tell the sex (of young chickens); stimulate sexually

• sexuality -  the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles

• shad -  herring-like food fishes that migrate from the sea to fresh water to spawn; bony flesh of herring-like fish usually caught during their migration to fresh water for spawning; especially of Atlantic coast

• Shakespeare -  English poet and dramatist considered one of the greatest English writers (1564-1616)

• shandy -  a drink made of beer and lemonade

• Shavuoth -  (Judaism) Jewish holy day celebrated on the sixth of Sivan to celebrate Moses receiving the Ten Commandments

• sheep -  woolly usually horned ruminant mammal related to the goat; a docile and vulnerable person who would rather follow than make an independent decision; a timid defenseless simpleton who is readily preyed upon

• Shelley -  Englishman and romantic poet (1792-1822); English writer who created Frankenstein's monster and married Percy Bysshe Shelley (1797-1851)

• shellfish -  meat of edible aquatic invertebrate with a shell (especially a mollusk or crustacean); invertebrate having a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a shell

• Sheraton -  a furniture style that originated in England around 1800; simple in design with straight lines and classical ornamentation

• sherbet -  an ice containing milk

• shigella -  rod-shaped Gram-negative enterobacteria; some are pathogenic for warm-blooded animals; can be used as a bioweapon

• shipping -  conveyance provided by the ships belonging to one country or industry; the commercial enterprise of moving goods and materials

• Shiva -  (Judaism) a period of seven days of mourning after the death of close relative; the destroyer; one of the three major divinities in the later Hindu pantheon

• shortbread -  very rich thick butter cookie

• show -  the act of publicly exhibiting or entertaining; a social event involving a public performance or entertainment; pretending that something is the case in order to make a good impression; something intended to communicate a particular impression;  give evidence of, as of records; finish third or better in a horse or dog race; make visible or noticeable; be or become visible or noticeable; show or demonstrate something to an interested audience; establish the validity of something, as by an example, explanation or experiment; indicate a certain reading; of gauges and instruments; indicate a place, direction, person, or thing; either spatially or figuratively; give expression to; provide evidence for; show in, or as in, a picture; show (someone) to their seats, as in theaters or auditoriums; make clear and visible

• shrimp -  small slender-bodied chiefly marine decapod crustaceans with a long tail and single pair of pincers; many species are edible; any of various edible decapod crustaceans; disparaging terms for small people;  fish for shrimp

• Shrove Tuesday -  the last day before Lent

• Shrovetide -  immediately preceding Lent

• Siberia -  a vast Asian region of Russia; famous for long cold winters

• Siberian -  of or relating to or characteristic of Siberia or the Siberians;  a native or inhabitant of Siberia

• Sichuan -  a populous province of south central China

• Sicilian -  of or relating to or characteristic of Sicily or the people of Sicily;  a resident of Sicily

• Sicily -  the largest island in the Mediterranean; the Italian region on the island of Sicily

• sickle -  an edge tool for cutting grass or crops; has a curved blade and a short handle

• siesta -  a nap in the early afternoon (especially in hot countries)

• silicon -  a tetravalent nonmetallic element; next to oxygen it is the most abundant element in the earth's crust; occurs in clay and feldspar and granite and quartz and sand; used as a semiconductor in transistors

• silphium -  tall North American perennial herbs

• silverware -  tableware made of silver or silver plate or pewter or stainless steel

• sima -  rock that form the continuous lower layer of the earth's crust; rich in silicon and magnesium

• simmering -  cooking in a liquid that has been brought to a boil

• Simon -  United States economist and psychologist who pioneered in the development of cognitive science (1916-2001); United States playwright noted for light comedies (born in 1927); United States singer and songwriter (born in 1942); one of the twelve Apostles (first century)

• Simple -  unornamented; (botany) of leaf shapes; of leaves having no divisions or subdivisions; having few parts; not complex or complicated or involved; easy and not involved or complicated; apart from anything else; without additions or modifications; lacking mental capacity and devoid of subtlety; exhibiting childlike simplicity and credulity;  any herbaceous plant having medicinal properties; a person lacking intelligence or common sense

• Sinclair -  English electrical engineer who founded a company that introduced many innovative products (born in 1940); United States writer whose novels argued for social reform (1878-1968)

• Situation -  a condition or position in which you find yourself; the general state of things; the combination of circumstances at a given time; a complex or critical or unusual difficulty; a job in an organization; physical position in relation to the surroundings

• slave trade -  traffic in slaves; especially in Black Africans transported to America in the 16th to 19th centuries

• slavery -  the practice of owning slaves; work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay; the state of being under the control of another person

• Slovakia -  a landlocked republic in central Europe; separated from the Czech Republic in 1993

• Slovenia -  a mountainous republic in central Europe; formerly part of the Habsburg monarchy and Yugoslavia; achieved independence in 1991

• Smith -  someone who works metal (especially by hammering it when it is hot and malleable); someone who works at something specified; Scottish economist who advocated private enterprise and free trade (1723-1790); English explorer who helped found the colony at Jamestown, Virginia; was said to have been saved by Pocahontas (1580-1631); religious leader who founded the Mormon Church in 1830 (1805-1844); United States blues singer (1894-1937); United States suffragist who refused to pay taxes until she could vote (1792-1886); United States singer noted for her rendition of patriotic songs (1909-1986); United States sculptor (1906-1965); Rhodesian statesman who declared independence of Zimbabwe from Great Britain (born in 1919)

• smoked -  (used especially of meats and fish) dried and cured by hanging in wood smoke

• smokehouse -  a small house where smoke is used to cure meat or fish

• smoking -  emitting smoke in great volume;  the act of smoking tobacco or other substances; a hot vapor containing fine particles of carbon being produced by combustion

• smorgasbord -  an assortment of foods starting with herring or smoked eel or salmon etc with bread and butter; then cheeses and eggs and pickled vegetables and aspics; finally hot foods; served as a buffet meal; a collection containing a variety of sorts of things

• snack -  a light informal meal;  eat a snack; eat lightly

• snack food -  food for light meals or for eating between meals

• snap -  the act of snapping the fingers; movement of a finger from the tip to the base of the thumb on the same hand; a fastener used on clothing; fastens with a snapping sound; a sudden breaking; the noise produced by the rapid movement of a finger from the tip to the base of the thumb on the same hand; a spell of cold weather; (American football) putting the ball in play by passing it (between the legs) to a back; the act of catching an object with the hands; any undertaking that is easy to do; an informal photograph; usually made with a small hand-held camera; the tendency of a body to return to its original shape after it has been stretched or compressed; a sudden sharp noise; a crisp round cookie flavored with ginger; tender green beans without strings that easily snap into sections;  break suddenly and abruptly, as under tension; snap close with a sound; utter in an angry, sharp, or abrupt tone; cause to make a snapping sound; put in play with a snap; move or strike with a noise; move with a snapping sound; make a sharp sound; record on photographic film; to grasp hastily or eagerly; separate or cause to separate abruptly; lose control of one's emotions

• snout -  a long projecting or anterior elongation of an animal's head; especially the nose; beaklike projection of the anterior part of the head of certain insects such as e.g. weevils; informal terms for the nose

• Snow-White -  of the white color of snow

• soapberry -  a tree of the genus Sapindus whose fruit is rich in saponin

• social class -  people having the same social or economic status

• social status -  position in a social hierarchy

• socialization -  the adoption of the behavior patterns of the surrounding culture; the act of meeting for social purposes; the action of establishing on a socialist basis

• Society -  an extended social group having a distinctive cultural and economic organization; the fashionable elite; a formal association of people with similar interests; the state of being with someone

• sociology -  the study and classification of human societies

• sodium -  a silvery soft waxy metallic element of the alkali metal group; occurs abundantly in natural compounds (especially in salt water); burns with a yellow flame and reacts violently in water; occurs in sea water and in the mineral halite (rock salt)

• sodium bicarbonate -  a white soluble compound (NaHCO3) used in effervescent drinks and in baking powders and as an antacid

• Solanaceae -  large and economically important family of herbs or shrubs or trees often strongly scented and sometimes narcotic or poisonous; includes the genera Solanum, Atropa, Brugmansia, Capsicum, Datura, Hyoscyamus, Lycopersicon, Nicotiana, Petunia, Physalis, and Solandra

• sole -  not divided or shared with others; being the only one; single and isolated from others;  right-eyed flatfish; many are valued as food; most common in warm seas especially European; the underside of footwear or a golf club; the underside of the foot; lean flesh of any of several flatfish;  put a new sole on

• Somalia -  a republic in extreme eastern Africa on the Somali peninsula; subject to tribal warfare

• sommelier -  a waiter who manages wine service in a hotel or restaurant

• song -  the act of singing; a short musical composition with words; a distinctive or characteristic sound; a very small sum; the characteristic sound produced by a bird; the imperial dynasty of China from 960 to 1279; noted for art and literature and philosophy

• sorbet -  an ice containing milk

• sorbic acid -  a white crystalline carboxylic acid used as a preservative

• sorghum -  made from juice of sweet sorghum; economically important Old World tropical cereal grass; annual or perennial tropical and subtropical cereal grasses: sorghum

• sorrel -  of a light brownish color;  a horse of a brownish orange to light brown color; large sour-tasting arrowhead-shaped leaves used in salads and sauces; East Indian sparsely prickly annual herb or perennial subshrub widely cultivated for its fleshy calyxes used in tarts and jelly and for its bast fiber; any of certain coarse weedy plants with long taproots, sometimes used as table greens or in folk medicine; any plant or flower of the genus Oxalis

• soul food -  food traditionally eaten by African-Americans in the South

• soup -  liquid food especially of meat or fish or vegetable stock often containing pieces of solid food; an unfortunate situation; any composition having a consistency suggestive of soup;  dope (a racehorse)

• sour cream -  artificially soured light cream

• sourdough -  a settler or prospector (especially in western United States or northwest Canada and Alaska); a leaven of dough in which fermentation is active; used by pioneers for making bread

• Sousa -  a United States bandmaster and composer of military marches (1854-1932)

• South -  situated in or facing or moving toward or coming from the south; adv. in a southern direction;  any region lying in or toward the south; the region of the United States lying south of the Mason-Dixon line; the cardinal compass point that is at 180 degrees; the southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861

• South Africa -  a republic at the southernmost part of Africa; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1910; first European settlers were Dutch (known as Boers)

• South America -  the nations of the South American continent collectively; a continent in the western hemisphere connected to North America by the Isthmus of Panama

• South American -  of or pertaining to or characteristic of the continent or countries of South America or their peoples;  a native or inhabitant of South America

• South Korea -  a republic in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula; established in 1948

• South Pacific -  that part of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator

• Southeast Asia -  a geographical division of Asia that includes Indochina plus Indonesia and the Philippines and Singapore

• Southwest -  situated in or oriented toward the southwest; coming from the southwest; adv. to, toward, or in the southwest;  the southwestern region of the United States; the compass point midway between south and west; at 225 degrees

• Soviet Union -  a former communist country in eastern Europe and northern Asia; established in 1922; included Russia and 14 other soviet socialist republics (Ukraine and Byelorussia and others); officially dissolved 31 December 1991

• soy -  most highly proteinaceous vegetable crop known; erect bushy hairy annual herb having trifoliate leaves and purple to pink flowers; extensively cultivated for food and forage and soil improvement but especially for its nutritious oil-rich seeds; native to Asia; a source of oil; used for forage and soil improvement and as food; thin sauce made of fermented soy beans

• soy sauce -  thin sauce made of fermented soy beans

• soybean -  most highly proteinaceous vegetable crop known; erect bushy hairy annual herb having trifoliate leaves and purple to pink flowers; extensively cultivated for food and forage and soil improvement but especially for its nutritious oil-rich seeds; native to Asia; a source of oil; used for forage and soil improvement and as food

• Spain -  a parliamentary monarchy in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula; a former colonial power

• Spam -  unwanted e-mail (usually of a commercial nature sent out in bulk); a canned meat made largely from pork;  send unwanted or junk e-mail

• Spang -  leap, jerk, bang

• specific -  stated explicitly or in detail; (sometimes followed by `to') applying to or characterized by or distinguishing something particular or special or unique; being or affecting a disease produced by a particular microorganism or condition; used also of stains or dyes used in making microscope slides; relating to or distinguishing or constituting a taxonomic species;  a medicine that has a mitigating effect on a specific disease; a fact about some part (as opposed to general)

• Spencer -  English philosopher and sociologist who applied the theory of natural selection to human societies (1820-1903)

• spike rush -  a sedge of the genus Eleocharis

• spinach -  dark green leaves; eaten cooked or raw in salads; southwestern Asian plant widely cultivated for its succulent edible dark green leaves

• spirit -  a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character; any incorporeal supernatural being that can become visible (or audible) to human beings; the vital principle or animating force within living things; the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people; an inclination or tendency of a certain kind; animation and energy in action or expression; the intended meaning of a communication; the state of a person's emotions (especially with regard to pleasure or dejection);  infuse with spirit

• spirits -  an alcoholic beverage that is distilled rather than fermented

• Spry -  moving quickly and lightly

• spud -  a sharp hand shovel for digging out roots and weeds; an edible tuber native to South America; a staple food of Ireland;  initiate drilling operations, as for petroleum; produce buds, branches, or germinate

• squash -  a game played in an enclosed court by two or four players who strike the ball with long-handled rackets; edible fruit of a squash plant; eaten as a vegetable; any of numerous annual trailing plants of the genus Cucurbita grown for their fleshy edible fruits;  to compress with violence, out of natural shape or condition

• squid -  widely distributed fast-moving ten-armed cephalopod mollusk having a long tapered body with triangular tail fins; (Italian cuisine) squid prepared as food

• Sri Lanka -  a republic on the island of Ceylon; became independent of the United Kingdom in 1948

• stamp -  a block or die used to imprint a mark or design; machine consisting of a heavy bar that moves vertically for pounding or crushing ores; a symbol that is the result of printing; a type or class; a device incised to make an impression; used to secure a closing or to authenticate documents; a token that postal fees have been paid; the distinctive form in which a thing is made;  destroy or extinguish as if by stamping with the foot; to mark, or produce an imprint in or on something; affix a stamp to; crush or grind with a heavy instrument; form or cut out with a mold, form, or die; reveal clearly as having a certain character; treat or classify according to a mental stereotype; raise in a relief; walk heavily

• staphylococcus -  spherical Gram-positive parasitic bacteria that tend to form irregular colonies; some cause boils or septicemia or infections

• staple -  necessary foods or commodities;  paper fastener consisting of a short length of U-shaped wire that can fasten papers together; a short U-shaped wire nail for securing cables; a natural fiber (raw cotton, wool, hemp, flax) that can be twisted to form yarn; (usually plural) a necessary commodity for which demand is constant; material suitable for manufacture or use or finishing;  secure or fasten with a staple or staples

• star apple -  evergreen tree of West Indies and Central America having edible purple fruit star-shaped in cross section and dark green leaves with golden silky undersides

• starch -  a complex carbohydrate found chiefly in seeds, fruits, tubers, roots and stem pith of plants, notably in corn, potatoes, wheat, and rice; an important foodstuff and used otherwise especially in adhesives and as fillers and stiffeners for paper and textiles;  stiffen with starch

• starchy -  rigidly formal; consisting of or containing starch

• starvation -  the act of depriving of food or subjecting to famine; a state of extreme hunger resulting from lack of essential nutrients over a prolonged period

• steaming -  filled with steam or emitting moisture in the form of vapor or mist; adv. (used of heat) extremely

• stereotype -  a conventional or formulaic conception or image;  treat or classify according to a mental stereotype

• steroid -  any of several fat-soluble organic compounds having as a basis 17 carbon atoms in four rings; many have important physiological effects; any hormone affecting the development and growth of sex organs

• Stevia -  any plant of the genus Piqueria or the closely related genus Stevia; any plant of the genus Stevia or the closely related genus Piqueria having glutinous foliage and white or purplish flowers; Central and South America

• stew -  food prepared by stewing especially meat or fish with vegetables; agitation resulting from active worry;  cook slowly and for a long time in liquid; bear a grudge; harbor ill feelings; be in a huff; be silent or sullen

• Stilton -  English blue cheese

• stimulant -  that stimulates;  a drug that temporarily quickens some vital process; any stimulating information or event; acts to arouse action

• stocks -  a former instrument of punishment consisting of a heavy timber frame with holes in which the feet (and sometimes the hands) of an offender could be locked; a frame for constraining an animal while it is receiving veterinary attention or while being shod; a frame that supports a boat while it is under construction

• stomach -  an enlarged and muscular saclike organ of the alimentary canal; the principal organ of digestion; an appetite for food; an inclination or liking for things involving conflict or difficulty or unpleasantness; the region of the body of a vertebrate between the thorax and the pelvis;  bear to eat; put up with something or somebody unpleasant

• Stone Age -  (archeology) the earliest known period of human culture, characterized by the use of stone implements

• storage -  the act of storing something; the commercial enterprise of storing goods and materials; (computer science) the process of storing information in a computer memory or on a magnetic tape or disk; depositing in a warehouse; an electronic memory device; a depository for goods

• Strauss -  Austrian composer of waltzes (1804-1849); Austrian composer and son of Strauss the Elder; composed many famous waltzes and became known as the `waltz king' (1825-1899); German composer of many operas; collaborated with librettist Hugo von Hoffmannsthal to produce several operas (1864-1949)

• stuffed -  filled with something; crammed with food

• Sturgeon -  large primitive fishes valued for their flesh and roe; widely distributed in the North Temperate Zone

• succotash -  fresh corn and lima beans with butter or cream

• sucrose -  a complex carbohydrate found in many plants and used as a sweetening agent

• Sudan -  a region of northern Africa south of the Sahara and Libyan deserts; extends from the Atlantic to the Red Sea; a republic in northeastern Africa on the Red Sea; achieved independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom in 1956

• Sufism -  Islamic mysticism

• sugar -  a white crystalline carbohydrate used as a sweetener and preservative; informal terms for money; an essential structural component of living cells and source of energy for animals; includes simple sugars with small molecules as well as macromolecular substances; are classified according to the number of monosaccharide groups they contain;  sweeten with sugar

• sugar cane -  tall tropical southeast Asian grass having stout fibrous jointed stalks; sap is a chief source of sugar; juicy canes whose sap is a source of molasses and commercial sugar; fresh canes are sometimes chewed for the juice

• sugar palm -  Malaysian feather palm with base densely clothed with fibers; yields a sweet sap used in wine and trunk pith yields sago

• sulfur -  an abundant tasteless odorless multivalent nonmetallic element; best known in yellow crystals; occurs in many sulphide and sulphate minerals and even in native form (especially in volcanic regions);  treat with sulphur in order to preserve

• sulfur dioxide -  a colorless toxic gas (SO2) that occurs in the gases from volcanoes; used in many manufacturing processes and present in industrial emissions; causes acid rain

• summer squash -  any of various fruits of the gourd family that mature during the summer; eaten while immature and before seeds and rind harden; any of various usually bushy plants producing fruit that is eaten while immature and before the rind or seeds harden

• Sunbeam -  a ray of sunlight

• Sunni Islam -  one of the two main branches of orthodox Islam

• superstition -  an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear

• supper -  a light evening meal; served in early evening if dinner is at midday or served late in the evening at bedtime; a social gathering where a light evening meal is served

• supply -  offering goods and services for sale; an amount of something available for use; the activity of supplying or providing something;  provide or furnish with; state or say further; provide what is desired or needed, especially support, food or sustenance; circulate or distribute or equip with

• Surgeon -  a physician who specializes in surgery

• Survey -  a detailed critical inspection; the act of looking or seeing or observing; short descriptive summary (of events);  consider in a comprehensive way; plot a map of (land); make a survey of; for statistical purposes; look over in a comprehensively, inspect; hold a review (of troops); keep under surveillance

• sushi -  rice (with raw fish) wrapped in seaweed

• sustainability -  the property of being sustainable

• sustainable -  capable of being sustained

• swan -  stately heavy-bodied aquatic bird with very long neck and usually white plumage as adult;  sweep majestically; to declare or affirm solemnly and formally as true; move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment

• Swanson -  United States actress in many silent films (1899-1983)

• sweating -  being wet with perspiration;  the process of the sweat glands of the skin secreting a salty fluid

• Sweden -  a Scandinavian kingdom in the eastern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula

• Swedish -  of or relating to or characteristic of Sweden or its people or culture or language;  a Scandinavian language that is the official language of Sweden and one of two official languages of Finland

• sweet -  pleasing to the senses; (used of wines) having a high residual sugar content; having or denoting the characteristic taste of sugar; having a natural fragrance; not containing or composed of salt water; having a sweet nature befitting an angel or cherub; pleasing to the ear; pleasing to the mind or feeling; with sweetening added; not soured or preserved; adv. in an affectionate or loving manner (`sweet' is sometimes a poetic or informal variant of `sweetly');  the taste experience when sugar dissolves in the mouth; a food rich in sugar; English phonetician; one of the founders of modern phonetics (1845-1912); the property of tasting as if it contains sugar; a dish served as the last course of a meal

• sweet potato -  the edible tuberous root of the sweet potato vine which is grown widely in warm regions of the United States; pantropical vine widely cultivated in several varieties for its large sweet tuberous root with orange flesh; egg-shaped terra cotta wind instrument with a mouthpiece and finger holes

• sweetener -  anything that serves as an enticement; something added to foods to make them taste sweeter

• Swift -  moving very fast;  a small bird that resembles a swallow and is noted for its rapid flight; an English satirist born in Ireland (1667-1745); United States meat-packer who began the use of refrigerated railroad cars (1839-1903); common western lizard; seen on logs or rocks

• Swiss -  of or relating to Switzerland or its people or culture;  the natives or inhabitants of Switzerland

• Swiss chard -  long succulent whitish stalks with large green leaves; beet lacking swollen root; grown as a vegetable for its edible leaves and stalks

• Switzerland -  a landlocked federal republic in central Europe

• swizzle stick -  a small stick used to stir mixed drinks

• swordfish -  large toothless marine food fish with a long swordlike upper jaw; not completely cold-blooded i.e. they are able to warm their brains and eyes: worldwide in warm waters but feed on cold ocean floor coming to surface at night; flesh of swordfish usually served as steaks

• symbolism -  the practice of investing things with symbolic meaning; a system of symbols and symbolic representations; an artistic movement in the late 19th century that tried to express abstract or mystical ideas through the symbolic use of images

• Symons -  English poet (1865-1945)

• Symposium -  a meeting or conference for the public discussion of some topic especially one in which the participants form an audience and make presentations

• syndrome -  a complex of concurrent things; a pattern of symptoms indicative of some disease

• synthesis -  the combination of ideas into a complex whole; the process of producing a chemical compound (usually by the union of simpler chemical compounds); reasoning from the general to the particular (or from cause to effect)

• Syria -  an Asian republic in the Middle East at the east end of the Mediterranean; site of some of the world's most ancient centers of civilization

• syrup -  a thick sweet sticky liquid

• system -  instrumentality that combines interrelated interacting artifacts designed to work as a coherent entity; the living body considered as made up of interdependent components forming a unified whole; a group of physiologically or anatomically related organs or parts; a complex of methods or rules governing behavior; a procedure or process for obtaining an objective; a group of independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole; (physical chemistry) a sample of matter in which substances in different phases are in equilibrium; an ordered manner; orderliness by virtue of being methodical and well organized; an organized structure for arranging or classifying

• Szechuan -  a populous province of south central China

• Tabasco sauce -  very spicy sauce (trade name Tabasco) made from fully-aged red peppers

• tabbouleh -  a finely chopped salad with tomatoes and parsley and mint and scallions and bulgur wheat

• table -  a piece of furniture having a smooth flat top that is usually supported by one or more vertical legs; a piece of furniture with tableware for a meal laid out on it; a set of data arranged in rows and columns; a company of people assembled at a table for a meal or game; food or meals in general; flat tableland with steep edges;  hold back to a later time

• table talk -  conversation during a meal

• taboo -  forbidden to profane use especially in South Pacific islands; excluded from use or mention;  an inhibition or ban resulting from social custom or emotional aversion; a prejudice (especially in Polynesia and other South Pacific islands) that prohibits the use or mention of something because of its sacred nature;  declare as sacred and forbidden

• tacca -  genus of tropical plants with creeping rootstocks and small umbellate flowers

• Tacitus -  Roman historian who wrote major works on the history of the Roman Empire (56-120)

• taffy -  chewy candy of sugar or syrup boiled until thick and pulled until glossy

• Taiwan -  an island in southeastern Asia 100 miles off the coast of mainland China in the South China Sea; a government on the island of Taiwan established in 1949 by Chiang Kai-shek after the conquest of mainland China by the communists led by Mao Zedong

• Tajikistan -  a landlocked mountainous republic in southeast central Asia north of Afghanistan; formerly an Asian soviet

• take -  the act of photographing a scene or part of a scene without interruption; the income or profit arising from such transactions as the sale of land or other property;  ascertain or determine by measuring, computing or take a reading from a dial; be seized or affected in a specified way; interpret something in a certain way; convey a particular meaning or impression; accept or undergo, often unwillingly; obtain by winning; get into one's hands, take physically; have sex with; archaic use; travel or go by means of a certain kind of transportation, or a certain route; head into a specified direction; experience or feel or submit to; to get into a position of having, e.g., safety, comfort; take into one's possession; take by force; buy, select; make use of or accept for some purpose; require (time or space); develop a habit; carry out; be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness; remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract; take on a certain form, attribute, or aspect; be a student of a certain subject; pick out, select, or choose from a number of alternatives; take into consideration for exemplifying purposes; take as an undesirable consequence of some event or state of affairs; lay claim to; as of an idea; make a film or photograph of something; aim or direct at; as of blows, weapons, or objects such as photographic equipment; serve oneself to, or consume regularly; proceed along in a vehicle; occupy or take on; take somebody somewhere; take something or somebody with oneself somewhere; engage for service under a term of contract; receive or obtain by regular payment; receive willingly something given or offered; admit into a group or community; assume, as of positions or roles; require as useful, just, or proper; be capable of holding or containing; have with oneself; have on one's person; be designed to hold or take

• take out -  buy and consume food from a restaurant or establishment that sells prepared food; remove something from a container or an enclosed space; obtain by legal or official process; purchase prepared food to be eaten at home; cause to leave; take out or remove; prevent from being included or considered or accepted; take out of a literary work in order to cite or copy; remove, usually with some force or effort; also used in an abstract sense; remove from its packing; take liquid out of a container or well; bring, take, or pull out of a container or from under a cover; remove (a commodity) from (a supply source); make a date

• Tamil Nadu -  a state in southeastern India on the Bay of Bengal (south of Andhra Pradesh); formerly Madras

• tandoor -  a clay oven used in northern India and Pakistan

• Tang -  any of various coarse seaweeds; the imperial dynasty of China from 618 to 907; any of various kelps especially of the genus Laminaria; brown algae seaweed with serrated edges; a common rockweed used in preparing kelp and as manure; a tart spicy quality; the taste experience when a savoury condiment is taken into the mouth

• tannia -  tropical American aroid having edible tubers that are cooked and eaten like yams or potatoes

• Tanzania -  a republic in eastern Africa

• Taoism -  philosophical system developed by of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu advocating a simple honest life and noninterference with the course of natural events; popular Chinese philosophical system based in teachings of Lao-tzu but characterized by a pantheism of many gods and the practices of alchemy and divination and magic; religion adhering to the teaching of Lao-tzu; a Chinese sect claiming to follow the teaching of Lao-tzu but incorporating pantheism and sorcery in addition to Taoism

• tapioca -  granular preparation of cassava starch used to thicken especially puddings

• tapir -  large inoffensive chiefly nocturnal ungulate of tropical America and southeast Asia having a heavy body and fleshy snout

• Tappan -  United States abolitionist (1786-1865)

• tardive dyskinesia -  involuntary rolling of the tongue and twitching of the face or trunk or limbs; often occurs in patients with Parkinsonism who are treated with phenothiazine

• Target -  sports equipment consisting of an object set up for a marksman or archer to aim at; a reference point to shoot at; the location of the target that is to be hit; the goal intended to be attained (and which is believed to be attainable); a person who is the aim of an attack (especially a victim of ridicule or exploitation) by some hostile person or influence;  intend (something) to move towards a certain goal

• taro -  tropical starchy tuberous root; herb of the Pacific islands grown throughout the tropics for its edible root and in temperate areas as an ornamental for its large glossy leaves; edible starchy tuberous root of taro plants

• Tasmania -  an island off the southeastern coast of Australia; an Australian state on the island of Tasmania

• Tasso -  Italian poet who wrote an epic poem about the capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade (1544-1595)

• taste -  a kind of sensing; distinguishing substances by means of the taste buds; the faculty of distinguishing sweet, sour, bitter, and salty properties in the mouth; the sensation that results when taste buds in the tongue and throat convey information about the chemical composition of a soluble stimulus; delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values); a brief experience of something; a small amount eaten or drunk; a strong liking;  experience briefly; perceive by the sense of taste; distinguish flavors; have flavor; taste of something; take a sample of; have a distinctive or characteristic taste

• taste perception -  the sensation that results when taste buds in the tongue and throat convey information about the chemical composition of a soluble stimulus

• Tattle -  disclosing information or giving evidence about another;  divulge confidential information or secrets; "Be careful--his secretary talks"; speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly

• Taylor -  12th President of the United States; died in office (1784-1850); United States film actress (born in England) who was a childhood star; as an adult she often co-starred with Richard Burton (born in 1932); United States composer and music critic (1885-1966)

• tea -  a light midafternoon meal of tea and sandwiches or cakes; dried leaves of the tea shrub; used to make tea; a beverage made by steeping tea leaves in water; a reception or party at which tea is served; a tropical evergreen shrub or small tree extensively cultivated in e.g. China and Japan and India; source of tea leaves

• tea ceremony -  an ancient ritual for preparing and serving and drinking tea

• technology -  the practical application of science to commerce or industry; the discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems

• teeth -  the kind and number and arrangement of teeth (collectively) in a person or animal

• teff -  an African grass economically important as a cereal grass (yielding white flower of good quality) as well as for forage and hay

• television -  a telecommunication system that transmits images of objects (stationary or moving) between distant points; broadcasting visual images of stationary or moving objects; an electronic device that receives television signals and displays them on a screen

• television show -  a program broadcast by television

• temperature -  the degree of hotness or coldness of a body or environment (corresponding to its molecular activity); the somatic sensation of cold or heat

• Temple -  place of worship consisting of an edifice for the worship of a deity; an edifice devoted to special or exalted purposes; the flat area on either side of the forehead; (Judaism) the place of worship for a Jewish congregation

• tempura -  vegetables and seafood dipped in batter and deep-fried

• tequila -  Mexican liquor made from fermented juices of an agave plant

• term -  any distinct quantity contained in a polynomial; a word or expression used for some particular thing; one of the substantive phrases in a logical proposition; a limited period of time; the end of gestation or point at which birth is imminent; (architecture) a statue or a human bust or an animal carved out of the top of a square pillar; originally used as a boundary marker in ancient Rome; (usually plural) a statement of what is required as part of an agreement;  name formally or designate with a term

• Thai -  of or relating to Thailand; of or relating to the languages of the Thai people; of or relating to or characteristic of Thailand or its people;  a branch of the Tai languages; a native or inhabitant of Thailand

• Thailand -  a country of southeastern Asia that extends southward along the Isthmus of Kra to the Malay peninsula

• Thanksgiving -  fourth Thursday in November in the United States; second Monday in October in Canada; commemorates a feast held in 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag; a short prayer of thanks before a meal

• Theophrastus -  Greek philosopher who was a student of Aristotle and who succeeded Aristotle as the leader of the Peripatetics (371-287 BC)

• thiamine -  a B vitamin that prevents beriberi; maintains appetite and growth

• thickness -  resistance to flow; the dimension through an object as opposed to its length or width; used of a line or mark; indistinct articulation

• thirst -  a physiological need to drink; strong desire for something (not food or drink);  feel the need to drink; have a craving, appetite, or great desire for

• Thomas -  the Apostle who would not believe the resurrection of Jesus until he saw Jesus with his own eyes; Welsh poet (1914-1953); a radio broadcast journalist during World War I and World War II noted for his nightly new broadcast (1892-1981); United States socialist who was a candidate for president six times (1884-1968); United States clockmaker who introduced mass production (1785-1859)

• Thompson -  English physicist (born in America) who studied heat and friction; experiments convinced him that heat is caused by moving particles (1753-1814); United States classical archaeologist (born in Canada) noted for leading the excavation of the Athenian agora (1906-2000)

• Thor -  (Norse mythology) god of thunder and rain and farming; pictured as wielding a hammer emblematic of the thunderbolt; identified with Teutonic Donar

• Thoreau -  United States writer and social critic (1817-1862)

• threonine -  a colorless crystalline amino acid found in protein; occurs in the hydrolysates of certain proteins; an essential component of human nutrition

• thyme -  leaves can be used as seasoning for almost any meat and stews and stuffings and vegetables; any of various mints of the genus Thymus

• thymol -  a colorless crystalline solid used in perfume or preserving biological specimens or in embalming or medically as a fungicide or antiseptic

• thyroid gland -  located near the base of the neck

• thyrotoxicosis -  an overactive thyroid gland; pathologically excessive production of thyroid hormones or the condition resulting from excessive production of thyroid hormones

• Tibet -  an Asian country under the control of China; located in the Himalayas

• Tiffany -  United States artist who developed Tiffany glass (1848-1933)

• tilapia -  a genus of Cichlidae

• tillage -  the cultivation of soil for raising crops; arable land that is worked by plowing and sowing and raising crops

• time -  the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past; a person's experience on a particular occasion; an instance or single occasion for some event; an indefinite period (usually marked by specific attributes or activities); a suitable moment; a period of time considered as a resource under your control and sufficient to accomplish something; rhythm as given by division into parts of equal duration; the time as given by a clock; the fourth coordinate that is required (along with three spatial dimensions) to specify a physical event; the period of time a prisoner is imprisoned;  adjust so that a force is applied and an action occurs at the desired time; regulate or set the time of; assign a time for an activity or event; set the speed, duration, or execution of; measure the time or duration of an event or action or the person who performs an action in a certain period of time

• Tintoretto -  Italian painter of the Venetian school (1518-1594)

• tiramisu -  an Italian dessert consisting of layers of sponge cake soaked with coffee and brandy or liqueur layered with mascarpone cheese and topped with grated chocolate

• toaster -  a kitchen appliance (usually electric) for toasting bread; someone who proposes a toast; someone who drinks to the health of success of someone or some venture

• toaster oven -  kitchen appliance consisting of a small electric oven for toasting or warming food

• tobacco -  leaves of the tobacco plant dried and prepared for smoking or ingestion; aromatic annual or perennial herbs and shrubs

• toffee -  caramelized sugar cooled in thin sheets

• tofu -  cheeselike food made of curdled soybean milk

• Tokay -  variety of wine grape originally grown in Hungary; the prototype of vinifera grapes; Hungarian wine made from Tokay grapes

• Tolstoy -  Russian author remembered for two great novels (1828-1910)

• tomato -  mildly acid red or yellow pulpy fruit eaten as a vegetable; native to South America; widely cultivated in many varieties

• tomato ketchup -  thick spicy sauce made from tomatoes

• tongue -  the flap of material under the laces of a shoe or boot; a mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane and located in the oral cavity; a manner of speaking; the tongue of certain animals used as meat; any long thin projection that is transient; metal striker that hangs inside a bell and makes a sound by hitting the side; a human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language; a narrow strip of land that juts out into the sea;  lick or explore with the tongue; articulate by tonguing, as when playing wind instruments

• toothpaste -  a dentifrice in the form of a paste

• top fermentation -  a violent kind of alcoholic fermentation at a temperature high enough to carry the yeast cells to the top of the fermenting liquid; used in the production of ale

• Toronto -  the provincial capital and largest city in Ontario (and the largest city in Canada)

• tourism -  the business of providing services to tourists

• toxicity -  the degree to which something is poisonous; grave harmfulness or deadliness

• trace -  either of two lines that connect a horse's harness to a wagon or other vehicle or to a whiffletree; an indication that something has been present; a visible mark (as a footprint) left by the passage of person or animal or vehicle; a just detectable amount; a drawing created by superimposing a semitransparent sheet of paper on the original image and copying on it the lines of the original image; a suggestion of some quality;  follow, discover, or ascertain the course of development of something; make a mark or lines on a surface; copy by following the lines of the original drawing on a transparent sheet placed upon it; make a tracing of; make one's course or travel along a path; travel or pass over, around, or along; to go back over again; discover traces of; read with difficulty; pursue or chase relentlessly

• trade -  the skilled practice of a practical occupation; the commercial exchange (buying and selling on domestic or international markets) of goods and services; the business given to a commercial establishment by its customers; an equal exchange; a particular instance of buying or selling; people who perform a particular kind of skilled work; steady winds blowing from east to west above and below the equator;  exchange or give (something) in exchange for; turn in as payment or part payment for a purchase; engage in the trade of; be traded at a certain price or under certain conditions; do business; offer for sale as for one's livelihood

• traditional -  consisting of or derived from tradition; pertaining to time-honored orthodox doctrines

• Trait -  a distinguishing feature of your personal nature

• transport -  an exchange of molecules (and their kinetic energy and momentum) across the boundary between adjacent layers of a fluid or across cell membranes; the commercial enterprise of moving goods and materials; something that serves as a means of transportation; a mechanism that transports magnetic tape across the read/write heads of a tape playback/recorder; a state of being carried away by overwhelming emotion;  move while supporting, either in a vehicle or in one's hands or on one's body; transport commercially; move something or somebody around; usually over long distances; send from one person or place to another; hold spellbound

• trapping -  stable gear consisting of a decorated covering for a horse, especially (formerly) for a warhorse

• travel -  the act of going from one place to another; self-propelled movement; a movement through space that changes the location of something;  change location; move, travel, or proceed; undergo transportation as in a vehicle; make a trip for pleasure; undertake a journey or trip; travel upon or across; travel from place to place, as for the purpose of finding work, preaching, or acting as a judge

• treatment -  care by procedures or applications that are intended to relieve illness or injury; the management of someone or something; a manner of dealing with something artistically; an extended communication (often interactive) dealing with some particular topic

• trichinosis -  infestation by trichina larvae that are transmitted by eating inadequately cooked meat (especially pork); larvae migrate from the intestinal tract to the muscles where they become encysted

• trigeminal nerve -  the main sensory nerve of the face and motor nerve for the muscles of mastication

• tripe -  lining of the stomach of a ruminant (especially a bovine) used as food; nonsensical talk or writing

• Tropical -  of weather or climate; hot and humid as in the tropics; characterized by or of the nature of a trope or tropes; changed from its literal sense; relating to or situated in or characteristic of the tropics (the region on either side of the equator); of or relating to the tropics, or either tropic

• trout -  any of various game and food fishes of cool fresh waters mostly smaller than typical salmons; flesh of any of several primarily freshwater game and food fishes

• truck farming -  growing vegetables for the market

• truck stop -  a roadside service station (and restaurant) that caters to truck drivers

• Trust -  the trait of believing in the honesty and reliability of others; a consortium of independent organizations formed to limit competition by controlling the production and distribution of a product or service; something (as property) held by one party (the trustee) for the benefit of another (the beneficiary); certainty based on past experience; complete confidence in a person or plan etc; a trustful relationship;  have confidence or faith in; extend credit to; allow without fear; be confident about something; expect and wish; confer a trust upon

• tryptophan -  an amino acid that occurs in proteins; is essential for growth and normal metabolism; a precursor of niacin

• tuberculosis -  infection transmitted by inhalation or ingestion of tubercle bacilli and manifested in fever and small lesions (usually in the lungs but in various other parts of the body in acute stages)

• tuna -  New Zealand eel; any very large marine food and game fish of the genus Thunnus; related to mackerel; chiefly of warm waters; important warm-water fatty fish of the genus Thunnus of the family Scombridae; usually served as steaks; tropical American prickly pear of Jamaica

• Tunisia -  a republic in northwestern Africa on the Mediterranean coast; achieved independence from France in 1956

• Tunisian -  of or relating to Tunisia or its inhabitants; of or relating to the city of Tunis or its residents;  a native or inhabitant of Tunisia

• turbot -  a large brownish European flatfish; flesh of a large European flatfish

• Turkey -  large gallinaceous bird with fan-shaped tail; widely domesticated for food; an event that fails badly or is totally ineffectual; flesh of large domesticated fowl usually roasted; a Eurasian republic in Asia Minor and the Balkans; achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1923; a person who does something thoughtless or annoying

• Turkish coffee -  drink made from pulverized coffee beans; usually sweetened

• turmeric -  ground dried rhizome of the turmeric plant used as seasoning; widely cultivated tropical plant of India having yellow flowers and a large aromatic deep yellow rhizome; source of a condiment and a yellow dye

• Twain -  two items of the same kind

• Twelfth Night -  eve of Twelfth day; evening of January 5

• Tyler -  a town in northeast Texas; elected vice president and became the 10th President of the United States when Harrison died (1790-1862)

• typhoid fever -  serious infection marked by intestinal inflammation and ulceration; caused by Salmonella typhosa ingested with food or water

• typology -  classification according to general type

• tyrosine -  an amino acid found in most proteins; a precursor of several hormones

• Uganda -  a landlocked republic in eastern Africa; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1962

• Ukraine -  a republic in southeastern Europe; formerly a European soviet; the center of the original Russian state which came into existence in the ninth century

• uncooked -  not cooked

• Underwood -  the brush (small trees and bushes and ferns etc.) growing beneath taller trees in a wood or forest

• undulant fever -  infectious bacterial disease of human beings transmitted by contact with infected animals or infected meat or milk products; characterized by fever and headache

• UNESCO -  an agency of the United Nations that promotes education and communication and the arts

• UNICEF -  an agency of the United Nations responsible for programs to aid education and the health of children and mothers in developing countries

• United Kingdom -  a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland

• United Nations -  an organization of independent states formed in 1945 to promote international peace and security

• United States -  North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776; the executive and legislative and judicial branches of the federal government of the United States

• urban -  located in or characteristic of a city or city life; relating to or concerned with a city or densely populated area

• urbanization -  the social process whereby cities grow and societies become more urban; the condition of being urbanized

• Uruguay -  a South American republic on the southeast coast of South America; achieved independence from Brazil in 1825

• USDA -  the federal department that administers programs that provide services to farmers (including research and soil conservation and efforts to stabilize the farming economy); created in 1862

• Use -  the act of using; a particular service; (law) the exercise of the legal right to enjoy the benefits of owning property; exerting shrewd or devious influence especially for one's own advantage; a pattern of behavior acquired through frequent repetition; what something is used for; (economics) the utilization of economic goods to satisfy needs or in manufacturing;  use up, consume fully; put into service; make work or employ (something) for a particular purpose or for its inherent or natural purpose; take or consume (regularly or habitually); habitually do something (use only in the past tense); seek or achieve an end by using to one's advantage; avail oneself to

• used -  employed in accomplishing something; previously used or owned by another; of persons; taken advantage of

• useful -  being of use or service; having a useful function

• utopia -  an imaginary place considered to be perfect or ideal; a work of fiction describing a utopia; a book written by Sir Thomas More (1516) describing the perfect society on an imaginary island; ideally perfect state; especially in its social and political and moral aspects

• utopianism -  the political orientation of a utopian who believes in impossibly idealistic schemes of social perfection

• Uttar Pradesh -  a state in northern India

• vagus nerve -  a mixed nerve that supplies the pharynx and larynx and lungs and heart and esophagus and stomach and most of the abdominal viscera

• Valentine's Day -  a day for the exchange of tokens of affection

• valerian -  a plant of the genus Valeriana having lobed or dissected leaves and cymose white or ink flowers

• valine -  an essential amino acid found in proteins; important for growth in children and nitrogen balance in adults

• vanadium -  a soft silvery white toxic metallic element used in steel alloys; it occurs in several complex minerals including carnotite and vanadinite

• vanilla -  plain and without any extras or adornments; flavored with vanilla extract;  a distinctive fragrant flavor characteristic of vanilla beans; a flavoring prepared from vanilla beans macerated in alcohol (or imitating vanilla beans); any of numerous climbing plants of the genus Vanilla having fleshy leaves and clusters of large waxy highly fragrant white or green or topaz flowers

• variety -  a difference that is usually pleasant; (biology) a taxonomic category consisting of members of a species that differ from others of the same species in minor but heritable characteristics; noticeable heterogeneity; a category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality; a show consisting of a series of short unrelated performances; a collection containing a variety of sorts of things

• veal -  meat from a calf

• vegetable -  of the nature of or characteristic of or derived from plants;  edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant; any of various herbaceous plants cultivated for an edible part such as the fruit or the root of the beet or the leaf of spinach or the seeds of bean plants or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower

• vegetarianism -  a diet excluding all meat and fish

• velvet -  resembling velvet in having a smooth soft surface; smooth and soft to sight or hearing or touch or taste;  a silky densely piled fabric with a plain back

• velvet bean -  the annual woody vine of Asia having long clusters of purplish flowers and densely hairy pods; cultivated in southern United States for green manure and grazing

• Veneto -  a region of northeastern Italy on the Adriatic

• Venezuela -  a republic in northern South America on the Caribbean; achieved independence from Spain in 1811; rich in oil

• venison -  meat from a deer used as food

• Vermont -  a state in New England

• Veronese -  Italian painter of the Venetian school (1528-1588)

• vichyssoise -  a creamy potato soup flavored with leeks and onions; usually served cold

• Victorian -  typical of the moral standards or conduct of the age of Queen Victoria; of or relating to Queen Victoria of Great Britain or to the age in which she ruled; exaggeratedly proper;  a person who lived during the reign of Victoria

• Victory Garden -  a kitchen garden planted during wartime to relieve food shortages

• Vienna -  the capital and largest city of Austria; located on the Danube in northeastern Austria; was the home of Beethoven and Brahms and Haydn and Mozart and Schubert and Strauss

• Vietnam -  a communist state in Indochina on the South China Sea; achieved independence from France in 1945; a prolonged war (1954-1975) between the communist armies of North Vietnam who were supported by the Chinese and the armies of South Vietnam who were supported by the United States

• Vietnamese -  of or relating to or characteristic of the people of Vietnam; of or relating to the Vietnamese language; of or relating to Vietnam;  the Mon-Khmer language spoken in Vietnam; a native or inhabitant of Vietnam

• vinegar -  sour-tasting liquid produced usually by oxidation of the alcohol in wine or cider and used as a condiment or food preservative; dilute acetic acid

• vintage -  the oldness of wines; a season's yield of wine from a vineyard

• Virgil -  a Roman poet; author of the epic poem `Aeneid' (70-19 BC)

• Vishnu -  the sustainer; a Hindu divinity worshipped as the preserver of worlds

• vision -  the perceptual experience of seeing; a vivid mental image; a religious or mystical experience of a supernatural appearance; the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses; the ability to see; the visual faculty

• viticulture -  the cultivation of grapes and grape vines; grape growing

• VLDL -  large lipoproteins rich in triglycerides; VLDLs circulate through the blood giving up their triglycerides to fat and muscle tissue until the VLDL remnants are modified and converted into LDL

• vodka -  unaged colorless liquor originating in Russia

• Voltaire -  French writer who was the embodiment of 18th century Enlightenment (1694-1778)

• voluntary -  of your own free will or design; not forced or compelled; controlled by individual volition;  composition (often improvised) for a solo instrument (especially solo organ) and not a regular part of a religious service or musical performance; (military) a person who freely enlists for service

• voodoo -  a religious cult practiced chiefly in Caribbean countries (especially Haiti); involves witchcraft and animistic deities; a charm superstitiously believed to embody magical powers;  bewitch by or as if by a voodoo

• waiter -  a person whose occupation is to serve at table (as in a restaurant); a person who waits or awaits

• wake -  a vigil held over a corpse the night before burial; the wave that spreads behind a boat as it moves forward; an island in the western Pacific between Guam and Hawaii; the consequences of an event (especially a catastrophic event);  be awake, be alert, be there; make aware of; stop sleeping; cause to become awake or conscious; arouse or excite feelings and passions

• Waldorf salad -  typically made of apples and celery with nuts or raisins and dressed with mayonnaise

• Wales -  one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; during Roman times the region was known as Cambria

• walrus -  either of two large northern marine mammals having ivory tusks and tough hide over thick blubber

• Walter -  German conductor (1876-1962)

• war -  a concerted campaign to end something that is injurious; the waging of armed conflict against an enemy; an active struggle between competing entities; a legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration during which the international rules of war apply;  make or wage war

• warfare -  the waging of armed conflict against an enemy; an active struggle between competing entities

• wartime -  a period of time during which there is armed conflict

• washing -  the work of cleansing (usually with soap and water); garments or white goods that can be cleaned by laundering

• wassail -  a punch made of sweetened ale or wine heated with spices and roasted apples; especially at Christmas;  propose a toast to; celebrate noisily, often indulging in drinking; engage in uproarious festivities

• waste -  located in a dismal or remote area; desolate;  useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly; (law) reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect; any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted; the trait of wasting resources; an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation;  waste away; cause to grow thin or weak; use inefficiently or inappropriately; run off as waste; get rid of; spend thoughtlessly; throw away; devastate or ravage; lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief; spend extravagantly; get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing

• water -  a fluid necessary for the life of most animals and plants; binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colorless odorless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below 0 degrees centigrade and boils above 100 degrees centigrade; widely used as a solvent; once thought to be one of four elements composing the universe (Empedocles); a facility that provides a source of water; the part of the earth's surface covered with water (such as a river or lake or ocean); liquid excretory product;  secrete or form water, as tears or saliva; supply with water, as with channels or ditches or streams; fill with tears; provide with water

• water buffalo -  an Asian buffalo that is often domesticated for use as a draft animal

• water caltrop -  a variety of water chestnut

• water chestnut -  edible bulbous tuber of a Chinese marsh plant; Chinese sedge yielding edible bulb-shaped tubers; a plant of the genus Trapa bearing spiny four-pronged edible nutlike fruits

• water-soluble -  soluble in water

• water supply -  a facility that provides a source of water

• watercress -  of a moderate yellow-green color that is greener and deeper than moss green and yellower and darker than pea green;  cresses that grow in clear ponds and streams; any of several water-loving cresses

• waterfowl -  freshwater aquatic bird

• watermelon -  large oblong or roundish melon with a hard green rind and sweet watery red or occasionally yellowish pulp; an African melon

• Waugh -  English author of satirical novels (1903-1966)

• weakfish -  food and game fish of North American coastal waters with a mouth from which hooks easily tear out; lean flesh of food and game fishes of the Atlantic coast of the United States

• wealth -  the quality of profuse abundance; property that has economic utility: a monetary value or an exchange value; an abundance of material possessions and resources; the state of being rich and affluent; having a plentiful supply of material goods and money

• wedding cake -  a rich cake with two or more tiers and covered with frosting and decorations; served at a wedding reception

• weight -  an artifact that is heavy; sports equipment used in calisthenic exercises and weightlifting; it is not attached to anything and is raised and lowered by use of the hands and arms; the vertical force exerted by a mass as a result of gravity; the relative importance granted to something; an oppressive feeling of heavy force; (statistics) a coefficient assigned to elements of a frequency distribution in order to represent their relative importance; a unit used to measure weight; a system of units used to express the weight of something;  present with a bias; weight down with a load

• Wells -  prolific English writer best known for his science-fiction novels; he also wrote on contemporary social problems and wrote popular accounts of history and science (1866-1946)

• West Africa -  an area of western African between the Sahara Desert and the Gulf of Guinea

• whale oil -  a white to brown oil obtained from whale blubber; formerly used as an illuminant

• wheat -  grains of common wheat; sometimes cooked whole or cracked as cereal; usually ground into flour; annual or biennial grass having erect flower spikes and light brown grains

• wheat beer -  a general name for beers made from wheat by top fermentation; usually very pale and cloudy and effervescent

• wheat flour -  flour prepared from wheat

• whey -  watery part of milk produced when raw milk sours and coagulates; the serum or watery part of milk that is separated from the curd in making cheese

• whiskey -  a liquor made from fermented mash of grain

• whisky -  a liquor made from fermented mash of grain

• white -  of or belonging to a racial group having light skin coloration; of summer nights in northern latitudes where the sun barely sets; being of the achromatic color of maximum lightness; having little or no hue owing to reflection of almost all incident light; (of hair) having lost its color; (of coffee) having cream or milk added; benevolent; without malicious intent; glowing white with heat; restricted to whites only; marked by the presence of snow; free from moral blemish or impurity; unsullied; anemic looking from illness or emotion; (of a surface) not written or printed on;  (board games) the lighter pieces; the quality or state of the achromatic color of greatest lightness (bearing the least resemblance to black); a tributary of the Mississippi River that flows southeastward through northern Arkansas and southern Missouri; a member of the Caucasoid race; United States educator who in 1865 (with Ezra Cornell) founded Cornell University and served as its first president (1832-1918); United States writer noted for his humorous essays (1899-1985); United States architect (1853-1906); United States political journalist (1915-1986); Australian writer (1912-1990); United States jurist appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1910 by President Taft; noted for his work on antitrust legislation (1845-1921); (usually in the plural) trousers made of flannel or gabardine or tweed or white cloth; the white part of an egg; the nutritive and protective gelatinous substance surrounding the yolk consisting mainly of albumin dissolved in water;  turn white

• whitefish -  silvery herring-like freshwater food fish of cold lakes of the northern hemisphere; flesh of salmon- or trout-like cold-water fish of cold lakes of the northern hemisphere; any market fish--edible saltwater fish or shellfish--except herring

• whiting -  a food fish of the Atlantic waters of Europe resembling the cod; sometimes placed in genus Gadus; any of several food fishes of North American coastal waters; a small fish of the genus Sillago; excellent food fish; flesh of any of a number of slender food fishes especially of Atlantic coasts of North America; flesh of a cod-like fish of the Atlantic waters of Europe; found off Atlantic coast of North America

• WHO -  a United Nations agency to coordinate international health activities and to help governments improve health services

• whole-wheat -  of or relating to or derived from wheat

• Wiener Schnitzel -  deep-fried breaded veal cutlets

• wild -  deviating widely from an intended course; in a state of extreme emotion; in a natural state; not tamed or domesticated or cultivated; marked by extreme lack of restraint or control; (of the elements) as if showing violent anger; without civilizing influences; intensely enthusiastic about or preoccupied with; located in a dismal or remote area; desolate; (of colors or sounds) intensely vivid or loud; extravagantly fanciful and unrealistic; foolish; involving risk or danger; talking or behaving irrationally; without a basis in reason or fact; adv. in a wild or undomesticated manner; in an uncontrolled and rampant manner;  a wild primitive state untouched by civilization; a wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition

• wild ginger -  low-growing perennial herb with pungent gingery leaves and rhizomes

• wild pea -  any of various plants of the family Leguminosae that usually grow like vines

• wild rice -  grains of aquatic grass of North America; perennial aquatic grass of North America bearing grain used for food

• Wilde -  Irish writer and wit (1854-1900)

• Williams -  United States playwright (1911-1983); English clergyman and colonist who was expelled from Massachusetts for criticizing Puritanism; he founded Providence in 1636 and obtained a royal charter for Rhode Island in 1663 (1603-1683); United States baseball player noted as a hitter (1918-2002); United States poet (1883-1963); English philosopher credited with reviving the field of moral philosophy (1929-2003); United States country singer and songwriter (1923-1953)

• willow -  a textile machine having a system of revolving spikes for opening and cleaning raw textile fibers; any of numerous deciduous trees and shrubs of the genus Salix

• Wilson -  a peak in the San Juan mountains of Colorado (14,246 feet high); 28th President of the United States; led the United States in World War I and secured the formation of the League of Nations (1856-1924); United States literary critic (1895-1972); Scottish physicist who invented the cloud chamber (1869-1959); United States entomologist who has generalized from social insects to other animals including humans (born in 1929); American Revolutionary leader who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (1742-1798); Canadian geophysicist who was a pioneer in the study of plate tectonics (1908-1993); United States physicist honored for his work on cosmic microwave radiation (born in 1918); Scottish ornithologist in the United States (1766-1813); English writer of novels and short stories (1913-1991); author of the first novel by an African American that was published in the United States (1808-1870)

• Wilson's disease -  a rare inherited disorder of copper metabolism; copper accumulates in the liver and then in the red blood cells and brain

• wine -  a red as dark as red wine; fermented juice (of grapes especially);  treat to wine; drink wine

• winemaking -  the craft and science of growing grapes and making wine

• Winery -  distillery where wine is made

• winged -  very fast; as if with wings; having wings or as if having wings of a specified kind

• winnowing -  the act of separating grain from chaff

• Winslow -  English colonial administrator who traveled to America on the Mayflower and served as the first governor of the Plymouth Colony (1595-1655)

• winter solstice -  December 22, when the sun is at its southernmost point

• winter squash -  any of various fruits of the gourd family with thick rinds and edible yellow to orange flesh that mature in the fall and can be stored for several months; any of various plants of the species Cucurbita maxima and Cucurbita moschata producing squashes that have hard rinds and mature in the fall

• wintergreen -  spicy red berrylike fruit; source of wintergreen oil; any of several evergreen perennials of the genus Pyrola; creeping shrub of eastern North America having white bell-shaped flowers followed by spicy red berrylike fruit and shiny aromatic leaves that yield wintergreen oil

• Wisconsin -  a midwestern state in north central United States; a tributary of the Mississippi River in Wisconsin

• Wister -  United States writer (1860-1938)

• witchcraft -  the art of sorcery

• Withering -  wreaking or capable of wreaking complete destruction; making light of;  any weakening or degeneration (especially through lack of use)

• wok -  pan with a convex bottom; used for frying in Chinese cooking

• wolf -  any of various predatory carnivorous canine mammals of North America and Eurasia that usually hunt in packs; a man who is aggressive in making amorous advances to women; German classical scholar who claimed that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed by several authors (1759-1824); Austrian composer (1860-1903); a cruelly rapacious person;  eat hastily

• wonton soup -  a soup with won ton dumplings

• Wood -  a golf club with a long shaft used to hit long shots; originally made with a wooden head; United States painter noted for works based on life in the Midwest (1892-1942); English writer of novels about murders and thefts and forgeries (1814-1887); English conductor (1869-1944); United States film actress (1938-1981); the hard fibrous lignified substance under the bark of trees; any wind instrument other than the brass instruments; the trees and other plants in a large densely wooded area

• wool -  outer coat of especially sheep and yaks; a fabric made from the hair of sheep; fiber sheared from animals (such as sheep) and twisted into yarn for weaving

• Woolf -  English author whose work used such techniques as stream of consciousness and the interior monologue; prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group (1882-1941)

• word play -  playing on words or speech sounds

• Work -  activity directed toward making or doing something; a product produced or accomplished through the effort or activity or agency of a person or thing; (physics) a manifestation of energy; the transfer of energy from one physical system to another expressed as the product of a force and the distance through which it moves a body in the direction of that force; the occupation for which you are paid; the total output of a writer or artist (or a substantial part of it); a place where work is done; applying the mind to learning and understanding a subject (especially by reading);  arrive at a certain condition through repeated motion; move into or onto; shape, form, or improve a material; gratify and charm, usually in order to influence; move in an agitated manner; provoke or excite; proceed towards a goal or along a path or through an activity; cause to work; be employed; exert oneself by doing mental or physical work for a purpose or out of necessity; cause to operate or function; operate in or through; have an effect or outcome; often the one desired or expected; operate in a certain place, area, or specialty; behave in a certain way when handled; give a workout to; go sour or spoil; cause to undergo fermentation; find the solution to (a problem or question) or understand the meaning of; use or manipulate to one's advantage; make uniform; perform as expected when applied; cause to happen or to occur as a consequence; make something, usually for a specific function; prepare for crops; proceed along a path; have and exert influence or effect

• Working Group -  a group of people working together temporarily until some goal is achieved

• World -  involving the entire earth; not limited or provincial in scope;  all of the living human inhabitants of the earth; all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you; people in general; especially a distinctive group of people with some shared interest; a part of the earth that can be considered separately; the concerns of this life as distinguished from heaven and the afterlife; people in general considered as a whole; the 3rd planet from the sun; the planet we live on; everything that exists anywhere

• World Bank -  a United Nations agency created to assist developing nations by loans guaranteed by member governments

• World War I -  a war between the allies (Russia, France, British Empire, Italy, United States, Japan, Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Montenegro) and the central powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria) from 1914 to 1918

• World War II -  a war between the Allies (Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, USSR, Yugoslavia) and the Axis (Albania, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Rumania, Slovakia, Thailand) from 1939 to 1945

• World Wide Web -  computer network consisting of a collection of internet sites that offer text and graphics and sound and animation resources through the hypertext transfer protocol

• Xenophon -  Greek general and historian; student of Socrates (430-355 BC)

• yak's milk -  the milk of a yak

• Yang -  the bright positive masculine principle in Chinese dualistic cosmology

• yautia -  tropical American aroid having edible tubers that are cooked and eaten like yams or potatoes

• yeast -  any of various single-celled fungi that reproduce asexually by budding or division; a commercial leavening agent containing yeast cells; used to raise the dough in making bread and for fermenting beer or whiskey

• Yemen -  a republic on the southwestern shores of the Arabian Peninsula on the Indian Ocean; formed in 1990

• yogurt -  a custard-like food made from curdled milk

• Yom Kippur -  (Judaism) a solemn and major fast day on the Jewish calendar; 10th of Tishri; its observance is one of the requirements of the Mosaic law

• Yorkshire pudding -  light puffy bread made of a puff batter and traditionally baked in the pan with roast beef

• Yugoslavia -  a former country of southeastern Europe bordering the Adriatic Sea; formed in 1918 and named Yugoslavia in 1929; controlled by Marshal Tito as a communist state until his death in 1980; a mountainous republic in southeastern Europe bordering on the Adriatic Sea; formed from two of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia until 1992; Serbia and Montenegro were known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until 2003 when they adopted the name of the Union of Serbia and Montenegro

• Yukon -  a territory in northwestern Canada; site of the Klondike gold rush in the 1890s; a North American river that flows westward from the Yukon Territory through central Alaska to the Bering Sea

• zabaglione -  light foamy custard-like dessert served hot or chilled

• Zangwill -  English writer (1864-1926)

• Zanzibar -  an island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa; part of the United Republic of Tanzania

• Zimbabwe -  a landlocked republic in south central Africa formerly called Rhodesia; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1980

• zinc -  a bluish-white lustrous metallic element; brittle at ordinary temperatures but malleable when heated; used in a wide variety of alloys and in galvanizing iron; it occurs as zinc sulphide in zinc blende;  coat or cover with zinc

• Zingiberaceae -  a family of tropical monocotyledonous plants of order Musales

• Zoroastrian -  of or pertaining to Zoroaster or the religion he founded;  follower of Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism

• Zoroastrianism -  system of religion founded in Persia in the 6th century BC by Zoroaster; set forth in the Zend-Avesta; based on concept of struggle between light (good) and dark (evil)

• zucchini -  small cucumber-shaped vegetable marrow; typically dark green; marrow squash plant whose fruit are eaten when small

• Zurich -  the largest city in Switzerland; located in the northern part of the country

• zwieback -  slice of sweet raised bread baked again until it is brown and hard and crisp