Related Words

Aham : Yoga word for ego.

Anacreontic Verse: Imitations of the 6th-century b.c. greek poet anacreon, who wrote about love and wine. Thomas moore translated anacreon's odes in 1800. Abraham cowley adapted them in his anacreontics.

Purim: The observance of Presidents' Day in the United States is reminiscent of the Indian fable of the blind men and the elephant in the sense that the holiday seems to mean something different to . . . View Full Definition

Metaphysical Poets: John donne (1572-1631) and his imitators, including george herbert, andrew marvell, abraham cowley, richard crashaw, and henry vaughan, whose works are characterized (not exclusively) by col . . . View Full Definition

National Bank Act Of 1863: In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, at the urging of Salmon Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, signed the National Bank Act. The Act established a national banking system and a uniform na . . . View Full Definition

The Assumption of Mary: The custom of celebrating Thanksgiving, an annual celebration held after the harvest began around 1621 when the Pilgrims fulfilled a successful and bountiful harvest in the New World. The fi . . . View Full Definition

Graham-Harvey Measure 2: Performance measure developed by John Graham and Campbell Harvey. The idea is to lever a fund's portfolio to exactly match the volatility of the S&P 500. The difference between the fund's le . . . View Full Definition

Bel: Abbr. B, B Ten decibels. ( In honor of Alexander Graham Bell.) The Bel was originally a unit measure of the amount a signal dropped in level over a one-mile distance of telephone wire. See: decibel

Decibel (Db): One tenth of a Bel. This is a measurement of the comparative strength of two powers, and can be applied when measuring any signal in the audio, video, and electromagnetic spectrum. If two po . . . View Full Definition

Comedy Of Innocence: (1) In anthropological terms, a comedy of innocence is a ritualized symbolic behavior (or set of such behaviors) designed to alleviate individual or communal guilt about an execution or sacr . . . View Full Definition