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Possible definitions for abaft

abacus
Calculating instrument that uses beads that slide along a series of wires or rods set in a frame to represent the decimal places. Probably of Babylonian origin, it is the ancestor of the modern digital calculator. Used by merchants in the Middle Ages throughout Europe and the Arabic world, it was gradually replaced by arithmetic based on Hindu-Arabic numerals. Though rarely used in Europe past the 18th cent., it is still used in the Middle East, China, and Japan.


abalone
Any of several marine snail species (genus Haliotis, family Haliotidae), found in warm seas worldwide. The outer surface of the single shell has a row of small holes, most of which fill in as the animal grows; some remain open as outlets for waste products. Abalones range from 4 to 10 in. (10-25 cm) across and up to 3 in. (8 cm) deep. The largest is the 12 in. (30 cm) abalone (H. rufescens). The shell's lustrous, iridescent interior is used in ornaments, and the large muscular foot is eaten as a delicacy. Commercial abalone fisheries exist in California, Mexico, Japan, and S. Africa.


Abbate
Italian painter. He was trained in Modena and developed his mature style under the influence of his contemporaries Correggio and Parmigianino in Bologna (1544-52). There he painted portraits and decorated palaces with frescoes of landscapes and figure compositions in the Mannerist style. In 1552 he was invited by Henry II of France to work under Primaticcio at the Palace of Fontainebleau, where he executed immense murals (most now lost). He remained in France the rest of his life. His mythological landscapes were a principal source of the French classical landscape tradition, and he was a precursor of Claude Lorrain and N. Poussin.


Arafat
Palestinian leader. Born in Jerusalem, he graduated from the Univ. of Cairo as a civil engineer and served in the Egyptian army during the 1956 war with Israel. That year, working as an engineer in Kuwait, he cofounded the guerrilla organization Fatah, which became the leading military component of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which he led from 1969. In 1974 the PLO was formally recognized by the U.N., and Arafat became the first leader of a nongovernmental organization to address the U.N. In 1988 he acknowledged Israel's right to exist, and in 1993 he formally recognized Israel during direct talks regarding land controlled by Israel since the Six-Day War. In 1994 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Y. Rabin and S. Peres. In 1996 he became president of the new Palestinian Authority.


Avanti
Historic kingdom, N India. Located on the overland trade routes between N and S India, it lay within present-day Madhya Pradesh. Its capital was at Ujjain. It flourished in the 6th-4th cent. BC as one of the great powers of N India. In the 4th cent. BC it was conquered and annexed by Candra Gupta Maurya of Magadha. Ujjain, one of the seven holy cities of ...

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