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Possible definitions for naans

Adanson
French botanist. He studied theology, classics, and philosophy in Paris before traveling to Senegal, where he lived several years. He returned with a large collection of plant specimens, now in the National Museum of Natural History. In Familles des plantes (1763; "Families of Plants"), he described his classification system; it was opposed by C. Linnaeus, whose system eventually prevailed. He was the first to classify mollusks. He also studied electricity in torpedo fish and the effects of electrical current on regenerating frog legs and heads. He is now known mainly for introducing the use of statistical methods in botanical studies.


Ananda
First cousin and disciple of the Buddha. A monk who served as the Buddha's personal attendant, he became known as the "beloved disciple." It was Ananda who persuaded the Buddha to allow women to become nuns. By tradition, he was the only intimate disciple of the Buddha who had not attained enlightenment before his master's death; he attained that state just before the first Buddhist Council (c.544 or 480 BC), when he recited from memory the Sutta Pitaka. He is represented as the author of several Buddhist discourses.


canasta
Form of rummy, using two full decks, in which players or partnerships try to meld groups of three or more cards of the same rank and score bonuses for seven-card melds. Eleven cards are dealt to each player, the undealt portion of the pack is placed on the table, and the top card is turned up to start the discard pile. Each player in turn must draw, may meld, and must discard one card. A hand ends when a player melds his last card (goes out). Canasta originated in Uruguay in the late 1940s; its name (meaning "basket") is probably a reference to the tray for holding discards.


chanson
French art song. The unaccompanied chanson for a single voice part, composed by the troubadours and later the trouv\u00e8 res, first appeared in the 12th cent. Accompanied chansons, with parts for one or more instruments, were written in the 14th-15th cent. by G. de Machaut and others in the strict formes fixes. Around 1500 chansons for several voices began to be written by Josquin des Prez and his contemporaries. In recent centuries the term has often been used for any piano-accompanied French art song.


Gdansk
City (pop., 1996 est.: 463,000), capital of Gdansk province, N Poland. Located at the mouth of the Vistula River on the Baltic Sea, it was first mentioned in the late 10th cent. as a Polish town. The capital of the dukes of Pomerania in the 13th cent., it was taken by the Teutonic Knights in 1308. In 1466 Casimir IV regained the territory for Poland, and Gdansk expanded greatly. From 1793 it was controlled mainly by Prussia; following World War I, it was a free city governed by Poland. In 1938 A. Hitler demanded that Gdansk be given back to Germany; Poland's refusal was the excuse for his attack on ...

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