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Possible definitions for oaken

Aden
Seaport city (pop., 1995: 562,000), S Yemen, on the Gulf of Aden. It was a principal terminus of the spice road of W Arabia for about 1,000 years before the 3rd cent. AD. It then became a trading center under Yemeni, Ethiopian, and Arab control. The Turks captured the city in 1538, and the British governed it as part of India 1839-1937. It grew in importance as a coaling station and transshipment point after the opening of the Suez Canal. It was separated from India and made a crown colony in 1937, incorporated in the Federation of South Arabia (1963-67), and served as the capital of S. Yemen until that republic's merger with N. Yemen in 1990.


Aiken
U.S. writer. Born in Savannah, Ga., he was traumatized as a child when his father killed his mother and then himself. Educated at Harvard Univ. he wrote most of his fiction in the 1920s and '30s. His works are influenced by early psychoanalytic theory. Generally more successful than his novels were his short stories, notably "Strange Moonlight" from Bring! Bring! (1925) and "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" and "Mr. Arcularis" from Among the Lost People (1934). His best poetry, incl. "Preludes to Definition," is in his Collected Poems (1953).


Akan
Cluster of peoples inhabiting S Ghana, E Ivory Coast, and parts of Togo. Their languages are of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo family. In the 14th-18th cent. several Akan states, notably the Fante confederacy and the Ashanti empire, formed in regions where gold was produced and traded. Today many of the Akan, who number about 5 million, work in urban districts.


Ake
Nigerian political scientist and activist. He received his PhD from Columbia Univ. in 1966. He founded the Center for Advanced Social Science in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and was active in efforts to uncover environmental and human-rights abuses by the Nigerian government. His books on African development and politics made him one of Africa's leading political scientists. He served as a consultant to Royal Dutch/Shell Group, but angrily resigned in 1995 to protest the execution of the activist K. Saro-Wiwa. He died the next year in a plane crash, whose cause has been disputed.


amen
Expression of agreement or confirmation used in worship by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The word derives from a Semitic root meaning "fixed" or "sure." The Greek Old Testament usually translates it as "so be it"; in the English Bible it is often translated as "verily" or "truly." By the 4th cent. BC, it was a common response to a doxology or other prayer in the Jewish temple liturgy. By the 2nd cent. AD, Christians had adopted it in the liturgy of the Eucharist, and in Christian worship a final amen now often sums up and confirms a prayer or hymn. Though less common in Islam, it is used after reading of the first sura.


Baden
Former German state, S Germany. The name (meaning "baths") refers to the warm ...

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