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Possible definitions for zaino

Taino
Arawak Indians of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea. They also inhabited Puerto Rico and the E tip of Cuba. They grew cassava and corn, hunted birds and small animals, and fished. They were skillful at working stone and wood. Their society consisted of three tiers--nobles, commoners, and slaves--and they were ruled by hereditary chiefs and subchiefs. Their religious beliefs centered on a hierarchy of nature spirits and ancestors. They became extinct within 100 years of the Spanish conquest.


Cairo
City (pop., 1991 est.: 6,663,000; metro. area pop., 1996 est.: 9,900,000), capital of Egypt. Located on the banks of the Nile near the site of a Roman city captured by the Arabs in 641, Old Cairo (Al-Fustat) was then built by the Arabs as a military camp. Cairo's newer section (Al-Qahirah) was built by the Fatimid dynasty c.968 and was made the capital in 973. From the 13th cent., as the capital of the Mamluk sultans, it reached its greatest prosperity as a trade and cultural center. Invaded by Napoleon in 1798, it was held by the French for three years. In World War II it was a British and U.S. base and was also the site of two Allied conferences (see Cairo conferences). The ancient metropolis is a blend of old and new, East and West. It is the largest city of the Middle East and of Africa, and the chief cultural center of the Arab world. The Pyramids of Giza are at the SW edge of the city. A manufacturing center, it is also the site of several universities and colleges.


cannon
Big gun, howitzer, or mortar, as distinguished from a musket, rifle, or other small arms. Huge artillery first appeared in Europe in the 15th cent. These early cannons, smooth-bored and forged of iron, weighed 6,000-8,000 lbs (2,800-3,600 kg) and were loaded through the muzzle. They were mounted on wheeled carriages, which were thrown backward when the cannon was fired. Rifled bores and breechloading were adopted in the later 19th cent., and new mechanisms such as the hydraulic buffer absorbed the recoil. Before 1850 ammunition was either cannister, grapeshot, or round, solid cannonballs and black powder, but rifled bores made possible the use of elongated projectiles, which had a longer range. The shrapnel shell was widely used in the 19th-20th cent. Modern cannons, of high-grade steel, are mounted on wheeled carriages or on tanks and aircraft. In 1953 the U.S. Army introduced a 280-mm gun called an atomic cannon, the first to fire atomic-explosive shells.


Cano
Spanish painter, sculptor, and architect. He studied in Seville with Francisco Pacheco and was active as court painter in Madrid (1638-44). Despite a violent temperament, he produced serene and elegant religious paintings and sculpture. He worked for much of his career in Granada, where he designed the facade of the Granada Cathedral (1667), one of the masterpieces of Spanish baroque architecture. He is often called the Spanish ...

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