ETYM French dragon, Latin draco, from Greek, akin to Skr. darg to see. Related to Drake a dragon, Dragoon.
1. A fiercely vigilant and unpleasant woman; SYN. tartar.
2. A violent, combative, or very strict person.

Abbreviation for the state of Alabama, US.

1. A state in the southeastern United States on the Gulf of Mexico; one of the Confederate states during the American Civil War; Also called: Heart of Dixie, Camellia State.
2. A river in Alabama that flows southwestward to become a tributary of the Mobile River; Also called: Alabama River.
3. A member of the Muskhogean people formerly living in Alabama; a member of the Creek Confederacy.
4. The Muskhogean language of the Alabama people.
Confederate cruiser (1,040 tons) in the American Civil War. Built in Great Britain, it was allowed to leave port by the British, and sank 68 Union merchant ships before it was itself sunk by a Union warship off the coast of France in 1864. In 1871 the international court awarded damages of $15.5 million to the US, a legal precedent.
The court’s ruling requires a neutral country to exercise “due diligence” to prevent the arming within its jurisdiction of a vessel intending to carry out a war against a country with which the neutral country is at peace.
State in southern US; nicknamed Heart of Dixie/Cotton State
area 134,700 sq km/51,994 sq mi
capital Montgomery
towns and cities Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa
physical the state comprises the Cumberland Plateau in the N; the Black Belt, or Canebrake, which is excellent cotton-growing country, in the center; and S of this, the coastal plain of Piny Woods. The Alabama River is the largest in the state
features Alabama and Tennessee rivers; Appalachian mountains; Pleasure Island in the Gulf of Mexico, with Fort Morgan (dating from the early 1800s); De Soto Caverns, onyx caves used as a Native American burial ground 2,000 years ago; Mobile, with Fort Conde (a restored 1711 fort), pre-Civil War mansions (including Oakleigh, dating from the 1830s), Bienville Square with tree-lined boulevards, azaleas (with the annual Azalea Trail Festival), and Mardi Gras celebrations (the first Mardi Gras in the US took place here); Birmingham, with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (1992), 16th Street Baptist Church (a civil rights landmark, the site of 1960s protests), the medical center at the University of Alabama, the Birmingham Museum of Art, Sloss Furnaces (an ironworks plant, closed 1971), and the Jazz Hall of Fame; Montgomery, with pre-Civil War houses, the White House of the Confederacy (1835), the Civil Rights Memorial, Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church (dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King),
and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Battleship Park, with USS Alabama and the submarine USS Drum from World War II; Malbis Greek Orthodox Church (1965), a copy of a Byzantine church in Athens; Bellingrath gardens and home, started 1917 by the Coca-Cola pioneer Walter D Bellingrath, with azalea gardens and the world’s largest collection of Boehm porcelain birds; Ivy Green, Tuscumbia, the birthplace of Helen Keller, with summer performances of The Miracle Worker (first staged 1961); the 19th-century Gaineswood mansion, Demopolis; Tuskegee University, a center for the study of black history, with the Booker T Washington Collection of black history material; US Space Camp, with NASA laboratories and shuttle test sites, at Huntsville
industries cotton (still important though no longer prime crop); soy beans, peanuts, wood products, coal, livestock, poultry, iron, chemicals, textiles, paper

famous people Hank Aaron, Tallulah Bankhead, Nat King Cole, W C Handy, Helen Keller, Joe Louis, Willie Mays, Jesse Owens, Leroy “Satchel” Paige, George C Wallace, Booker T Washington, Hank Williams
history first settled by the French in the early 18th century, it was ceded to Britain 1763, passed to the US 1783 and became a state 1819. It was one of the Confederate States in the American Civil War, and Montgomery was the first capital of the Confederacy. Birmingham became the South’s leading industrial center in the late 19th century. Alabama was in the forefront of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s: Martin Luther King, Jr, led a successful boycott of segregated Montgomery buses in 1955; school integration began in the early 1960s despite the opposition of Governor George C Wallace; the 1965 Selma march resulted in federal voting-rights legislation.

ETYM Latin alabaster, Greek, said to be derived from Alabastron, the name of a town in Egypt, near which it was common: cf. Old Fren. alabastre, French albâtre.
1. A compact fine-textured usually white gypsum used for carving.
2. A hard compact kind of calcite; SYN. oriental alabaster, onyx marble, Mexican onyx.
3. A very light white.
Formerly, carbonate of lime; modern, kind of gypsum from which vases and boxes are made.
Naturally occurring fine-grained white or light-colored translucent form of gypsum, often streaked or mottled. A soft material, it is easily carved, but seldom used for outdoor sculpture.

ETYM Latin alabaster, Greek, said to be derived from Alabastron, the name of a town in Egypt, near which it was common: cf. Old Fren. alabastre, French albâtre.
1. A compact fine-textured usually white gypsum used for carving.
2. A hard compact kind of calcite; SYN. oriental alabaster, onyx marble, Mexican onyx.
3. A very light white.
Formerly, carbonate of lime; modern, kind of gypsum from which vases and boxes are made.
Naturally occurring fine-grained white or light-colored translucent form of gypsum, often streaked or mottled. A soft material, it is easily carved, but seldom used for outdoor sculpture.

In the Arabian Nights a boy who acquires a magic lamp from which he can summon a genie.
In the Arabian Nights, a poor boy who obtains a magic lamp: when the lamp is rubbed, a jinn (genie, or spirit) appears and fulfills its owner’s wishes.

In the Arabian Nights a magical lamp from which Aladdin summoned a genie.

ETYM New Lat., from Greek a priv. + lalia a talking.
Paralysis of the vocal cords resulting in an inability to speak.
Loss of ability to speak, loss of speech.
Paralysis of the vocal cords resulting in an inability to speak

The, Mission fortress in San Antonio, Texas, US. It was besieged 23 Feb–6 March 1836 by Santa Anna and 4,000 Mexicans; they killed the garrison of about 180, including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.
The struggle against such overwhelming odds made the battle of the Alamo a rallying point for the settlers in the Texas War of Independence from Mexico.
1. City in Georgia (USA); zip code 30411.
2. City in North Dakota (USA).
3. City in Texas (USA); zip code 78516.
4. The mission in San Antonio where Mexican forces under Santa Anna besieged and massacred American rebels who were fighting to make Texas independent of Mexico.
5. Town in Indiana (USA).
6. Town in Tennessee (USA); zip code 38001.
7. Unincorporated community in California (USA).

An amino-acid occuring in protein.
A crystalline amino acid that occurs in many proteins.
A simple nonessential crystalline amino acid C3H7NO2

Given to excess in consumption of especially food or drink.

1. Wanting to have as much as something (esp. money) as possible.
2. Wanting to eat or drink more than one can reasonably consume.

Marked by courage and determination in the face of difficulties or danger; robust and uninhibited.

ETYM From Raven.
1. Devouring with rapacious eagerness; furiously voracious; tremendously hungry.
2. Eager for prey or gratification.

ETYM Latin vorax, -acis, from vorare to devour.
Greedy in eating; very hungry; eager to devour or swallow.
Ravenous.