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See DEMOCRITUS

The maritime city of Thrace whose inhabitants were proverbial in ancient times for their stupidity. Abderitan laughter came to mean scoffing or incessant laughter. It was so called because Abdera was the birthplace of Democritus, the laughing philosopher, who is regarded as the greatest among Greek physical philosophers.

American playwright, producer, and director. Abbott became a well-known name on Broadway as the co-author and director of such popular plays as The Fall Guy (1925), Broadway (1926), and Coquette (1928). His productions of Three Men on a Horse (1935) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938), based on A Comedy of Errors, established him as…

The famous Dublin playhouse, which opened in 1904 with performances of W. B. YEATS’s On Bailes Strand (1904). The theatre, which was founded for the production of plays by and about the Irish, was on outgrowth of older literary and dramatic groups, the Irish Literary Theatre (1899) and the Irish National Theatre Society (1902), the…

American illustrator and muralist. Abbey’s impressionistic pen drawings made him one of the greatest illustrators of the late 19th century. Educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in 1878 he was sent by Harper’s Weekly to London, where he remained, earning a reputation for his classic illustrations of Herrick, Goldsmith, and Shakespeare. His…

The second longest dynasty (thirty-seven Caliphs, 750-1258) of the Muslim Empire. They claimed decent from Abbas (566-652), eldest uncle of Muhammed. Their reign was most firmly established and the court of Baghdad most splendid under Haroun-al-Raschild (785-809), the Caliph described in Arabian Nights, and his son Mamun (reigned (813-833).

The angel of the bottomless pit in The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Milton uses the name for the bottomless pit itself.