OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Loaf

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​LOAF, properly the mass of bread made at one baking, hence the smaller portions into which the bread is divided for retailing. These are of uniform size (see Baking) and are named according to shape (“tin loaf,” “cottage loaf,” &c.), weight (“quartern loaf,” &c.), or quality of flour (“brown loaf,” &c.). “Loaf,” O.E. hláf, is a word common to Teutonic languages; cf. Ger. Laib, or Leib, Dan. lev, Goth, hlaifs; similar words with the same meaning are found in Russian, Finnish and Lettish, but these may have been adapted from Teutonic. The ultimate origin is unknown, and it is uncertain whether “bread” (q.v.) or “loaf” is the earlier in usage. The O.E. hláf is seen in “Lammas” and in “lord,” i.e. hlaford for hlafweard, the loaf-keeper, or “bread-warder”; cf. the O.E. word for a household servant hláf-æta, loaf-eater. The Late Lat. companio, one who shares, panis, bread, Eng. “companion,” was probably an adaptation of the Goth, gahlaiba, O.H. Ger. gileipo, messmate, comrade. The word “loaf” is also used in sugar manufacture, and is applied to sugar shaped in a mass like a cone, a “sugar-loaf,” and to the small knobs into which refined sugar is cut, or “loaf-sugar.”
The etymology of the verb “to loaf,” i.e. to idle, lounge about, and the substantive “loafer,” an idler, a lazy vagabond, has been much discussed. R. H. Dana (Two Years before the Mast, 1840) called the word “a newly invented Yankee word.” J. R. Lowell (Biglow Papers, 2nd series, Introd.) explains it as German in origin, and connects it with laufen, to run, and states that the dialectical form lofen is used in the sense of “saunter up and down.” This explanation has been generally accepted. The New English Dictionary rejects it, however, and states that laufen is not used in this sense, but points out that the German Landläufer, the English obsolete word “landlouper,” or “landloper,” one who wanders about the country, a vagrant or vagabond, has a resemblance in meaning. J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley’s Dictionary of Slang and its Analogues gives as French synonyms of “loafer,” chevalier de la loupe and loupeur.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Loam

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​LOAM (O.E. lám; the word appears in Dut. leem and Ger. Lehm; the ultimate origin is the root lai-, meaning “to be sticky,” which is seen in the cognate “lime,” Lat. limus, mud, clay), a fertile soil composed of a mixture of sand, clay, and decomposed vegetable matter, the quantity of sand being sufficient to prevent the clay massing together. The word is also used of a mixture of sand, clay and straw, used for making casting-moulds and bricks, and for plastering walls, &c. (see Soil).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Loango

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​LOANGO, a region on the west coast of Africa, extending from the mouth of the Congo river in 6° S. northwards through about two degrees. At one time included in the “kingdom of Congo” (see Angola, History), Loango became independent about the close of the 16th century, and was still of considerable importance in the middle of the 18th century. Buali, the capital, was situated on the banks of a small river not far from the port of Loango, where were several European “factories.” The country afterwards became divided into a large number of petty states, while Portugal and France exercised an intermittent sovereignty over the coast. Here the slave trade was longer maintained than anywhere else on the West African seaboard; since its extirpation, palm oil and india-rubber have been the main objects of commerce. The Loango coast is now divided between French Congo and the Portuguese district of Kabinda (see those articles). The natives, mainly members of the Ba-Kongo group of Bantu negroes, and often called Ba-Fiot, are in general well-built, strongly dolichocephalous and very thick of skull, the skin of various shades of warm brown with the faintest suggestion of purple. Baldness is unknown, and many of the men wear beards. Physical deformity is extremely rare. In religious beliefs and in the use of fetishes they resemble the negroes of Upper Guinea.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Llwyd, Edward

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​LLWYD, EDWARD (1660–1709), British naturalist and antiquary, was born in Cardiganshire in 1660. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, but did not graduate; he received the degree of M.A. however in 1701. In 1690, after serving for six years as assistant, he succeeded R. Plot as keeper of the Ashmolean museum, a position which he retained until 1709. In 1699 he published Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia, in which he described and figured various fossils, personally collected or received from his friends, and these were arranged in cabinets in the museum. They were obtained from many parts of England, but mostly from the neighbourhood of Oxford. A second edition was prepared by Llwyd, but not published until 1760. He issued in 1707 the first volume of Archaeologia Britannica (afterwards discontinued). He was elected F.R.S. in 1708. He died at Oxford on the 30th of June 1709.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Loan

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​LOAN (adapted from the Scandinavian form of a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Swed. lån, Icel. lán, Dut. leen; the O.E. laén appears in “lend,” the ultimate source is seen in the root of Gr. λείπειν and Lat. linquere, to leave), that which is lent; a sum of money or something of value lent for a specific or indefinite period when it or its equivalent is to be repaid or returned, usually at a specified rate of interest (see Usury and Money-Lending). For public loans see Finance, National Debt, and the various sections on finance under the names of the various countries.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Loanda

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​LOANDA (São Paulo de Loanda), a seaport of West Africa, capital of the Portuguese province of Angola, situated in 8° 48′ S., 13° 7′ E., on a bay between the rivers Bango and Kwanza. The bay, protected from the surf by a long narrow island of sand, is backed by a low sandy cliff which at its southern end sweeps out with a sharp curve and terminates in a bold point crowned by Fort San Miguel. The depth of water at the entrance to the bay is 20 fathoms or more. The bay has silted up considerably, but ​there is a good anchorage about 11/2 m. from the shore in 7 to 14 fathoms, besides cranage accommodation and a floating dock. Vessels discharge into lighters, and are rarely delayed on account of the weather. A part of the town lies on the foreshore, but the more important buildings—the government offices, the governor’s residence, the palace of the bishop of Angola, and the hospital—are situated on higher ground. Most of the European houses are large stone buildings of one storey with red tile roofs. Loanda possesses a meteorological observatory, public garden, tramways, gas-works, statues to Salvador Correia de Sá, who wrested Angola from the Dutch, and to Pedro Alexandrino, a former governor, and is the starting-point of the railway to Ambaca and Malanje.
Loanda was founded in 1576, and except between 1640 and 1648, when it was occupied by the Dutch, has always been in Portuguese possession. It was for over two centuries the chief centre of the slave trade between Portuguese West Africa and Brazil. During that time the traffic of the port was of no small account, and after a period of great depression consequent on the suppression of that trade, more legitimate commerce was developed. There is a regular service of steamers between the port and Lisbon, Liverpool and Hamburg. The town has some 15,000 inhabitants, including a larger European population than any other place on the west coast of Africa. It is connected by submarine cables with Europe and South Africa. Fully half the imports and export trade of Angola (q.v.) passes through Loanda.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lobachevskiy, Nicolas Ivanovich

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​LOBACHEVSKIY, NICOLAS IVANOVICH (1793–1856), Russian mathematician, was born at Makariev, Nizhniy-Novgorod, on the 2nd of November (N.S.) 1793. His father died about 1800, and his mother, who was left in poor circumstances, removed to Kazan with her three sons. In 1807 Nicolas, the second boy, entered as a student in the University of Kazan, then recently established. Five years later, having completed the curriculum, he began to take part in the teaching, becoming assistant professor in 1814 and extraordinary professor two years afterwards. In 1823 he succeeded to the ordinary professorship of mathematics, and retained the chair until about 1846, when he seems to have fallen into official disfavour. At that time his connexion with the university to which he had devoted his life practically came to an end, except that in 1855, at the celebration of his jubilee, he brought it as a last tribute his Pangéométrie, in which he summarized the results of his geometrical studies. This work was translated into German by H. Liebmann in 1902. He died at Kazan on the 24th of February (N.S.) 1856. Lobachevskiy was one of the first thinkers to apply a critical treatment to the fundamental axioms of geometry, and he thus became a pioneer of the modern geometries which deal with space other than as treated by Euclid. His first contribution to non-Euclidian geometry is believed to have been given in a lecture at Kazan in 1826, but the subject is treated in many of his subsequent memoirs, among which may be mentioned the Geometrische Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Parallellinien (Berlin, 1840, and a new edition in 1887), and the Pangéométrie already referred to, which in the subtitle is described as a précis of geometry founded on a general and rigorous theory of parallels. (See Geometry, § Non-Euclidean, and Geometry, § Axioms of.) In addition to his geometrical studies, he made various contributions to other branches of mathematical science, among them being an elaborate treatise on algebra (Kazan, 1834). Besides being a geometer of power and originality, Lobachevskiy was an excellent man of business. Under his administration the University of Kazan prospered as it had never done before; and he not only organized the teaching staff to a high degree of efficiency, but arranged and enriched its library, furnished instruments for its observatory, collected specimens for its museums and provided it with proper buildings. In order to be able to supervise the erection of the last, he studied architecture, with such effect, it is said, that he was able to carry out the plans at a cost considerably below the original estimates.
See F. Engel, N. I. Lobatchewsky (Leipzig, 1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melchers, (Julius) Gari

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​MELCHERS, (JULIUS) GARI (1860–), American artist, was born at Detroit, Michigan, on the 11th of August 1860. The son of a sculptor, at seventeen he was sent to Düsseldorf to study art under von Gebhardt, and after three years went to Paris, where he worked at the Académie Julien and the École des Beaux Arts. Attracted by the pictorial side of Holland, he settled at Egmond. His first important Dutch picture, “The Sermon,” brought him honourable mention at the Paris Salon of 1886. He became a member of the National Academy of Design, New York; the Royal Academy of Berlin; Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris; International Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, London, and the Secession Society, Munich; and, besides receiving a number of medals, his decorations include the Legion of Honour, France; the order of the Red Eagle, Germany; and knight of the Order of St Michael, Bavaria. Besides portraits, his chief works are: “The Supper at Emmaus,” in the Krupp collection at Essen; “The Family,” National Gallery, Berlin; “Mother and Child,” Luxembourg; and the decoration, at the Congressional Library, Washington, “Peace and War.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meleager

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​MELEAGER (Gk. Μελέαγρος), in Greek legend, the son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and Althaea. His father having neglected to sacrifice to Artemis, she sent a wild boar to ravage the land, which was eventually slain by Meleager. A war broke out between the Calydonians and Curetes (led by Althaea’s brothers) about the disposal of the head and skin, which Meleager awarded as a prize to Atalanta, who had inflicted the first wound; the brothers of Althaea lay in wait for Atalanta and robbed her of the spoils, but were slain by Meleager. When Althaea heard this, she cursed Meleager, who withdrew, and refused to fight until the Curetes were on the point of capturing the city of Calydon. Then, yielding to his wife’s entreaties, he sallied forth and defeated the enemy, but was never seen again, having been carried off by the Erinyes, who had heard his mother’s curse (or he was slain by Apollo in battle). According to a later tradition, not known to Homer, the Moerae appeared to Althaea when Meleager was seven days old, and announced that the child would only live as long as the log blazing on the hearth remained unconsumed. Althaea thereupon seized the log, extinguished the flames, and hid it in a box. But, after her brothers' death, she relighted the log, and let it burn away until Meleager died. Then, horrified at what she had done, she hanged herself, or died of grief. The sisters of Meleager were ​changed by Artemis out of compassion into guinea fowls and removed to the island of Leros, where they mourned part of the year for their brother. The life and adventures of Meleager were a favourite subject in ancient literature and art. Meleager is represented as a tall, vigorous youth with curly hair, holding a javelin or a boar’s head, and accompanied by a dog.
See R. Kekulé, De fabula meleagrea dissertatio (1861); Surber, Die Meleagersage (Zürich, 1880); articles on “Meleager” and “Meleagrides” in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie; Apollodorus i. 8; Homer, Iliad, ix. 527; Diod. Sic. iv. 34; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 67; Hyginus, Fab. 171; Ovid, Metam. viii. 260–545. In the article Greek Art (fig. 41) the hunting of the Calydonian boar is represented on a fragment of a frieze from a heroum.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melba, Nellie

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​MELBA [Nellie Porter Armstrong] (1859–), British operatic soprano, née Nellie Porter Mitchell, was born at Burnley, near Melbourne, Australia, her father being a contractor, of Scottish blood. She sang at a local concert when six years old, and was given a good musical education. In 1882 she married Captain Charles Armstrong, and in 1886 went to study singing in Paris under the famous teacher, Madame Mathilde Marchesi, whose daughter, Madame Blanche Marchesi, also a famous singer, was associated with her. In 1887 she made her début in opera at Brussels, taking the stage-name of Madame Melba from her connexion with Melbourne. In the next year she sang the part of Lucia, which remained one of her famous rôles, at Covent Garden, London; and, though critics complained of her coldness as an actress, her liquid voice and brilliant execution henceforth made her famous as the greatest successor to Patti, in pure vocalization, on the operatic stage. She maintained this position for over twenty years, her triumphs being celebrated in every country.
See the “authorized” biography by Agnes G. Murphy (1909).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melbourne (England)

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​MELBOURNE, a market town in the southern parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, 8 m. S.S.E. of Derby, on the Midland railway. Pop. (1901), 3580. It lies in an undulating district on a small southern tributary of the Trent, from which it is about 2 m. distant. The church of St Michael is a fine example of Norman work, with certain late details, having clerestoried nave, chancel and aisles, with central and two western towers. Melbourne Hall, a building of the time of William III., surrounded by formal Dutch gardens, stands in a domain owned at an early date by the bishops of Carlisle, whose tithe barn remains near the church. They obtained the manor in 1133. In 1311 Robert de Holland fortified a mansion here, and in 1327 this castle belonged to Henry, earl of Lancaster; but it was dismantled in 1460, and little more than the site is now traceable. The title of Viscount Melbourne was taken from this town. There are manufactures of silk, and boots and shoes.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melchiades

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​MELCHIADES, or Miltiades (other forms of the name being Meltiades, Melciades, Milciades and Miltides), pope from the 2nd of July 310, to the 11th January 314. He appears to have been an African by birth, but of his personal history nothing is known. The toleration edicts of Galerius and of Constantine and Licinius were published during his pontificate, which was also marked by the holding of the Lateran synod in Rome (313) at which Caecilianus, bishop of Carthage, was acquitted of the charges brought against him and Donatus condemned. Melchiades was preceded and followed by Eusebius and Silvester I. respectively.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melcombe, George Bubb Doddington, Baron

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​MELCOMBE, GEORGE BUBB DODDINGTON, Baron (1691–1762), English politician. His father’s name was Bubb, but the son took the name of Doddington on inheriting a large property by the death of an uncle of that name (1720). He was educated at Oxford. In 1715 he was returned to parliament as member for Winchelsea, and was sent as envoy extraordinary to Spain. He carried on a scandalous traffic in the five or six parliamentary votes which he controlled, his tergiversation and venality furnishing food for the political satirists and caricaturists of the day. His most estimable political action was his defence of Admiral Byng in the House of Commons (1757). From 1722 to 1754 he sat in parliament for Bridgewater; from 1724 to 1740 was a lord of the treasury; and, in 1744, became treasurer of the navy under Henry Pelham, and, again in 1755, under Newcastle and Fox. In April 1761 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Melcombe of Melcombe Regis in Dorsetshire. He died at La Trappe, his Hammersmith house, on the 28th of July 1762. His wife, acknowledged only after the death of another lady to whom he had given a bond that he would marry no one else, died without issue. He was a wit and a friend of wits, a good scholar, and something of a Maecenas; Thomson’s “Summer” was dedicated to him, Fielding addressed to him an epistle and Edward Young a satire. He was a leading spirit of the “Hell-fire” Club, whose members, called “Franciscans,” from their founder Sir Francis Dashwood (d. 1781), held their revels in the ruined Cistercian abbey of Medmenham, Bucks.
His diary, published in 1784, reveals him in his character of place-hunter and throws a curious light on the political methods of the time.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melchites

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​MELCHITES (lit. Royalists, from Syriac melcha, a king), the name given in the 5th century to those Christians who adhered to the creed supported by the authority of the Byzantine emperor. The Melchites therefore are those who accept the decrees of Ephesus and Chalcedon as distinguished from the Nestorians and Jacobite Church (qq.v.). They follow the Orthodox Eastern liturgy, ceremonial and calendar, but acknowledge the papal and doctrinal authority of Rome. They number about 80,000, are found in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and are under the immediate rule of the patriarch of Damascus and twelve bishops.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lacewing-Fly

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​LACEWING-FLY, the name given to neuropterous insects of the families Hemerobiidae and Chrysopidae, related to the ant-lions, scorpion-flies, &c., with long filiform antennae, longish bodies and two pairs of large similar richly veined wings. The larvae are short grubs beset with hair-tufts and tubercles. They feed upon Aphidae or “green fly” and cover themselves with the emptied skins of their prey. Lacewing-flies of the genus Chrysopa are commonly called golden-eye flies.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lachine

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​LACHINE, an incorporated town in Jacques Cartier county, Quebec, Canada, 8 m. W. of Montreal, on Lake St Louis, an expansion of the St Lawrence river, and at the upper end of the Lachine canal. Pop. (1901) 5561. It is a station on the Grand Trunk railway and a port of call for steamers plying between Montreal and the Great Lakes. It is a favourite summer resort for the people of Montreal. It was named in 1669 in mockery of its then owner, Robert Cavelier de la Salle (1643–1687), who dreamed of a westward passage to China. In 1689 it was the scene of a terrible massacre of the French by the Iroquois.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Laconicum

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​LACONICUM (i.e. Spartan, sc. balneum, bath), the dry sweating room of the Roman thermae, contiguous to the caldarium or hot room. The name was given to it as being the only form of warm bath that the Spartans admitted. The laconicum was usually a circular room with niches in the axes of the diagonals and was covered by a conical roof with a circular opening at the top, ​according to Vitruvius (v. 10), “from which a brazen shield is suspended by chains, capable of being so lowered and raised as to regulate the temperature.” The walls of the laconicum were plastered with marble stucco and polished, and the conical roof covered with plaster and painted blue with gold stars. Sometimes, as in the old baths at Pompeii, the laconicum was provided in an apse at one end of the caldarium, but as a rule it was a separate room raised to a higher temperature and had no bath in it. In addition to the hypocaust under the floor the wall was lined with flue tiles. The largest laconicum, about 75 ft. in diameter, was that built by Agrippa in his thermae on the south side of the Pantheon, and is referred to by Cassius (liii. 23), who states that, in addition to other works, “he constructed the hot bath chamber which he called the Laconicum Gymnasium.” All traces of this building are lost; but in the additions made to the thermae of Agrippa by Septimius Severus another laconicum was built farther south, portions of which still exist in the so-called Arco di Giambella.