WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT
\wˈɪlhɛlm vˈɒn hˈʌmbə͡ʊldt], \wˈɪlhɛlm vˈɒn hˈʌmbəʊldt], \w_ˈɪ_l_h_ɛ_l_m v_ˈɒ_n h_ˈʌ_m_b_əʊ_l_d_t]\
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A German philologist, critic, and statesman, brother of Alexander; born in Potsdam, June 22, 1767; died at Tegel, near Berlin, April 8, 1835. He was educated at Gottingen, and devoted to philological and literary studies; but he had strong practical gifts and elevated social sympathies. In 1789 he visited Paris to study the French Revolution, with which he sympathized, from 1802 to 1819 he was in active official life, -minister to Vienna, member of the Privy Council, Secretary of State, ambassador to London, etc.; finally quitting it in disgust at the corruption he would not share. Meantime and later he wrote critiques on Goethe and Homer, and scientific and literary monographs, and translated Aeschylus and Pindar. His main work in philology is "On the Kawi Language of the Javanese", but he made other valuable studies of primitive dialects.
By Charles Dudley Warner
Word of the day
basidiomycota
- comprises fungi bearing the spores on basidium: Gasteromycetes (puffballs); Tiliomycetes (comprising orders Ustilaginales (smuts) and Uredinales (rusts)); Hymenomycetes (mushrooms; toadstools; agarics; bracket fungi); in some classification systems considered a division of kingdom comprises fungi bearing spores on a basidium; includes Gasteromycetes (puffballs) Tiliomycetes comprising the orders Ustilaginales (smuts) and Uredinales (rusts) Hymenomycetes (mushrooms, toadstools, agarics bracket fungi).