Essene \i-'sen, 'e-sen \ Member of a Jewish sect active in Palestine from the 2nd century bc to the 1st century ad. The Essenes formed small monas¬ tic communities whose members strictly observed the laws of Moses and the Sabbath and held their property in common. They withdrew from society, avoiding temple worship in Jerusalem and supporting themselves by manual labor. They usually excluded women. It is likely that the Dead Sea Scrolls were composed, copied, or collected by the Essenes.
essential oil Any of a class of highly volatile (readily evaporating) organic compounds found in plants and usually named for them (e.g., rose oil, peppermint oil). They have been known and traded since ancient times. Many essential oils contain isoprenoids. Some, such as oil of win- tergreen (methyl salicylate) and orange oil (d-limonene), have one pre¬ dominant component, but most have dozens or hundreds. Trace components impart an oil’s characteristic odour, which synthetic or blended oils can rarely duplicate. Essential oils have three primary com¬ mercial uses: as odorants in perfumes, soaps, detergents, and other prod¬ ucts; as flavours in baked goods, candies, soft drinks, and many other foods; and as pharmaceuticals, in dental products and many medicines (see aromatherapy).
essentialism In ontology, the view that some properties of objects are essential to them. The “essence” of a thing is conceived as the totality of its essential properties. Theories of essentialism differ with respect to their conception of what it means to say that a property is essential to an object. The concept of an essential property is closely related to the concept of necessity, since one way of saying that a property P is essential to an object O is to say that the proposition “O has P” is necessarily true (see neces¬ sity). A general but not very informative way of characterizing essential properties is to say that a property is essential to an object if the object cannot lack the property and still be the object that it is. Properties of an object that are not essential in this sense are said to be accidental. See also IDENTITY OF INDISCERNABLES.
Essequibo \,e-se-'kwe-bo\ River River, east-central Guyana. The larg¬ est river between the Amazon and the Orinoco rivers and the longest in Guyana, it rises in the Acarai Mountains on the Brazilian border. It flows north for about 630 mi (1,000 km) to empty into the Atlantic Ocean 13 mi (21 km) from Georgetown. Its estuary, 20 mi (32 km) wide, is obstructed by islands and silt but is navigable by small ocean vessels to Bartica, 50 mi (80 km) inland.
Essex Administrative (pop., 2001: 1,310,922), geographic, and historic county, eastern England. It extends along the North Sea coastline between the estuaries of the Rivers Thames and Stour. Chelmsford, centrally situ¬ ated, has long been the county headquarters and is also the seat of a church diocese. The ancient county stretched west as far as Middlesex, but Greater London now incorporates its southwestern comer. It was a Roman centre until the 5th-century Saxon invasions; it became one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the Heptarchy and had its centre at London. It came under Danish control in the 9th century and was later reconquered by Wessex. Despite its proximity to London, much of Essex remains rural, and the county is highly farmed; it is also the site of petroleum installations on the River Thames and of a nuclear power plant. The University of Essex is at Colchester.
Essex Junto Vjon-.toX Informal group of Federalist Party political lead¬ ers in Massachusetts, mainly from Essex county. Its members supported Alexander Hamilton and friendship with Britain and opposed Thomas Jef¬ ferson, the Embargo Act, and the War of 1812. Its leaders, including Timothy Pickering, tried to form a separate confederation in New England and participated in the Hartford Convention. They declined in importance after 1814.
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636 i Essex ► Estienne
Essex, Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of (b. Nov. 10, 1567, Neth- erwood, Herefordshire, Eng.—d.
Feb. 25, 1601, London) English sol¬ dier and courtier. He was the son of the 1st earl of Essex. As a young man, he became the aging Elizabeth I’s favorite, though their relationship was stormy. In 1591-92 he com¬ manded the English force in France that helped Henry IV fight the French Roman Catholics, and in 1596 he commanded forces in the sack of Cadiz. In 1599 Elizabeth sent him to Ireland as lord lieutenant, where he fought an unsuccessful campaign against Irish rebels and concluded an unfavorable truce, leading Elizabeth to deprive him of his offices in 1600.
In 1601 he made an unsuccessful attempt to raise the populace of Lon¬ don in revolt against Elizabeth; he was captured, tried by his former mentor Francis Bacon, and beheaded.
Essex, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of (b. 1591, London, Eng.—d.
Sept. 14, 1646, London) English military commander. Son of the 2nd earl of Essex, he began his military career in 1620 and commanded forces for Charles I until the Long Parlia¬ ment deposed Charles’s ministers (1640). As the English Civil Wars began, he was appointed to command the Parliamentary army. He fought against the Royalists at the indecisive Battle of Edgehill (1642) and advanced on London in 1643. His army was besieged at Lostwithiel, Cornwall, in 1644, and all surrendered except Essex, who escaped by sea. He resigned his command in 1645.
Essex, Walter Devereux, 1st earl of (b. Sept. 16, 1541, Car¬ marthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales—d. Sept. 22, 1576, Dublin, Ire.) English soldier. Born to a titled family, he helped suppress a rebellion in northern England in 1569 and was made earl of Essex in 1572. In 1573 he offered to subdue and colonize, at his own expense, a portion of Ulster that had not accepted English overlordship. There he treacherously cap¬ tured and executed the Irish rebel leaders and massacred hundreds of the populace, contributing to Irish bitterness toward the English. Elizabeth I commanded him to break off the enterprise in 1575. He died of dysen¬ tery shortly after returning to Ireland from England.
establishment clause or establishment-of-religion clause
Clause in the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbidding Con¬ gress from establishing a state religion. It prevents the passage of any law that gives preference to or forces belief in any one religion. It is paired with a clause that prohibits limiting the free expression of religion.
estate law Laws governing the nature and extent of an owner’s rights with respect to real and personal property. When used in connection with probate proceedings, it refers to the laws governing the disposition of the total property of whatever kind owned by a person at the time of death. See also estate tax, property, property tax.
estate tax Levy on the value of property changing hands at the death of the owner, fixed mainly by reference to its total value. Estate tax is generally applied only to estates whose value exceeds a set amount, and it is applied at graduated rates. An estate tax was first instituted in the U.S. in 1898 to help finance the Spanish-American War; it was repealed in 1902 but permanently reimposed in 1916, initially to help finance mobi¬ lization for World War I. Methods of avoiding estate tax (e.g., gifts and trust funds) were largely foiled by the U.S. Tax Reform Act of 1976.