Grace One of a group of Greek goddesses who personified charm and beauty. Originally fertility goddesses, they were frequently associated with Aphrodite. Their number varied in different legends, but often there were three. They were sometimes said to be the daughters of Zeus and Hera and sometimes of Helios and Aegle, daughter of Zeus.
Grace, W(illiam) G(ilbert) (b. July 18, 1848, Downend, Gloucester¬ shire, Eng.—d. Oct. 23, 1915, London) Greatest cricketer in Victorian England. Although he practiced medicine, cricket was his first love. Grace evolved the modern principles of bat¬ ting and achieved many notable per¬ formances on rough and unpredictable wickets such as are unknown to modem players. In his career in first-class cricket (1865—
1908), Grace scored 54,896 runs, registered 126 centuries (100 runs in a single innings), and, as a bowler, took 2,876 wickets. In 84 matches for Gentlemen versus Players, he amassed 6,000 runs and took 271 wickets. In 1880 he was on the English team that played the first Test match against Australia in England.
grackle Any of several songbird species (in the family Icteridae) hav¬ ing iridescent black plumage and a long tail; also called crow-blackbird.
Grackles use their stout, pointed bill to snap up insects, dig grubs from the soil, and kill small vertebrates, including fishes and baby birds; they
can also crack hard seeds. The common grackle ( Quiscalus quiscula ) of North America is about 12 in. (30 cm) long. The males of two Cassidus species (boat-tailed and great-tailed grackles) have a long, deeply keeled tail; these species are found in arid lands of the southwestern U.S. to Peru and in salt marshes from New Jersey to Texas, where they are locally called jackdaws. See also blackbird, mynah.
gradient In mathematics, a differential operator applied to a three- dimensional vector-valued function to yield a vector whose three compo¬ nents are the partial derivatives of the function with respect to its three variables. The symbol for gradient is V. Thus, the gradient of a function / written grad / or V/, is V/ = \f x + j f y + k f z where f x , f y , and f z are the first partial derivatives of/and the vectors i, j, and k are the unit vectors of the vector space. If in physics, for example,/is a temperature field (giv¬ ing the temperature at every point in a space), V/ is the direction of the heat-flow vector in the field.
Graf, Steffi in full Stephanie Maria Graf (b. June 14, 1969, Briihl, W.Ger.) German tennis player. At age 13 she became the second young¬ est player ever to earn an international ranking. In 1987 she won her first grand-slam event (the French Open), and in 1988 she won all four grand- slam events (French, Australian, U.S., and Wimbledon) and an Olympic gold medal. Sidetracked by knee surgery in 1997, she played her way back to the top, winning the French Open in 1999 for her 22nd grand-slam title (including seven Wimbledon championships).
Grafe \'gra-fo\, Albrecht Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst von (b. May
22, 1828, Berlin, Prussia—d. July 20, 1870, Berlin) German ophthal¬ mologist. Using Hermann von Helmholtz’s ophthalmoscope, he developed several operations for eye disorders, including iridectomy (removal of part of the iris) for glaucoma and lens extraction for cataract. He traced blind¬ ness and visual defects in some cerebral disorders to optic-nerve inflam¬ mation. Grafe sign (diagnostic for Graves disease) is failure of the upper eyelid to follow the eyeball when looking downward. His writings include a Manual of Comprehensive Ophthalmology (7 vol., 1874-80). He is con¬ sidered the founder of modern ophthalmology.
graffiti Form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group. Tech¬ nically the term applies to designs scratched through a layer of paint or plaster, but its meaning has been extended to other markings. Graffiti is widely considered a form of antisocial behaviour performed in order to gain attention or simply for thrills. But it also can be understood as an expressive art form. Derived from the Italian word grajfio (“scratch”), graffiti (“incised inscriptions,” plural but often used as singular) has a long history. It has been found in ancient Roman ruins, in the remains of the Mayan city of Tikal in Central America, on rocks in Spain dating to the 16th century, and in medieval English churches. During the 20th century, graffiti in the U.S. and Europe was closely associated with gangs. Graffiti was particularly prominent in major urban centres throughout the world; common targets were subways, billboards, and walls. In the 1990s there emerged a new form of graffiti, known as “tagging,” which entailed the repeated use of a single symbol or series of symbols to mark territory.
graft In horticulture, the act of placing a portion of one plant (called a bud or scion) into or on a stem, root, or branch of another (called the stock) in such a way that a union forms and the partners continue to grow. Grafting is used for various puiposes: to repair injured trees, produce dwarf trees and shrubs, strengthen plants’ resistance to certain diseases, retain varietal characteristics, adapt varieties to adverse soil or climatic conditions, ensure pollination, produce multifruited or multiflowered plants, and propagate certain species (such as hybrid roses) that can be propagated in no other way. In theory, any two plants that are closely related botanically and that have a continuous cambium can be grafted. Grafts between species of the same genus are often successful and between genera occasionally so, but grafts between families are nearly always failures. See illustration on opposite page.
Graham, Billy in full William Franklin Graham, Jr. (b. Nov. 7, 1918, Charlotte, N.C., U.S.) U.S. Christian evangelist. The son of a dairy farmer, he underwent a conversion experience at age 16 during a revival. After attending Bob Jones College and the Florida Bible Institute, he was ordained a Southern Baptist clergyman in 1940. He later earned a degree in anthropology from Wheaton College. He won numerous con¬ verts with his tent revivals and radio broadcasts, and by 1950 he had become fundamentalism’s leading spokesman. He led a series of widely televised international revival crusades through the Billy Graham Evan-
Common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula)
THASE DANIEL
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gelistic Association in Minneapolis, Minn., and he enjoyed close asso¬ ciations with a series of U.S. presidents. Graham and his wife, Ruth, were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1996.
Graham Vgra-om, 'gramV, Jorie (b. May 9, 1951, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. poet. She studied at New York University and the University of Iowa, where she later taught. Her abstract, intellectual verse is known for its visual imagery, complex metaphors, and philosophical content. Her first volume of verse. Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts (1980), contains compact, intricate poems that explore death, beauty, and change. Later volumes include The End of Beauty (1987), Region of Unlikeness (1991), The Dream of the Unified Field (1995, Pulitzer Prize), The Errancy (1997), and Swarm (2000).
Graham, Katharine orig. Katharine Meyer (b. July 16, 1917, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. July 17, 2001, Boise, Idaho) U.S. owner and publisher of news publications. The daughter of Eugene Meyer (1875— 1959), owner and publisher of The Washington Post (1933^-6), she stud¬ ied at Vassar College and the University of Chicago. In 1940 she married Philip Graham, who later became the Post’s publisher. The Grahams acquired the paper from Meyer in 1948. After her husband’s suicide in 1963, she stepped in as head of the Washington Post Co. (which had pur¬ chased Newsweek in 1961). Under her leadership, and through the edito¬ rial direction of Ben Bradlee, the Post became one of the nation’s most powerful newspapers, particularly with its coverage of the Watergate scandal. Her best-selling autobiography. Personal History, earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1997.