great+russia

white [waɪt]

1 adjective

(a) (in colour) blanc (blanche);

∎ he painted his house white il a peint sa maison en blanc;

∎ she wore a dazzling white dress elle portait une robe d'un blanc éclatant;

∎ his hair has turned white ses cheveux ont blanchi;

∎ he went white overnight ses cheveux sont devenus blancs du jour au lendemain

(b) (pale)

∎ she was white with fear/with rage elle était verte de peur/blanche de colère;

∎ his face suddenly went white il a blêmi tout d'un coup;

∎ whiter than white plus blanc que blanc; figurative sans tache;

∎ you're as white as a ghost/as a sheet vous êtes pâle comme la mort/comme un linge;

∎ as white as snow blanc comme neige

(c) (flour, rice, sugar) blanc (blanche);

∎ (a loaf of) white bread du pain blanc

(d) (race) blanc (blanche);

∎ a white man un Blanc;

∎ a white woman une Blanche;

∎ white man's justice la justice des Blancs;

∎ an all-white neighbourhood un quartier blanc;

∎ white schools écoles fpl pour les Blancs

(e) (coffee) au lait;

∎ do you take your coffee white? tu prends du lait dans ton café?

2 noun

(a) (colour) blanc m;

∎ the bride wore white la mariée était en blanc;

∎ he was dressed all in white il était tout en blanc;

∎ dazzling white blanc éclatant

(b) Anatomy (of eye) blanc m;

∎ figurative don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes ne tirez qu'au dernier moment

(c) Cookery (of egg) blanc m

(d) (Caucasian) Blanc m, Blanche f;

∎ whites only (sign) réservé aux Blancs;

∎ they're trying to set white against black ils essaient de monter les Blancs contre les Noirs

(e) Chess

∎ White les blancs mpl

(f) (in snooker, pool)

∎ the white la blanche

3 transitive verb

archaic blanchir

4 intransitive verb

archaic blanchir

5 whites plural noun

(sportswear) tenue f de sport blanche; (linen) blanc m

►► Entomology white admiral = papillon aux ailes marron marquées de blanc;

American White Anglo-Saxon Protestant = Blanc d'origine anglo-saxonne et protestante, appartenant aux classes aisées et influentes;

white ant fourmi f blanche, termite m;

History the White Army les armées fpl blanches;

white ball (in snooker, pool) blanche f;

Biology white blood cell globule m blanc;

white chocolate chocolat m blanc;

white Christmas Noël m sous la neige;

white coffee café m au lait;

Botany white dead-nettle ortie f blanche;

Astronomy white dwarf naine f blanche;

white elephant (useless construction) = réalisation de prestige dont l'utilité ne justifie pas le coût;

∎ the new submarine has turned out to be a complete white elephant le nouveau sous-marin s'est révélé être un luxe tout à fait superflu;

British white elephant stall (at fair, jumble sale) stand m de bibelots;

White Ensign = pavillon de la marine royale britannique;

British History white feather = symbole de lâcheté;

∎ to show the white feather battre en retraite;

British white fish = poisson à chair blanche;

white flag drapeau m blanc;

American white flight exode m des Blancs (quand les Noirs viennent habiter leur quartier);

American white folks les Blancs mpl;

Religion White Friar carme m;

white gold or m blanc;

white goods (household equipment) appareils mpl ménagers; (linen) linge m de maison, blanc m;

Physics & figurative white heat chaleur f incandescente;

∎ in the white heat of passion au plus fort de la passion;

∎ anti-war feelings have reached white heat les sentiments d'hostilité par rapport à la guerre ont atteint un paroxysme;

white hope espoir m;

∎ he's the (great) white hope of British athletics c'est le grand espoir de l'athlétisme britannique;

white horses (waves) moutons mpl;

the White House la Maison-Blanche;

figurative white knight sauveur m, chevalier m blanc;

white lead blanc m de céruse ou de plomb;

white lie pieux mensonge m;

white light lumière f blanche;

familiar white lightning tord-boyaux m inv (distillé illégalement);

white line (on road) ligne f blanche;

white magic magie f blanche;

white man's burden = obligation pour les Blancs d'assurer l'instruction des habitants noirs de leurs colonies;

Anatomy white matter substance f blanche;

white meat viande f blanche; (of poultry) blanc m;

Ornithology white melilot mélilot m blanc;

white metal métal m blanc;

British white meter = système économique de chauffage qui utilise l'électricité pendant les heures où elle coûte moins cher;

the White Nile le Nil Blanc;

white noise bruit m de fond;

American White Out ® correcteur m liquide;

white owl harfang m, chouette f blanche;

American the White Pages l'annuaire m (du téléphone);

British white paper (government report) livre m blanc;

white pepper poivre m blanc;

Botany white poplar ypréau m;

Cookery white pudding boudin m blanc;

White Russia Russie f Blanche;

1 adjective

(a) Linguistics & Geography biélorusse

(b) History (soldier) russe blanc (blanche);

∎ the White Russian Army les armées fpl blanches

2 noun

(a) History (person) Russe m blanc, Russe f blanche

(b) Linguistics & Geography biélorusse m

(c) (cocktail) = cocktail à base de Kahlua, de vodka et de crème fraîche;

American white sale promotion f sur le blanc;

white sauce sauce f blanche;

the White Sea la mer Blanche;

white shark requin m blanc;

white slave victime f de la traite des Blanches;

white slavery, white slave trade traite f des Blanches;

white space (on page) espace m blanc;

white spirit white-spirit m;

Ornithology white stork cigogne f blanche;

white stick (of blind person) canne f blanche;

white supremacist partisan(e) m,f de la suprématie blanche;

white supremacy suprématie f blanche;

familiar Aviation white tail = avion n'appartenant encore à aucune compagnie aérienne;

white tie (formal clothes) habit m; (on invitation) ≃ tenue de soirée exigée;

pejorative white trash Blancs mpl pauvres;

British familiar white van man = jeune ouvrier en camionnette à la conduite agressive;

white water eau f vive;

white wedding mariage m en blanc;

∎ she's having a white wedding elle se marie en blanc;

white whale bélouga m, béluga m;

white wine vin m blanc;

white witch = sorcière qui a recours à la magie blanche

➲ white out separable transitive verb

effacer (au correcteur liquide);

∎ can you white out this word? peux-tu effacer ce mot?

✾ Play 'The White Devil' Webster 'Le Diable blanc'

ⓘ The white man's burden Cette expression provient du titre d'un poème de l'écrivain anglais Rudyard Kipling publié en 1899, dans lequel il fait l'éloge du colonialisme, justifié selon lui par la supériorité culturelle de l'empire britannique. Le "fardeau" auquel le titre fait référence est la mission civilisatrice de l'homme blanc colonisateur. Le titre du poème devint le slogan des impérialistes de l'époque. L'expression est aujourd'hui souvent utilisée de façon ironique pour désigner l'attitude raciste et condescendante des impérialistes.

SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour

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He was the eldest son of Lieutenant-General Sir William Congreve, Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery, Superintendent of Military Machines and Superintendent Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich, and the daughter of a naval officer. Congreve passed through the Naval Academy at Woolwich and in 1791 was attached to the Royal Laboratory (formerly known as the Woolwich Arsenal), of which his father was then in command. In the 1790s, an Indian prince, Hyder Ali, had had some success against British troops with solid-fuelled rockets, and young Congreve set himself to develop the idea. By about 1806 he had made some 13,000 rockets, each with a range of about 2 km (1¼ miles). The War Office approved their use, and they were first tested in action at sea during the sieges of Boulogne and Copenhagen in 1806 and 1807 respectively. Congreve was commissioned to raise two companies of rocket artillery; in 1813 he commanded one of his rocket companies at the Battle of Leipzig, where although the rockets did little damage to the enemy, the noise and glare of the explosions had a considerable effect in frightening the French and caused great confusion; for this, the Tsar of Russia awarded Congreve a knighthood. The rockets were similarly effective in other battles, including the British attack on Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, in 1814; it is said that this was the inspiration for the lines "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" in Francis Scott Key's poem The Star Spangled Banner, which became the United States' national anthem.

Congreve's father died in 1814, and he succeeded him in the baronetcy and as Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory and Superintendent of Military Machines, holding this post until his death. For the last ten years of his life he was Member of Parliament for Plymouth, having previously represented Gatton when elected for that constituency in 1812.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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The large and successful Lockheed Aircraft Corporation grew out of a small company founded by Allan and Malcolm Loughhead (pronounced "Lockheed") in 1913. The company employed many notable designers such as Jack Northrop, Jerry Vultee and Lloyd Stearman, but the most productive was "Kelly" Johnson. After studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan, Johnson joined Lockheed in 1933 and gained experience in all the branches of the design department. By 1938 he had been appointed Chief Research Engineer and became involved with the design of the P-38 Lightning twin-boom fighter and the Constellation airliner. In 1943 he set up a super-secret research and development organization called Advanced Development Projects, but this soon became known as the "Skunk Works": the name came from a very mysterious factory which made potions from skunks in the popular comic strip Li'lAbner. The first aircraft designed and built by Johnson's small hand-picked team was the XP-80 Shooting Star prototype jet fighter, which was produced in just 143 days: it became the United States' first production jet fighter. At this stage the Skunk Works produced a prototype, then the main Lockheed factories took over the production run. The F-104 Starfighter and the C-130 Hercules transport were produced in this way and became widely used in many countries. In 1954 work began on the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft which was so secret that production was carried out within the Skunk Works. This made the headlines in 1960 when one was shot down over Russia. Probably the most outstanding of Johnson's designs was the SR-71 Blackbird of 1964, a reconnaissance aircraft capable of flying at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound). Johnson was not only a great designer, he was also an outstanding manager, and his methods—including his "14 Rules"—have been widely followed. He retired from the Lockheed board in 1980, having been involved in the design of some forty aircraft.

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SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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In some examples of his work Mendelsohn envisaged bold, sculptural forms, dramatically expressed in light and shade, which he created with extensive use of glass, steel and concrete. Characteristic of his type of early Expressionism was his design for the Einstein Tower (1919), a physical laboratory and observatory that was purpose built for Professor Einstein's research work at Neubabelsburg near Berlin in 1921. As its shape suggests, this structure was intended to be made from poured concrete but, due to technical problems, it was erected in stucco-faced steel and brickwork. Equally dramatic and original were Mendelsohn's department stores, for example the pace-setting Schocken Stores at Stuttgart (1926) and Chemnitz (1928), the Petersdorff Store at Breslau (1927) (now Wrocaw in Poland), and a very different building, the Columbus Haus in Berlin (1929–31). One of his most original designs was also in this city, that for the complex on the great boulevard, the Kurfürstendamm, which included the Universum Cinema (1928). Mendelsohn moved to England in 1933, a refugee from Nazism, and there entered into partnership with another émigré, Serge Chermayeff from Russia. Together they were responsible for a building on the seafront at Bexhill-on-Sea, the De La Warr arts and entertainments pavilion (1935–6). This long, low, glass, steel and concrete structure was ahead of its time in England and comprised a theatre and restaurant; in the centre of the façade, facing the sea, is its chief architectural feature, a semicircular glazed staircase. Soon Mendelsohn moved on to Palestine, where he was responsible for the Government Hospital at Haifa (1937) and the Hadassah University Medical Centre in Jerusalem (1936); in both cases he skilfully adapted his mode to different climatic needs. He finally settled in the USA in 1941, where his most notable buildings are the Maimonides Hospital in San Francisco and the synagogues and Jewish community centres which he built in a number of American cities.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport

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At the age of fifteen, Porsche built a complete electrical installation for his home. In 1894 he went to technical school in Vienna. Four years later he became Manager of the test department of the Bela Egger concern, which later became part of the Brown Boveri organization where he became the first Assistant in the calculating section. In 1899 he joined the long-established coachbuilders Jacob Lohner, and in 1902 a car of his design with mixed drive won the 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) class in the Exelberg races. In 1905 he joined the Austro-Daimler Company as Technical Director; his subsequent designs included an 85 hp mixed-drive racing car in 1907 and in 1912 an air-cooled aircraft engine which came to be known in later years as the "great-grandfather" of the Volkswagen engine. In 1916, he became Managing Director of Austro-Daimler.

In 1921 he designed his first small car, which, appearing under the name of Sasch, won its class in the 1922 Targa Florio, a gruelling road-race in Italy. In 1923 Porsche left Austro-Daimler and joined the Daimler Company in Untertürk-heim, near Stuttgart, Germany. In 1929 he joined the firm of Steyr in Austria as a director and chief engineer, and in 1930 he set up his own independent design office in Stuttgart. In 1932 he visited Russia, and in the same year completed the design calculations for the Auto-Union racing car.

In 1934, with his son Ferry (b. 1909), he prepared a plan for the construction of the German "people's car", a project initiated by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime; in June of that year he signed a contract for the design work on the Volkswagen. Racing cars of his design were also successful in 1934: the rear-engined Auto-Union won the German Grand Prix, and another Au to-Union car took the Flying Kilometre speed record at 327 km/h (203.2 mph). In 1935 Daimler-Benz started preproduction on the Volkswagen. The first trials of the cars took place in the autumn of 1936, and the following year thirty experimental cars were built by Daimler-Benz. In that year, Porsche visited the United States, where he met Henry Ford; in October an Auto-Union took the Flying Five Kilometre record at 404.3 km/h (251.2 mph). On 26 May 1938, the foundation stone of the Volkswagen factory was laid in Wolfsburg, near Braunschweig, Germany.

In October 1945 Ferdinand Porsche was arrested by a unit of the United States Army and taken to Hessen; the French army removed him to Baden-Baden, then to Paris and later to Dijon. During this time he was consulted by Renault engineers regarding the design of their 4CV and designed a diesel-engined tractor. He was finally released on 5 August 1947. His last major work before his death was the approval of the design for the Cisitalia Grand Prix car.

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SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Vignoles, who was of Huguenot descent, was orphaned in infancy and brought up in the family of his grandfather, Dr Charles Hutton FRS, Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. After service in the Army he travelled to America, arriving in South Carolina in 1817. He was appointed Assistant to the state's Civil Engineer and surveyed much of South Carolina and subsequently Florida. After his return to England in 1823 he established himself as a civil engineer in London, and obtained work from the brothers George and John Rennie.

In 1825 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) lost their application for an Act of Parliament, discharged their engineer George Stephenson and appointed the Rennie brothers in his place. They in turn employed Vignoles to resurvey the railway, taking a route that would minimize objections. With Vignoles's route, the company obtained its Act in 1826 and appointed Vignoles to supervise the start of construction. After Stephenson was reappointed Chief Engineer, however, he and Vignoles proved incompatible, with the result that Vignoles left the L \& MR early in 1827.

Nevertheless, Vignoles did not sever all connection with the L \& MR. He supported John Braithwaite and John Ericsson in the construction of the locomotive Novelty and was present when it competed in the Rainhill Trials in 1829. He attended the opening of the L \& MR in 1830 and was appointed Engineer to two railways which connected with it, the St Helens \& Runcorn Gap and the Wigan Branch (later extended to Preston as the North Union); he supervised the construction of these.

After the death of the Engineer to the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway, Vignoles supervised construction: the railway, the first in Ireland, was opened in 1834. He was subsequently employed in surveying and constructing many railways in the British Isles and on the European continent; these included the Eastern Counties, the Midland Counties, the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyme \& Manchester (which proved for him a financial disaster from which he took many years to recover), and the Waterford \& Limerick. He probably discussed rail of flat-bottom section with R.L. Stevens during the winter of 1830–1 and brought it into use in the UK for the first time in 1836 on the London \& Croydon Railway: subsequently rail of this section became known as "Vignoles rail". He considered that a broader gauge than 4 ft 8½ in. (1.44 m) was desirable for railways, although most of those he built were to this gauge so that they might connect with others. He supported the atmospheric system of propulsion during the 1840s and was instrumental in its early installation on the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway's Dalkey extension. Between 1847 and 1853 he designed and built the noted multi-span suspension bridge at Kiev, Russia, over the River Dnieper, which is more than half a mile (800 m) wide at that point.

Between 1857 and 1863 he surveyed and then supervised the construction of the 155- mile (250 km) Tudela \& Bilbao Railway, which crosses the Cantabrian Pyrenees at an altitude of 2,163 ft (659 m) above sea level. Vignoles outlived his most famous contemporaries to become the grand old man of his profession.

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See also: Samuda, Joseph d'Aguilar

SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology

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Zworykin studied engineering at the Institute of Technology in St Petersburg under Boris Rosing, assisting the latter with his early experiments with television. After graduating in 1912, he spent a time doing X-ray research at the Collège de France in Paris before returning to join the Russian Marconi Company, initially in St Petersburg and then in Moscow. On the outbreak of war in 1917, he joined the Russian Army Signal Corps, but when the war ended in the chaos of the Revolution he set off on his travels, ending up in the USA, where he joined the Westinghouse Corporation. There, in 1923, he filed the first of many patents for a complete system of electronic television, including one for an all-electronic scanning pick-up tube that he called the iconoscope. In 1924 he became a US citizen and invented the kinescope, a hard-vacuum cathode ray tube (CRT) for the display of television pictures, and the following year he patented a camera tube with a mosaic of photoelectric elements and gave a demonstration of still-picture TV. In 1926 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Pittsburgh and in 1928 he was granted a patent for a colour TV system.

In 1929 he embarked on a tour of Europe to study TV developments; on his return he joined the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as Director of the Electronics Research Group, first at Camden and then Princeton, New Jersey. Securing a budget to develop an improved CRT picture tube, he soon produced a kinescope with a hard vacuum, an indirectly heated cathode, a signal-modulation grid and electrostatic focusing. In 1933 an improved iconoscope camera tube was produced, and under his direction RCA went on to produce other improved types of camera tube, including the image iconoscope, the orthicon and image orthicon and the vidicon. The secondary-emission effect used in many of these tubes was also used in a scintillation radiation counter. In 1941 he was responsible for the development of the first industrial electron microscope, but for most of the Second World War he directed work concerned with radar, aircraft fire-control and TV-guided missiles.

After the war he worked for a time on high-speed memories and medical electronics, becoming Vice-President and Technical Consultant in 1947. He "retired" from RCA and was made an honorary vice-president in 1954, but he retained an office and continued to work there almost up until his death; he also served as Director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1954 until 1962.

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See also: Baird, John Logie; Farnsworth, Philo Taylor; Jenkins, Charles Francis