All articles A–Z
519,064 articles
English in the Commonwealth of Nations
English in the Commonwealth of Nations, also called Commonwealth English, is the working language of the 56-member Commonwealth, inherited from British colonisation, mandatory for membership since 1997, and spanning national varieties from Indian to Caribbean English.
English knitting
English knitting, also called throwing or right-hand knitting, is a Western hand-knitting style holding yarn in the right hand and wrapping it around the needle; dominant in the UK and North America, distinct from Continental left-hand picking.
English land law
English land law governs ownership, use, and transfer of land in England and Wales. Rooted in feudal tenure, it was reshaped by the six 1925 property statutes, chiefly the Law of Property Act 1925, and is now undergoing major leasehold and commonhold reform.
English Language Act 2026
New Zealand public act, 2026 No 49, assented 6 August 2026, declaring English an official language of New Zealand alongside te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language; a declaratory Government bill in charge of Paul Goldsmith.
English language in Europe
English in Europe: native to only about 1% of the EU population (Ireland, Malta), yet the first foreign language for over 95% of EU schoolchildren, 38% second-language proficiency, and the EU's dominant working lingua franca after Brexit.
English law
English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, also called the law of England and Wales. It combines judge-made precedent, parliamentary statute, and equity, dates to Henry II's reforms, and differs from Scots law, influencing legal systems worldwide.
English literature
English literature: literary works in the English language from Old English beginnings (c. AD 450) through Middle English, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Modernism to global Anglophone and postcolonial writing today.
English longbow
The English longbow is a tall wooden bow, usually of yew, that was the favored missile weapon of English and Welsh infantry into the Tudor era.
English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) is a panel study following a representative cohort of people in England aged 50 and over, first interviewed in 2002.
English Mastiff
English Mastiff (Old English Mastiff), registered simply as Mastiff: giant British guard-dog breed in the AKC Working Group, recognized 1885; males 30 inches and 160-230 pounds, fawn/apricot/brindle coat with black mask, 6-10 year lifespan.
English medieval clothing
English medieval clothing: dress in England from Anglo-Saxon to late medieval times, mainly wool and linen with imported silk. Distinguished by opus anglicanum embroidery, sumptuary laws of 1337, 1363, and 1463, and London excavated textile finds.
English muffin
English muffin: a small flat yeast-leavened griddle bread, introduced in New York by Samuel Bath Thomas in 1880 as "toaster crumpets" and renamed in 1902; famous for nooks and crannies and the Egg McMuffin.
English mythology
English mythology: the layered legends of England, from the poorly attested Anglo-Saxon pagan religion to the Arthurian cycle, Robin Hood, and living folklore measured by the 2025 National Folklore Survey.
English novel
The English novel is the tradition of British prose fiction usually dated from Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), developed by Richardson and Fielding, and achieving critical acceptance with Austen and Scott in the early nineteenth century.
English numerals
English numerals: the cardinal words (one, two), ordinals (first, second), magnitudes (hundred, million), and writing conventions of English. Distinguished by opaque forms like eleven and twelve and the seven-century shift from 'one and twenty' to 'twenty-one'.
English Opening
English Opening (1.c4, ECO A10), a flank chess opening named after Howard Staunton, who used it in his 1843 Saint-Amant match; popularized by Botvinnik, highly transpositional, with main replies 1...e5, 1...Nf6, and 1...c5.
English orthography
English orthography is the spelling system of English, a deep alphabetic orthography shaped by the Norman Conquest, Chancery Standard, printing, and Johnson's Dictionary, with five vowel letters for at least 21 vowel sounds and a history of failed reform efforts.
English overseas possessions
English overseas possessions: territories of the Kingdom of England abroad before 1707, from Newfoundland (claimed by Cabot, 1497) and Jamestown (1607) to Caribbean and African posts; ruled as royal, proprietary, and charter colonies, becoming British possessions after the Act of Union 1707.
English parish and town council elections
Elections to England's roughly 10,000 civil parish and town councils, the lowest tier of local government, are held every four years, though most seats are filled without a poll.
English passive voice
English passive voice: clause pattern with be plus past participle, subject as patient, optional by-agent. Contrasted with active voice; Old English weorðan/wesan passives, Middle English expansion, get-passive, academic usage.
English PEN
English PEN, founded in London in 1921 by Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, is a writers' association campaigning for freedom of expression and the founding center of the PEN movement.
English people
English people: the nation and ethnic group of England, United Kingdom. Formed from post-Roman Germanic migration (name from the Angli), unified kingdom since 927; 74.4% of England and Wales identified as White British in Census 2021, with dual English/British identities common.
English personal pronouns
English personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, they): a closed word class marked for person, number, case, and natural gender; covers thou/ye loss, singular they, dialect plurals, and comparison with German and French.
English phonology
English phonology: the phoneme inventory and phonotactics of English and their history. Accents differ mainly in vowels; the Great Vowel Shift redistributed Middle English long vowels from the late 15th century.
English poetry
English poetry: verse in the English language from Old English alliterative meter (Beowulf, four stresses, caesura) through Chaucer's iambic pentameter, Renaissance blank verse, and modern free verse.
English Reformation
The English Reformation: the Tudor-era break from Rome (Act of Supremacy 1534), dissolution of the monasteries, Edwardian prayer book reforms, Marian reversal, and Elizabethan settlement, plus its historiography.
English Renaissance
The English Renaissance, the English phase of the European Renaissance (c. 1485–1660), was a literary and musical rather than visual-arts movement shaped by humanism, Caxton's printing press, the Reformation, and Elizabethan patronage, producing Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, and Milton.
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also called Elizabethan theatre, was the theatre of England from 1558 to 1642, spanning Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline phases, featuring the first professional actors, purpose-built playhouses such as the Theatre and the Globe, and playwrights including Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson.
English rose (epithet)
English rose (epithet): a term for an attractive, fair-skinned Englishwoman with a traditionally English appearance, traced to Basil Hood's 1902 opera Merrie England; distinct from David Austin's English rose cultivars.
English rugby union system
English rugby union system: the RFU-governed league pyramid in England, from the Premiership (Prem) and Championship to grassroots clubs, covering the 1995 professionalization, salary cap, PRL revenue shares, and the 2026-27 franchise-style reform ending relegation.