Society and history

Aspasia (σπασία)

Aspasia (σπασία) of Miletus, fifth-century BC metic and companion of Pericles in Athens, remembered as teacher of Socrates and Pericles in rhetoric; her biography rests on comedy, Socratic dialogue, and Plutarch.

Aspasia Manos

Aspasia Manos (Ασπασία Μάνου, 1896–1972), Greek aristocrat from a Phanariote family who secretly married King Alexander I of Greece in 1919; styled Princess Aspasia of Greece and Denmark in 1922, distinct from Aspasia of Miletus.

Aspect Biosystems

Aspect Biosystems is a Vancouver biotechnology company founded in 2013 as a UBC spinout that develops bioprinted tissue therapeutics, led by an islet replacement therapy for type 1 diabetes.

Aspect Capital

Aspect Capital is a London-based systematic hedge fund manager founded in 1997 by Anthony Todd and Martin Lueck, managing over $9 billion in trend-following managed futures strategies.

Aspelta

Aspelta was a king of Kush around 593 BC who succeeded his brother Anlamani, recorded his divine election on the Election Stela, and was buried in a pyramid at Nuri.

Aspen Institute

Aspen Institute, also Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, is a global nonprofit leadership and convening organization founded by Walter Paepcke in Aspen, Colorado, after the 1949 Goethe Bicentennial; known for its Executive Seminar, Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen Security Forum, and Henry Crown Fellowship.

Asphodel Meadows

Asphodel Meadows (ἀσφοδελὸς λειμών, asphodelos leimon), the Homeric Greek underworld meadow where ordinary shades of the dead dwell (Odyssey 11, 24), later the middle realm between Elysium and Tartarus; etymology and tone remain debated.

Aspirated consonant

Aspirated consonant: a stop or affricate released with an audible puff of air, marked in IPA with superscript h (pʰ, tʰ, kʰ). Measured by voice onset time; allophonic in English, contrastive in Mandarin, Thai, Hindi, and Korean-type systems.

Aspirity Partners

Aspirity Partners is a London-based, Irish-domiciled private equity firm founded by Joe O'Mara and Ralph Choufani, which closed its inaugural fund at over €875 million in 2025.

Asqudum

Asqudum, also written Ašqudum, was a diviner at the court of Mari who served King Zimri-Lim in the eighteenth century BC, with diplomatic and commercial duties.

Asr Nederland

ASR Nederland N.V. is a Dutch insurance company headquartered in Utrecht, the second-largest insurer in the Netherlands, nationalized in 2008 and listed on Euronext Amsterdam since June 2016.

Assadism

Assadism: the authoritarian political system founded by Hafez al-Assad in Syria in 1970 and continued by Bashar al-Assad until December 2024, blending Baathist rhetoric with Alawite-based security rule, personality cult, and dynastic succession.

Assadist–Saddamist conflict

Assadist–Saddamist conflict: the rivalry between Ba'athist Syria under Hafez al-Assad and Ba'athist Iraq under Saddam Hussein, from the 1966 party split through the Iran-Iraq War, the 1982 rupture, and the 2006 rapprochement.

Assaf Feldman

Assaf Feldman is a technology entrepreneur who co-founded Riskified, the NYSE-listed ecommerce fraud-prevention company, in 2012 with Eido Gal, and has served as its Chief Technology Officer since inception.

Assaf Mischari

Assaf Mischari is a venture investor and Managing Partner at Team8, where he leads the digital health arm after more than 25 years in cybersecurity.

Assaf Razin

Assaf Razin was an Israeli economist who taught at Tel Aviv University and Cornell, known for the Razin-Sadka result on capital taxation and work on migration economics.

Assagutta

Assagutta is an elder monk of the Vattaniya hermitage, known from the Milindapañha as the teacher of Nāgasena and leader of the Sangha under King Milinda.

Assaji

Assaji (Sanskrit Aśvajit, अश्वजित्) was the fifth and last of the five monks who received the Buddha's first discourse at the Deer Park near Benares.

Assajipunabbasuka

Assajipunabbasuka (अस्सजिपुनब्बासुक) is the Pali Vinaya name for monks of the Chabbaggiya led by Assaji and Punabbasu, whose misconduct at Kīṭāgiri led the Buddha to send Sāriputta and Moggallāna to banish them.

Assalayana

Assalayana (Pali: Assalāyano; Sanskrit: Āśvalāyana) was a sixteen-year-old brahmin student of Sāvatthī, chosen by 500 brahmins to dispute the Buddha's teaching that purity belongs to all four castes.

Assam Legislative Assembly (অসম বিধানসভা)

Assam Legislative Assembly (অসম বিধানসভা), Assam's unicameral state legislature of 126 members, first met 7 April 1937 at Shillong under the Government of India Act 1935; it sits at Dispur since 1973.

Assam Rifles (असम राइफल्स)

Assam Rifles (असम राइफल्स), India's oldest paramilitary force, raised 24 March 1835 as the Cachar Levy; renamed 1917; guards the India-Myanmar border under a unique dual MHA-Army control structure with 46 battalions.

Assamese language

Assamese (অসমীয়া, Asamiya) is an Indo-Aryan language of Assam, India, official there since 1950, descended from Magadhi Apabhramsa, with about 20 million speakers, classifier grammar, and classical-language status granted in October 2024.

Assamese people

Assamese people (Asomiya) are the Indo-Aryan-speaking community of Assam, India, shaped by Ahom rule from 1228, colonial Bengali language conflict, migration, classical language status (2024), and the NRC citizenship debate.

Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority

Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority [2012] UKSC 22: UK Supreme Court case on whether a European Arrest Warrant issued by Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny was valid; a 5-2 majority held a prosecutor is a 'judicial authority' under the Extradition Act 2003.