| Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 1,738,871,136 visitors served. |
|
Dictionary/ thesaurus | Medical dictionary | Legal dictionary | Financial dictionary | Acronyms | Idioms | Encyclopedia | Wikipedia encyclopedia | ? |
maxim |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Legal, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.01 sec. |
|
Maxim (măk`sĭm), name of a family of inventors and munition makers. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, 1840–1916, was born near Sangerville, Maine. After launching on a career of inventing, he moved to England and there invented (1884) the Maxim machine gun. Among his numerous other inventions were a smokeless powder, a delayed-action fuse, and an airplane. His arms company was consolidated (1896) with the Vickers firm. He became a British subject in 1900 and was knighted in 1901. His brother, Hudson Maxim, 1853–1927, was born in Orneville, Maine, and remained in the United States. A chemist, he developed numerous inventions, including a high explosive (maximite), smokeless powders (one of them stabilite), and a self-combustive compound to propel torpedoes (motorite). Hiram Percy Maxim, 1869–1936, son of Sir Hiram, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and remained in the United States. After graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he held many positions as a mechanical engineer and created several inventions, among them an automobile. The most spectacular was the Maxim silencer for explosive weapons (1908), but perhaps more useful were silencers for gasoline engines and the like. maxim a brief expression of a general truth, principle, or rule of conduct Maxim Sir Hiram Stevens. 1840--1916, British inventor of the first automatic machine gun (1884), born in the US How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
|
| ? Mentioned in | ? References in classic literature | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Come, if one can't always eat, one can always drink -- a maxim of poor Athos, the truth of which I have discovered since I began to be lonely. Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite: And you'd best be unpacking the things that you need To rig yourselves out for the fight. Meanwhile, he cast his eyes over that unfortunate city, which contained so much deep misery and so many heroic virtues, and recalling the saying of Louis XI, his political predecessor, as he himself was the predecessor of Robespierre, he repeated this maxim of Tristan's gossip: "Divide in order to reign. |
| Encyclopedia |
| Free Tools: |
For surfers:
Free toolbar & extensions |
Word of the Day |
Help
For webmasters: Free content | Linking | Lookup box | Double-click lookup | Partner with us |
|---|