percival

English - English

Definition of percival in English English dictionary

A patronymic surname

A male given name

Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Lowell Percival Wavell of Eritrea and of Winchester Archibald Percival Wavell 1st Earl

A male given name from Welsh and Arthurian mythology

Related Terms

Percival Lowell

born March 13, 1855, Boston, Mass., U.S. died Nov. 12, 1916, Flagstaff, Ariz. U.S. astronomer. He was born into a distinguished Boston family. In the 1890s he built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., to study Mars. He championed the now-abandoned theory that intelligent inhabitants of a dying Mars had constructed a planetwide system of irrigation. He thought that the so-called canals of Mars (see Mars, canals of) were bands of cultivated vegetation dependent on this irrigation. Lowell's theory, long vigorously opposed, was finally put to rest by images received from the U.S. Mariner spacecraft. His prediction of a planet beyond Neptune was vindicated when Pluto was discovered in 1930

Archibald Percival Wavell 1st Earl Wavell

born May 5, 1883, Colchester, Essex, Eng. died May 24, 1950, London British army officer. Recognized as an excellent trainer of troops, he became British commander in chief for the Middle East in 1939. In World War II he was noted for his defeat of the numerically superior Italian armies in North Africa (1940-41) but was unable to stop the German force under Erwin Rommel in the North Africa Campaign. As commander in chief of Southeast Asia (1941-43), he failed to stop the Japanese conquests of Malaya, Singapore, and Burma (1942). Promoted to field marshal, he served as viceroy of India (1943-47)

Archibald Percival Wavell 1st Earl Wavell of Eritrea and of Winchester

born May 5, 1883, Colchester, Essex, Eng. died May 24, 1950, London British army officer. Recognized as an excellent trainer of troops, he became British commander in chief for the Middle East in 1939. In World War II he was noted for his defeat of the numerically superior Italian armies in North Africa (1940-41) but was unable to stop the German force under Erwin Rommel in the North Africa Campaign. As commander in chief of Southeast Asia (1941-43), he failed to stop the Japanese conquests of Malaya, Singapore, and Burma (1942). Promoted to field marshal, he served as viceroy of India (1943-47)

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary

born July 20, 1919, Auckland, N.Z. New Zealand mountain climber and explorer. Hillary was a professional beekeeper but enjoyed climbing in the New Zealand Alps. In 1951 he joined a New Zealand party to the central Himalayas and then went on to help in a reconnaissance of the southern flank of Everest. In 1953, as a member of the British Everest expedition, he and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit on May

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary

The achievement brought Hillary worldwide fame and he was knighted that same year. In 1958 he participated in the first crossing of Antarctica by vehicle. From the 1960s he has helped build schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people

Hyphenation

Per·ci·val

Turkish pronunciation

pırsîvıl

Pronunciation

/ˈpərsəvəl/ /ˈpɜrsɪvəl/

Etymology

() Old French Perceval, name of a knight in a twelfth century Arthurian romance by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes. Shaped like Old French perce (“pierce”) + val (“valley”), but probably representing some Gaulish or Welsh name. Cognate with German Parsifal.