The Jerusalem artichoke, Helianthus tuberosus, is a distinct plant belonging to the same order, cultivated for its tubers. It closely resembles the sunflower, and its popular name is a corruption of the Italian Girasole Articiocco, the sunflower artichoke. It is a native of Canada and the north-eastern United States, and was cultivated by the aborigines. The tubers are rich in the carbohydrate inulin and in sugar.
The name is derived from the northern Italian articiocco, or arciciocco, modern carciofo; these words come, through the Spanish, from the Arabic al-kharshūf. False etymology has corrupted the word in many languages: it has been derived in English from “choke,” and “heart,” or the Latin hortus, a garden; and in French, the form artichaut has been connected with chaud, hot, and chou, a cabbage.
ARTICLE (from Lat. articulus, a joint), a term primarily for that which connects two parts together, and so transferred to the parts thus joined; thus the word is used of the separate clauses or heads in contracts, treaties or statutes and the like; of a literary composition on some specific subject in a periodical; or of particular commodities, as in “articles of trade and commerce.” It appears also in the phrase “in the article of death” to translate in articulo mortis, at the moment of death. In grammar the term is used of the adjectives which state the extension of a substantive, i.e. the number of individuals to which a name applies; the indefinite article denoting one or any of a particular class, the definite denoting a particular member of a class.
ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION, in English company law, the regulations for the internal management of a joint stock company registered under the Companies Acts. They are, in fact, the terms of the partnership agreed upon by the shareholders among themselves. They regulate such matters as the transfer and forfeiture of shares, calls upon shares, the appointment and qualification of directors, their powers and proceedings, general meetings of the shareholders, votes, dividends, the keeping and audit of accounts, and other such matters. In regard to these internal regulations the legislature has left the company free to adopt whatever terms of association it chooses. It has furnished in the schedule to the Companies Act 1862 (Table A), a model or specimen set of regulations, but their adoption, wholly or in part, is optional; only if a company does not register articles of its own these statutory regulations are to apply. When, as is commonly the case, a company decides to have articles of its own framing, such articles must be expressed in separate paragraphs, numbered arithmetically, and signed by the subscribers of the memorandum of association. They must also be printed, stamped like a deed, and attested. When so perfected, they are to be delivered, with the memorandum of association, to the registrar of joint stock companies, who is to retain and register them. The articles of association thereupon become a public document, which any person may inspect on payment of a fee of one shilling. This has important consequences, because every person dealing with the company is presumed to be acquainted with its constitution, and to have read its articles. The articles, also, upon registration, bind the company and its members to the same extent as if each member had subscribed his name and affixed his seal to them. (See also [Memorandum of Association]; [Company]; [Incorporation].)
In the United States, articles of association are any instrument in writing which sets forth the purposes, the terms and conditions upon which a body of persons have united for the prosecution of a joint enterprise. When this instrument is duly executed and filed, the law gives it the force and effects of a charter of incorporation.
ARTICULATA, a zoological name now obsolete, applied by Cuvier to animals, such as insects and worms, in which the body displays a jointed structure. (See [Arthropoda].)