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19-letter words containing a, b, l, c

  • financial ombudsman — any of five British ombudsmen: the Banking Ombudsman, set up in 1986 to investigate complaints from bank customers; the Building Society Ombudsman, set up in 1987 to investigate complaints from building society customers; the Insurance Ombudsman, set up in 1981 to investigate complaints by policyholders (since 1988 this ombudsman has also operated a Unit Trust Ombudsman scheme); the Investment Ombudsman set up in 1989 to investigate complaints by investors (the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman is responsible for investigating complaints by personal investors); and the Pensions Ombudsman, set up in 1993 to investigate complaints regarding pension schemes
  • functional database — (database, language)   A database which uses a functional language as its query language. Databases would seem to be an inappropriate application for functional languages since, a purely functional language would have to return a new copy of the entire database every time (part of) it was updated. To be practically scalable, the update mechanism must clearly be destructive rather than functional; however it is quite feasible for the query language to be purely functional so long as the database is considered as an argument. One approach to the update problem would use a monad to encapsulate database access and ensure it was single threaded. Alternative approaches have been suggested by Trinder, who suggests non-destructive updating with shared data structures, and Sutton who uses a variant of a Phil Wadler's linear type system. There are two main classes of functional database languages. The first is based upon Backus' FP language, of which FQL is probably the best known example. Adaplan is a more recent language which falls into this category. More recently, people have been working on languages which are syntactically very similar to modern functional programming languages, but which also provide all of the features of a database language, e.g. bulk data structures which can be incrementally updated, type systems which can be incrementally updated, and all data persisting in a database. Examples are PFL [Poulovassilis&Small, VLDB-91], and Machiavelli [Ohori et al, ACM SIGMOD Conference, 1998].
  • giraldus cambrensis — literary name of Gerald de Barri. ?1146–?1223, Welsh chronicler and churchman, noted for his accounts of his travels in Ireland and Wales
  • goldbach conjecture — an unproved theorem that every even integer greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two prime numbers.
  • handlebar moustache — a man's moustache having long, curved ends that resemble the handlebars of a bicycle.
  • hang in the balance — to fasten or attach (a thing) so that it is supported only from above or at a point near its own top; suspend.
  • heptachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twenty-four isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing seven chlorine atoms.
  • honorable discharge — a discharge from military service of a person who has fulfilled obligations efficiently, honorably, and faithfully.
  • hydrostatic balance — a balance for finding the weight of an object submerged in water in order to determine the upthrust on it and thus determine its relative density
  • hyperbolic cosecant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of hyperbolic sine
  • incommensurableness — (rare) Incommensurability.
  • incomplete abortion — a miscarriage in which some fetal or placental tissue remains in the uterus.
  • interchangeableness — Quality of being interchangeable.
  • internal-combustion — of or relating to an internal-combustion engine.
  • intervertebral disc — any of the cartilaginous discs between individual vertebrae, acting as shock absorbers
  • japanese black pine — a pine, Pinus thunbergiana, of Japan, grown as a seaside ornamental in the U.S.
  • kellogg-briand pact — a treaty renouncing war as an instrument of national policy and urging peaceful means for the settlement of international disputes, originally signed in 1928 by 15 nations, later joined by 49 others.
  • label switched path — (networking)   (LSP) The specific path through a network that a datagram follows, based on its MPLS labels.
  • lady baltimore cake — a white layer cake using only the beaten whites of eggs and spread with a fruitnut filling consisting of raisins, figs, walnuts or pecans, and sometimes candied cherries.
  • lean over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
  • liability insurance — insurance covering the insured against losses arising from injury or damage to another person or property.
  • library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
  • logical unit number — (storage)   (LUN) A 3-bit identifier used on a SCSI bus to distinguish between up to eight devices (logical units) with the same SCSI ID.
  • lord baltimore cake — a yellow layer cake, using only the yolks of eggs and having a fruit-nut filling consisting of pecans, almonds, maraschino cherries, and macaroon crumbs.
  • malleable cast iron — white cast iron that has been malleablized.
  • mary mcleod bethune — Mary McLeod [muh-kloud] /məˈklaʊd/ (Show IPA), 1875–1955, U.S. educator and civil-rights leader.
  • mercurial barometer — mercury barometer.
  • mexican bean beetle — a ladybird beetle, Epilachna varivestis, introduced into the U.S. from Mexico, that feeds on the foliage of the bean plant.
  • molecular biologist — a specialist in the study of biological phenomena at the molecular level
  • monoclonal antibody — antibody produced by a laboratory-grown cell clone, either of a hybridoma or a virus-transformed lymphocyte, that is more abundant and uniform than natural antibody and is able to bind specifically to a single site on almost any chosen antigen or reveal previously unknown antigen sites: used as an analytic tool in scientific research and medical diagnosis and potentially important in the treatment of certain diseases. Abbreviation: MAb.
  • mordvinian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
  • municipal bond fund — a mutual fund that invests in municipal bonds.
  • naberezhniye chelny — city in E European Russia, on the Kama River: pop. 514,000
  • national coal board — a statutory corporation set up to run Britain's nationalised coal mining industry between 1947 and 1994, at which time the industry was privatized
  • neville chamberlain — (Arthur) Neville, 1869–1940, British statesman: prime minister 1937–40.
  • not by a long chalk — by no means; not possibly
  • obsolescence clause — a clause in an insurance policy that takes account of the obsolescence of the item insured in order to lower the amount to be paid out in the event of a claim
  • office-block ballot — a ballot on which the candidates are listed alphabetically, with or without their party designations, in columns under the office for which they were nominated.
  • olive-backed thrush — Swainson's thrush.
  • once in a blue moon — very rarely; almost never
  • optical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
  • oxyacetylene burner — a blowpipe for cutting or welding metals at high temperatures
  • paradichlorobenzene — a white, crystalline, volatile, water-insoluble solid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , of the benzene series, having a penetrating odor: used chiefly as a moth repellent.
  • party-column ballot — Indiana ballot.
  • phenylthiocarbamide — a crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 6 H 5 NHCSNH 2 , that is either tasteless or bitter, depending upon the heredity of the taster, and is used in medical genetics and as a diagnostic.
  • phthalocyanine blue — a pigment used in painting, derived from copper phthalocyanine and characterized chiefly by its brilliant, dark-blue color and by permanence.
  • polycarboxylic acid — a type of carboxylic acid containing two or more carboxyl groups
  • polyclonal antibody — a mixture of antibodies of different specificities, as in the serum of a person immunized to various antigens.
  • pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
  • public intellectual — an intellectual, often a noted specialist in a particular field, who has become well-known to the general public for a willingness to comment on current affairs
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