21-letter words containing a, b, o, r, t, i
- forward compatibility — (jargon) The ability to accept input from later versions of itself. Forward compatibility is harder to achieve than backward compatibility, since, in the backward case, the input format is know whereas a forward compatible system needs to cope gracefully with unknown future features. An example of future compatibility is the stipulation that a web browser should ignore HTML tags it does not recognise. See also extensible.
- franco-belgian system — French system.
- garbageabetical order — (humour) 1. The result of using an insertion sort to merge data into an unsorted list. 2. The state of any file or list that is supposed to be sorted, but is not.
- gaussian distribution — normal distribution
- give sb the runaround — If someone gives you the runaround, they deliberately do not give you all the information or help that you want, and send you to another person or place to get it.
- go (in) to bat for sb — If you go to bat for someone or go in to bat for them, you give them your support.
- gold bullion standard — a gold standard in which gold is not coined but may be purchased at a fixed price for foreign exchange.
- greenwich observatory — the national astronomical observatory of Great Britain, housed in a castle in E Sussex; formerly located at Greenwich.
- harriet beecher stowe — Harriet (Elizabeth) Beecher, 1811–96, U.S. abolitionist and novelist.
- horizontal stabilizer — the horizontal surface, usually fixed, of an aircraft empennage, to which the elevator is hinged.
- horizontal tabulation — (character) (tab, Control-I, HT, ASCII 9) A character which when displayed or printed causes the following character to be placed at the next "tabstop" - the column whose number is a multiple of the current tab width. Commonly (especially in Unix(?)) the tab width is eight, so, counting from the left margin (column zero), the tab stops are at columns 8, 16, 24, up to the width of the screen or page. A tab width of four or two is often preferred when indenting program source code to conserve indentation. Represented as "\t" in C, Unix, and derivatives.
- imprecise probability — (probability) A probability that is represented as an interval (as opposed to a single number) included in [0,1].
- integer specbaseratio — SPECbase_int92
- international brigade — a military force that fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, consisting of volunteers (predominantly socialists and communists) from many countries
- keep the ball rolling — a spherical or approximately spherical body or shape; sphere: He rolled the piece of paper into a ball.
- laboratory technician — sb who assists in a laboratory
- language-based editor — language-sensitive editor
- long-term liabilities — Long-term liabilities are debts that a company does not have to pay back for a year or more.
- maître d'hôtel butter — melted butter mixed with parsley and lemon juice
- mayor of casterbridge — a novel (1886) by Thomas Hardy.
- metabotropic receptor — an indirect receptor which initiates an intracellular biochemical cascade after it is triggered by an agonistic ligand
- national public radio — a nationwide network of nonprofit radio stations supported in part by U.S. government funds distributed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, often affiliated with a public television station or educational institution. Abbreviation: NPR.
- negotiable instrument — order or promise to pay money
- negotiable securities — securities that are legally transferable in title from one party to another
- northumberland strait — the part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that separates Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in SE Canada. About 200 miles (320 km) long; 9–30 miles (15–48 km) wide.
- objective correlative — a completely depicted situation or chain of events that objectifies a particular emotion in such a way as to produce or evoke that emotion in the reader.
- observation satellite — an unmanned satellite that observes the earth and gathers data
- on o's best behaviour — If someone is on their best behaviour, they are trying very hard to behave well.
- optical double (star) — double star (sense 2)
- poor robin's plantain — the rattlesnake weed, Hieracium venosum.
- posterior probability — the probability assigned to some parameter or to an event on the basis of its observed frequency in a sample, and calculated from a prior probability by Bayes' theorem
- potassium bicarbonate — a white, crystalline, slightly alkaline, salty-tasting, water-soluble powder, KHCO 3 , produced by the passage of carbon dioxide through an aqueous potassium carbonate solution: used in cookery as a leavening agent and in medicine as an antacid.
- printed circuit board — a circuit in which the interconnecting conductors and some of the circuit components have been printed, etched, etc., onto a sheet or board of dielectric material (PC board, printed-circuit board)
- propantheline bromide — a substance, C 2 3 H 3 0 BrNO 3 , used in the treatment of peptic ulcers.
- public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
- public transportation — means of fare-paying travel
- rayleigh distribution — (mathematics) A curve that yields a good approximation to the actual labour curves on software projects.
- reciprocal inhibition — the theory that the pairing of an anxiety-provoking stimulus with anxiety-reducing reactions will weaken the association between the stimulus and the anxiety.
- rehabilitation centre — a centre or clinic where people with an alcohol or drug addiction are treated
- reverberation chamber — a room with walls that reflect sound. It is used to make acoustic measurements and as a source of reverberant sound to be mixed with direct sound for recording or broadcasting
- roodepoort-maraisburg — a city in S Transvaal, in the NE Republic of South Africa.
- salam-weinberg theory — the electroweak theory.
- sampling distribution — the distribution of a statistic based on all possible random samples that can be drawn from a given population.
- san gabriel mountains — a mountain range in S California, N of Los Angeles. Highest peak, San Antonio Peak, 10,080 feet (3072 meters).
- saponification number — the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify one gram of a given ester, especially a glyceride.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- serbia and montenegro — a former country in SE Europe, consisting of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro; replaced the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 2003, and dissolved in 2006 following Montenegro’s decision to secede
- single spanish burton — a tackle having a runner as well as the fall supporting the load, giving a mechanical advantage of three, neglecting friction.
- snr bandwidth product — (communications) The integral of the SNR over frequency. The SNR bandwidth product is an important limit in the capacity of a communication channel.
- socialist labor party — a U.S. political party, organized in 1874, advocating the peaceful introduction of socialism.