27-letter words containing a, b, o, r, t

keep one's head above water — If you keep your head above water, you just avoid getting into difficulties; used especially to talk about business.
knowbot information service — (networking, information science) (KIS) Also known as netaddress. The Knowbot Information Service (KIS) provides a uniform user interface to a variety of remote directory services such as whois, finger, X.500, MCIMail. By submitting a single query to KIS, a user can search a set of remote white pages services and see the results of the search in a uniform format. There are several interfaces to the KIS service including electronic mail and telnet. Another KIS interface imitates the Berkeley whois command. KIS consists of two distinct types of modules which interact with each other (typically across a network) to provide the service. One module is a user agent module that runs on the KIS mail host machine. The second module is a remote server module (possibly on a different machine) that interrogates various database services across the network and provides the results to the user agent module in a uniform fashion. Interactions between the two modules can be via messages between Knowbots or by actual movement of Knowbots. There are electronic mail interfaces for KIS at the hosts cnri.reston.va.us and sol.bucknell.edu. Send a message containing just the word "man" to <[email protected]> or <[email protected]>. Telnet: info.cnri.reston.va.us port 185.
management information base — (networking) (MIB) A database of managed objects acessed by network management protocols. An SNMP MIB is a set of parameters which an SNMP management station can query or set in the SNMP agent of a network device (e.g. router). Standard minimal MIBs have been defined, and many hardware (and certain software, e.g. DBMS) providers have developed private MIBs in ASN.1 format allowing them to be compiled for use in a Network Management System. In theory, any SNMP manager can talk to any SNMP agent with a properly defined MIB. See also client-server model.
metallic wood-boring beetle — any of numerous metallic green, blue, copper, or black beetles of the family Buprestidae, the larvae of which bore into the wood of trees.
monoamine oxidase inhibitor — any of various substances, as isocarboxazid and phenelzine, that block enzymatic breakdown of certain monoamine neurotransmitters: used to treat severe depression. Abbreviation: MAOI.
national insurance benefits — benefits provided as a result of payments to national insurance, such a state pension, sick pay, etc
nothing to write home about — If you say that something is nothing to write home about, you mean that it is not very interesting or exciting.
object relational modelling — object relational mapping
object-oriented programming — (programming) (OOP) The use of a class of programming languages and techniques based on the concept of an "object" which is a data structure (abstract data type) encapsulated with a set of routines, called "methods", which operate on the data. Operations on the data can only be performed via these methods, which are common to all objects that are instances of a particular "class". Thus the interface to objects is well defined, and allows the code implementing the methods to be changed so long as the interface remains the same. Each class is a separate module and has a position in a "class hierarchy". Methods or code in one class can be passed down the hierarchy to a subclass or inherited from a superclass. This is called "inheritance". A procedure call is described as invoking a method on an object (which effectively becomes the procedure's first argument), and may optionally include other arguments. The method name is looked up in the object's class to find out how to perform that operation on the given object. If the method is not defined for the object's class, it is looked for in its superclass and so on up the class hierarchy until it is found or there is no higher superclass. OOP started with SIMULA-67 around 1970 and became all-pervasive with the advent of C++, and later Java. Another popular object-oriented programming language (OOPL) is Smalltalk, a seminal example from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Others include Ada, Object Pascal, Objective C, DRAGOON, BETA, Emerald, POOL, Eiffel, Self, Oblog, ESP, LOOPS, POLKA, and Python. Other languages, such as Perl and VB, permit, but do not enforce OOP.
portable scheme interpreter — (PSI) A portable scheme interpreter by Ozan Yigit <[email protected]>, David Keldsen and Pontus Hedman that includes a simple DAG compiler and a virtual machine. It can be used as an integrated extension interpreter in other systems and allows easy addition of new primitives. There are some unique debugging and tracing facilities. Acceptable performance results from a fairly straight-forward implementation. Continuations are fully and portably supported and perform well. PSI is based on the simple compilers and virtual machine in Kent Dbyvig's thesis. The pre-release version conforms to R4RS with a number of useful extensions.
pour oil on troubled waters — any of a large class of substances typically unctuous, viscous, combustible, liquid at ordinary temperatures, and soluble in ether or alcohol but not in water: used for anointing, perfuming, lubricating, illuminating, heating, etc.
prince albert national park — a national park in W Canada, in central Saskatchewan. 1869 sq. mi.
product liability insurance — Product liability insurance is insurance for a producer or supplier of goods against injury to third parties or loss of or damage to their property that is caused by a fault in the goods.
public broadcasting service — a network of independent, noncommercial television stations that operate with public and government funding instead of with revenues from advertising. Abbreviation: PBS.
public service broadcasting — publicly-funded broadcasting
public works administration — the U.S. federal agency (1933–44) that instituted and administered projects for the construction of public works. Abbreviation: PWA, P.W.A.
put one's best foot forward — (in vertebrates) the terminal part of the leg, below the ankle joint, on which the body stands and moves.
rise/raise sb from the dead — When Christians say that Jesus Christ rose from the dead or raised someone from the dead, they mean that Jesus came back to life after he had died, or brought a dead person back to life.
scalable coherent interface — (hardware, protocol) (SCI) The ANSI/IEEE 1596-1992 standard that defines a point-to-point interface and a set of packet protocols. The SCI protocols use packets with a 16-byte header and 16, 64, or 256 data bytes. Each packet is protected by a 16-bit CRC code. The standard defines 1 Gbit/second serial fiber-optic links and 1 Gbyte/second parallel copper links. SCI has two unidirectional links that operate concurrently. The SCI protocols support shared memory by encapsulating bus requests and responses into SCI request and response packets. Packet-based handshake protocols guarantee reliable data delivery. A set of cache coherence protocols are defined to maintain cache coherence in a shared memory system. SCI uses 64-bit addressing and the most significant 16 bits are used for addressing up to 64K nodes.
serbs, croats, and slovenes — former name (1918–29) of Yugoslavia.
symbol manipulation program — (SMP) Steven Wolfram's earlier symbol manipulation program, before he turned to Mathematica.
the forest of fontainebleau — a forest in N France, where the town of Fontainebleau is located
the hunchback of notre dame — French Notre Dame de Paris. a novel (1831) by Victor Hugo.
the odds are in sb's favour — If you say that the odds are in someone's favour, you mean that they are likely to succeed in what they are doing.
to be bursting at the seams — to be very full
to breathe a sigh of relief — If people breathe or heave a sigh of relief, they feel happy that something unpleasant has not happened or is no longer happening.
to cast pearls before swine — If you say that someone is casting pearls before swine, you mean that they are wasting their time by offering something that is helpful or valuable to someone who does not appreciate or understand it.
to know something backwards — In British English, if you say that someone knows something backwards, you are emphasizing that they know it very well. In American English, you say that someone knows something backward and forward.
to make your blood run cold — If you say that something makes your blood run cold or makes your blood freeze, you mean that it makes you feel very frightened.
to rule sb with a high hand — to behave imperiously towards someone
to take someone by surprise — If something takes you by surprise, it happens when you are not expecting it or when you are not prepared for it.
to the best of your ability — as well as you can
to turn your back on sb/sth — If you turn your back on someone or something, you ignore them, leave them, or reject them.

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