22-letter words containing a, b, s
- keesler air force base — a U.S. Air Force installation in S Mississippi, near Biloxi.
- klebs-loffler bacillus — a bacterium, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, which causes diphtheria.
- knowledge-based system — (artificial intelligence) (KBS) A program for extending and/or querying a knowledge base. The related term expert system is normally used to refer to a highly domain-specific type of KBS used for a specialised purpose such as medical diagnosis. The Cyc project is an example of a large KBS.
- label switching router — (networking) (LSR) A device that typically resides somewhere in the middle of a network and is capable of forwarding datagrams by label switching. In many cases, especially early versions of MPLS networks, a LSR will typically be a modified ATM switch that forwards datagrams based upon a label in the VPI/VCI field.
- lady's not for burning — a verse play (1948) by Christopher Fry.
- lesser cornstalk borer — the larva of a widely distributed pyralid moth, Elasmopalpus lignosellus, that damages corn and some other crops by boring into the part of the stalk close to the soil.
- little st bernard pass — a pass over the Savoy Alps, between Bourg-Saint-Maurice, France, and La Thuile, Italy: 11th-century hospice. Height: 2187 m (7177 ft)
- lund software house ab — (company) The company who produced Lund Simula. Address: Box 7056, S-22007 Lund, Sweden.
- make a beeline for sth — If you make a beeline for a place, you go to it as quickly and directly as possible.
- make a clean breast of — Anatomy, Zoology. (in bipeds) the outer, front part of the thorax, or the front part of the body from the neck to the abdomen; chest.
- make allowances for sb — If you make allowances for someone, you accept behaviour which you would not normally accept or deal with them less severely than you would normally, because of a problem that they have.
- make contact (with sb) — If you make contact with someone, you find out where they are and talk or write to them.
- make one's marble good — to succeed or do the right thing
- manuel estrada cabrera — Manuel [mah-nwel] /mɑˈnwɛl/ (Show IPA), 1857–1924, Guatemalan politician: president 1898–1920.
- maxwell air force base — U.S. Air Force installation in SE central Alabama, NW of Montgomery: site of U.S. Air Force Advanced School.
- metasyntactic variable — (grammar) Strictly, a variable used in metasyntax, but often used for any name used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under discussion. The word foo is the canonical example. To avoid confusion, hackers never (well, hardly ever) use "foo" or other words like it as permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time. To some extent, the list of one's preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons. Here are a few common signatures: bazola, ztesch: Stanford (from mid-'70s on). zxc, spqr, wombat: Cambridge University (England). shme: Berkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced /shme/ with a short /e/. blarg, wibble: New Zealand Of all these, only "foo" and "bar" are universal (and baz nearly so). The compounds foobar and "foobaz" also enjoy very wide currency. Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; barf and mumble, for example. See also Commonwealth Hackish for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
- missing persons bureau — the part of the Police Force dealing with tracing missing people
- mozilla public license — Open source license
- mutton dressed as lamb — If you describe a woman as mutton dressed as lamb, you are criticizing her for trying to look younger than she really is, in a way that you consider unattractive.
- nassella tussock board — one of many local statutory organizations set up in different regions of New Zealand to eradicate the invasive nassella tussock weed
- non-maskable interrupt — (NMI) An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680x0 or the NMI line on an 80x86. In contrast with a priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
- not be sb's department — If you say that a task or area of knowledge is not your department, you mean that you are not responsible for it or do not know much about it.
- object-oriented pascal — Object Pascal
- on a shoestring budget — with very little money to spend
- one's ears are burning — one is aware of being the topic of another's conversation
- peanut-butter sandwich — a sandwich with a filling of peanut-butter
- portable standard lisp — (language) (PSL) A dialect of Lisp from Utah University. PSL is available as a kit for 68000 and also runs on VAX. It compiles Lisp to C-code virtual machine language.
- prawn-sandwich brigade — sports fans who are perceived to lack passion and commitment, and who it is supposed attend matches in order to eat food and buy merchandise rather than cheer on their team
- preestablished harmony — (in the philosophy of Leibnitz) synchronous operation of all monads, since their simultaneous creation, in accordance with the preexisting plan of God.
- probationary assistant — a teacher in the first probationary years
- public domain software — public domain
- pulmonary tuberculosis — tuberculosis of the lungs.
- read between the lines — a mark or stroke long in proportion to its breadth, made with a pen, pencil, tool, etc., on a surface: a line down the middle of the page.
- red-breasted merganser — a widely distributed merganser, Mergus serrator of America and Europe: family Anatidae
- remote database access — (database, standard) (RDBA) A standard permitting the exchange of information between different DBMS systems.
- replacement cost basis — Replacement cost basis is a method of valuing insured property in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
- research establishment — an establishment or institution where research or investigation into a subject, topic, etc, can be conducted
- rose-breasted grosbeak — an American grosbeak, Pheucticus ludovicianus, the male of which, in nuptial plumage, has a rose-pink triangular breast patch.
- round-table discussion — a discussion held at a meeting of parties or people on equal terms
- saddleback caterpillar — a moth larva, Sibine stimulea, of the southeastern U.S, having a brown and green, saddlelike marking on its back and poisonous spines.
- sainte anne de beaupre — a village in S Quebec, Canada, on the St. Lawrence River: shrine and basilica.
- sainte-anne-de-beaupré — village in S Quebec, Canada, on the St. Lawrence: site of a Rom. Catholic shrine (established 1658): pop. 3,000
- satellite broadcasting — the transmission of television or radio programmes from an artificial satellite at a power suitable for direct reception in the home
- satisfiability problem — A problem used as an example in complexity theory. It can be stated thus: Given a Boolean expression E, decide if there is some assignment to the variables in E such that E is true. A Boolean expression is composed of Boolean variables, (logical) negation (NOT), (logical) conjunction (AND) and parentheses for grouping. The satisfiability problem was the first problem to be proved to be NP-complete (by Cook).
- sb can whistle for sth — If you say that someone can whistle for a particular thing, you mean that you are not willing or able to give it to them.
- scalable sampling rate — (compression, standard, algorithm) (SSR) See, e.g., MPEG-4 AAC SSR.
- scissors-and-paste job — if you describe a piece of work as a scissors and paste job, you mean that it has been mechanically compiled, as if by simply cutting and pasting different parts to make a new whole
- search the fucking web — (web, jargon) (Always abbreviated STFW) A response implying that an inquirer could have easily found an answer to his question using Google or some other web search engine. It is now often quicker and more productive to search the World-Wide Web than to RTFM.
- second-hand bookseller — a person who has a second-hand bookshop
- secretary to the board — the secretary to the board of directors; company secretary