21-letter words containing a, b, u, t, s
- pipelined burst cache — Pipeline Burst Cache
- 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.
- public address system — loudspeaker
- public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
- public health service — the agency that is responsible for the health of the general public
- public transportation — means of fare-paying travel
- public-address system — a combination of electronic devices that makes sound audible via loudspeakers to many people, as in an auditorium or out of doors.
- push the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
- put sb in their place — If you put someone in their place, you show them that they are less important or clever than they think they are.
- put sb out to pasture — If you say that someone is being put out to pasture, you mean they are no longer being employed because they are considered to be too old or no longer useful.
- put someone's back up — to annoy someone
- rayleigh distribution — (mathematics) A curve that yields a good approximation to the actual labour curves on software projects.
- roodepoort-maraisburg — a city in S Transvaal, in the NE Republic of South Africa.
- 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
- scarlet runner (bean) — a climbing bean plant (Phaseolus coccineus) of tropical America, having pods with large, edible, red-and-black seeds and usually having scarlet flowers: often grown in cold climates as an ornamental
- 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.
- sodium metabisulphite — an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Na2S2O5 that is used as a preservative, antioxidant and disinfectant
- space shuttle orbiter — orbiter (def 1).
- spicebush swallowtail — a swallowtail butterfly, Papilio troilus, having a dark body with yellow spots on the forewings and greenish hind wings.
- subliminal perception — perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness
- subsistence allowance — money given in advance to a new soldier, employee, etc., to buy food, clothing, and pay for other necessities while awaiting a first pay.
- substitution instance — an expression so derived from another
- substitution reaction — the replacement of an atom or group of atoms in a compound by another atom or group.
- supplementary benefit — (formerly) an extra amount of money that is paid to someone by the government, in addition to their normal income. Replaced by income support in 1988
- system management bus — (hardware, protocol) (SMBus, SMB) A simple two-wire bus used for communication with low-bandwidth devices on a motherboard, especially power related chips such as a laptop's rechargeable battery subsystem (see Smart Battery Data). Other devices might include temperature sensors and lid switches. A device can provide manufacturer information, indicate its model/part number, save its state for a suspend event, report different types of errors, accept control parameters, and return status. The SMB is generally not user configurable or accessible. The bus carries clock, data, and instructions and is based on Philip's I2C serial bus protocol. Support for SMBus devices is provided on Windows 2000. Windows 98 does not support such devices. The PIIX4 chipset provides SMBus functionality. Vendors using SMBus would be required to pay royalties.
- take sb/sth seriously — If you take someone or something seriously, you believe that they are important and deserve attention.
- tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
- theater of the absurd — theater in which standard or naturalistic conventions of plot, characterization, and thematic structure are ignored or distorted in order to convey the irrational or fictive nature of reality and the essential isolation of humanity in a meaningless world.
- theatre of the absurd — drama in which normal conventions and dramatic structure are ignored or modified in order to present life as irrational or meaningless
- throw sb a curve ball — If someone throws you a curve or throws you a curve ball, they surprise you by doing something that you do not expect.
- to be hard luck on sb — to be unfortunate or unlucky for someone
- to change the subject — When someone involved in a conversation changes the subject, they start talking about something else, often because the previous subject was embarrassing.
- transcendental number — a number that is not a root of any algebraic equation having integral coefficients, as π or e .
- trustee in bankruptcy — a person appointed by a court to administer the property of a bankrupt.
- tubercular meningitis — an infection of the membranes of the central nervous system caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis; features can include fever, headache, and coma
- uniform business rate — a local tax in the UK paid by businesses, based on a local valuation of their premises and a rate fixed by central government that applies throughout the country
- venus's flower basket — a glass sponge of the genus Euplectella, inhabiting deep waters off the Philippines and Japan, having a cylindrical skeleton formed of an intricate latticework of siliceous spicules.
- writ of habeas corpus — law: petition for hearing