19-letter words containing a, c, e, o, u
- languages of choice — C and Lisp. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities. There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with Fortran, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They often prefer to be known as Real Programmers, and other hackers consider them a bit odd (see "The Story of Mel"). Assembler is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but HLL implementation, glue, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. Fortran occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming. Most hackers tend to frown on languages like Pascal and Ada, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see bondage-and-discipline language), and to regard everything even remotely connected with COBOL or other traditional card walloper languages as a total and unmitigated loss.
- league championship — the competition to become league champions
- left-luggage locker — a coin-operated locker in which luggage can be left
- left-luggage office — a checkroom for baggage.
- legislative council — the upper house of a bicameral legislature.
- leisure occupations — activities which you enjoy and which you perform in your free time
- leukoencephalopathy — (medicine) Any disease that effects the white matter of the brain.
- lift the curtain on — to begin
- liquorice all-sorts — a brand of assorted sweets containing liquorice as well as coloured candy made of sugar, gelatine, and coconut
- logical consequence — the relation that obtains between the conclusion and the premises of a formally valid argument
- 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.
- lucia di lammermoor — an opera (1835) by Gaetano Donizetti, based on Sir Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor.
- machine instruction — (programming) The smallest element of a machine code program.
- magnesium carbonate — a white powder, MgCO 3 , insoluble in water and alcohol, soluble in acids, used in dentifrices and cosmetics, in medicine as an antacid, and as a refractory material.
- malice aforethought — a predetermination to commit an unlawful act without just cause or provocation (applied chiefly to cases of first-degree murder).
- malicious falsehood — a lie told by someone who knows the lie is false or knows it will do harm to the person it is concerning
- manchester autocode — (language, history) The predecessor of Mercury Autocode.
- mary mcleod bethune — Mary McLeod [muh-kloud] /məˈklaʊd/ (Show IPA), 1875–1955, U.S. educator and civil-rights leader.
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- mercurial barometer — mercury barometer.
- mercury-vapour lamp — a lamp in which an electric discharge through a low pressure of mercury vapour is used to produce a greenish-blue light. It is used for street lighting and is also a source of ultraviolet radiation
- metropolitan county — (in England) any of the six conurbations established as administrative units in the new local government system in 1974; the metropolitan county councils were abolished in 1986
- miscellaneous items — various kinds of thing, esp small purchases
- missouri meerschaum — corncob (def 2).
- molecular astronomy — the branch of astronomy dealing with the study of molecules in space.
- molecular biologist — a specialist in the study of biological phenomena at the molecular level
- 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)
- mouse-ear chickweed — any of various similar and related plants of the genus Cerastium
- mucopolysaccharides — Plural form of mucopolysaccharide.
- multiplexor channel — (MPX) mainframe terminology for a slow peripheral device connection, e.g. for a printer, operator console, or card reader.
- munchausen syndrome — a factitious disorder in which otherwise healthy individuals seek to hospitalize themselves with feigned or self-induced pathology in order to receive surgical or other medical treatment.
- music to one's ears — something that is very pleasant to hear
- natural catastrophe — A natural catastrophe is an unexpected event, caused by nature, such as an earthquake or flood, in which there is a lot of suffering, damage, or death.
- neighbourhood watch — a scheme under which members of a community agree together to take responsibility for keeping an eye on each other's property, as a way of preventing crime
- neuropathologically — In a neuropathologic way.
- neuropsychodynamics — The theoretical synthesis of neuroscience and psychodynamics.
- newcastle upon tyne — 1st Duke of, Pelham-Holles, Thomas.
- nicolaus copernicus — Nicolaus [nik-uh-ley-uh s] /ˌnɪk əˈleɪ əs/ (Show IPA), (Mikolaj Kopernik) 1473–1543, Polish astronomer who promulgated the now accepted theory that the earth and the other planets move around the sun (the Copernican System)
- non-contemporaneous — living or occurring during the same period of time; contemporary.
- nonmaterial culture — the aggregate of values, mores, norms, etc., of a society; the ideational structure of a culture that provides the values and meanings by which it functions.
- not worth a crumpet — utterly worthless
- noughts and crosses — tick-tack-toe (def 1).
- noughts-and-crosses — tick-tack-toe (def 1).
- nuclear power plant — factory that generates atomic energy
- objectfuscated code — (humour, programming) Object-oriented code which has been abstracted to so many levels that no-one can understand it anymore. A play on obfuscated code.
- 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
- occupational health — Occupational health is the branch of medicine that deals with the health of people in their workplace or in relation to their job.
- oceanus procellarum — (Ocean of Storms) the largest dark plain on the face of the moon, in the second and third quadrants: about 2 million square miles (5.2 million sq. km).
- olive-backed thrush — Swainson's thrush.
- on cue/as if on cue — If you say that something happened on cue or as if on cue, you mean that it happened just when it was expected to happen, or just at the right time.