20-letter words containing a, c, e, r, m
- moreton bay chestnut — an Australian leguminous tree, Castanospermum australe, having thin smooth bark and yellow or reddish flowers: used in furniture manufacture
- mother of the chapel — (in British trade unions in the publishing and printing industries) a woman shop steward
- mountain rescue team — a group of people who conduct search and rescue on a mountain, for example of someone who has fallen, got lost, etc
- multicast addressing — Ethernet addressing scheme used to send packets to devices of a certain type or for broadcasting to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
- multiple inheritance — (programming) In object-oriented programming, the possibility that a class may have more than one direct superclass in the class hierarchy. The opposite is single inheritance.
- multiplicative group — a group in which the operation of the group is multiplication.
- multistorey car park — a car park consisting of several levels
- navigable semicircle — the less violent half of a cyclone; the half blowing in the direction opposite to that in which the cyclone is moving and in which a vessel can run before the wind.
- neapolitan ice cream — variously flavored and colored ice cream and ice mixtures frozen in layers.
- near-market research — scientific research that, while not linked to the development of a specific product, is likely to be commercially exploitable
- nemine contradicente — no one contradicting; unanimously.
- neuromusculoskeletal — (medicine) Describing the interactions between nerves, muscles and the skeleton.
- new democratic party — the Canadian social democratic party formed in 1961
- new jerusalem church — a sect founded in 1787, based on Swedenborgianism
- newcastle-under-lyme — a town in W central England, in Staffordshire. Pop: 74 427 (2001)
- next program counter — (architecture) (nPC) A register in a CPU that contains the address of the instruction to be executed next.
- nictitating membrane — a thin membrane, or inner or third eyelid, present in many animals, capable of being drawn across the eyeball, as for protection.
- nonrepeating decimal — a decimal representation of any irrational number, having the property that no sequence of digits is repeated ad infinitum.
- normal zeeman effect — the dividing of a spectral line or lines as a result of placing a radiation source in a magnetic field. The division consists of three equally spaced lines (normal Zeeman effect) in systems for which the spin quantum number is zero, or of three or more unequally spaced lines (anomalous Zeeman effect) in systems for which the spin quantum number is not zero.
- north american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising Greenland and the continent of North America and the suboceanic Labrador and North American Basins, and bounded on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the south by the Caribbean and South American Plates, and on the west by the San Andreas fault and Aleutian Trench.
- objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
- omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
- ontological argument — an a priori argument for the existence of God, asserting that as existence is a perfection, and as God is conceived of as the most perfect being, it follows that God must exist; originated by Anselm, later used by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz.
- optical mark reading — the reading of marks by an optical device whereby the information can be stored in machine-readable form
- orthopaedic mattress — a specially firm mattress designed to help correct or ameliorate the discomfort of disorders of the spine and joints
- pale western cutworm — the larva of a noctuid moth, Agrotis orthogonia, of the western U.S. and Canada, that seriously damages grains, beets, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., by feeding underground on roots and stems.
- pan-american highway — a road system proposed in the 1920s linking nations of the Western Hemisphere, extending from Alaska to Santiago, Chile, with some gaps remaining in Panama and Colombia. The section between Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and Panama City is known as the Inter-American Highway Total length about 16,000 miles (25,744 km).
- paper chromatography — the separation of mixtures into their constituents by preferential adsorption by a solid, as a column of silica (column chromatography) or a strip of filter paper (paper chromatography) or by a gel.
- parametric amplifier — a device, as an electron tube or transistor, that amplifies a high-frequency input signal by sinusoidally varying the reactance of the circuit.
- parametric equalizer — an electronic device for cutting or boosting selected frequencies by continuous narrowing or widening of the frequencies to be filtered
- parametric equations — one of two or more equations expressing the location of a point on a curve or surface by determining each coordinate separately.
- particle beam weapon — a weapon that fires particle beams into the atmosphere or space
- peremptory challenge — a formal objection to the service of a juror by a party to a criminal prosecution or a civil action that requires no showing of cause.
- permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- peruvian mastic tree — a pepper tree, Schinus molle.
- physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
- pick someone's brain — to obtain information or ideas from someone
- pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
- pico della mirandola — Count Giovanni [jaw-vahn-nee] /dʒɔˈvɑn ni/ (Show IPA), 1463–94, Italian humanist and writer.
- polaroid land camera — any of several types of camera yielding a finished print by means of a special developing and processing technique that occurs inside the camera and takes only a few seconds to complete
- potassium bichromate — an orange-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous powder, K 2 Cr 2 O 7 , used chiefly in dyeing, photography, and as a laboratory reagent.
- potassium dichromate — an orange-red crystalline soluble solid substance that is a good oxidizing agent and is used in making chrome pigments and as a bleaching agent. Formula: K2Cr2O7
- practical imperative — (in Kantian ethics) the dictum that one should treat oneself and all humanity as an end and never as a means.
- predicate nominative — (in Latin, Greek, and certain other languages) a predicate noun or adjective in the nominative case.
- prescriptive grammar — an approach to grammar that is concerned with establishing norms of correct and incorrect usage and formulating rules based on these norms to be followed by users of the language.
- price discrimination — the practice of offering identical goods to different buyers at different prices, when the goods cost the same.
- prima facie evidence — evidence sufficient to establish a fact or to raise a presumption of fact unless rebutted.
- prima-facie evidence — evidence that is sufficient to establish a fact or to raise a presumption of the truth of a fact unless controverted
- primary optical area — a point in or toward the upper left-hand corner of a printed page, advertisement, or the like, looked at first in reading. Abbreviation: POA.
- primary spermatocyte — a male germ cell (primary spermatocyte) that gives rise by meiosis to a pair of haploid cells (secondary spermatocytes) that give rise in turn to spermatids.