23-letter words containing a, c, e, t
- nuclear test-ban treaty — an agreement signed by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. in 1963, committing nations to halt atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons: by the end of 1963, 96 additional nations had signed the treaty.
- o'reilly and associates — The leading publisher of information on the Internet, Unix, the X Window System and other open systems. They also provide the Global Network Navigator service.
- object management group — (body) (OMG) A consortium aimed at setting standards in object-oriented programming. In 1989, this consortium, which included IBM Corporation, Apple Computer Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., mobilised to create a cross-compatible distributed object standard. The goal was a common binary object with methods and data that work using all types of development environments on all types of platforms. Using a committee of organisations, OMG set out to create the first Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) standard which appeared in 1991. As of February 1998, the latest standard is CORBA 2.2.
- object relations theory — a form of psychoanalytic theory postulating that people relate to others in order to develop themselves
- object-oriented fortran — (language) (OOF) An object-oriented extension of Fortran, in which data items can be grouped into objects, which can be instantiated and executed in parallel. It was available for Sun, Iris, iPSC, and nCUBE, but is no longer supported. E-mail: Donna Reese <[email protected]>.
- off the back of a lorry — If someone says that something has fallen off the back of a lorry, or that they got something off the back of a lorry, they mean that they bought something that they knew was stolen.
- on someone's coat-tails — thanks to the popularity or success of someone else
- on-line data processing — the storing or processing of data on a computer using the internet
- orthodox eastern church — Eastern Orthodox Church
- orthographic projection — a two-dimensional graphic representation of an object in which the projecting lines are at right angles to the plane of the projection. Also called orthogonal projection. Compare isometric (def 5).
- orthostatic hypotension — Medicine/Medical. a fall in blood pressure associated with an upright position, usually occurring as a result of standing still for a long time or rising from a prolonged stay in bed and often causing faintness, dizziness, and vision disturbances.
- osteogenesis imperfecta — a rare hereditary disease in which abnormal connective tissue development leads to fragile bones subject to fracture.
- out of a clear blue sky — the region of the clouds or the upper air; the upper atmosphere of the earth: airplanes in the sky; cloudy skies.
- over-the-counter market — a security market that deals in securities that are not listed or quoted on a stock exchange
- overnight accommodation — accommodation provided by an establishment (such as a hotel) where guests can sleep or spend the night
- own occupation coverage — Own occupation coverage is insurance that covers a person if they cannot work in their own occupation, following an accident, injury, or disability.
- painting and decorating — interior decoration
- pan-africanist congress — a South African liberation movement founded in 1959, now a political party known as the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania
- parametric polymorphism — Polymorphism was first identified by Christopher Strachey in 1967 and developed by Hindley and Milner. For example we could specify that the argument of the "head" function was a list without specifying a type for the elements of the list. In Haskell we would write: head :: [a] -> a meaning head has type function from "list of a" to "a" where "a" is a type variable). This is known as parametric polymorphism. Polymorphic typing allows strong type checking as well as generic functions. ML in 1976 was the first language with polymorphic typing. See also generic type variable.
- parasexual reproduction — reproduction by recombination of genes from genetically dissimilar nuclei within binucleate or multinucleate cells, as in filamentous fungi.
- parliamentary candidate — sb standing for election to government
- parliamentary democracy — a system of government in which people elect representatives to a parliament to make laws, for example Canada and the UK
- parliamentary secretary — government minister's assistant
- participant observation — a technique of field research, used in anthropology and sociology, by which an investigator (participant observer) studies the life of a group by sharing in its activities.
- participating insurance — insurance in which the policyholders receive dividends and share in the surplus earnings of the company.
- participating preferred — a preferred stock entitled to its fixed dividend and to additional ones on a specified basis after payment of dividends on common stock.
- participatory democracy — individual participation by citizens in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, especially directly rather than through elected representatives.
- particulate inheritance — the inheritance of discrete characters via genes that are independently expressed without the blending of characters from one generation to the next.
- pat someone on the back — to congratulate or encourage someone
- patient confidentiality — the law that a doctor or medical practitioner cannot reveal anything said to them by their patients during consultation or treatment
- pay one's last respects — If you pay your last respects to someone who has just died, you show your respect or affection for them by coming to see their body or their grave.
- pentachloronitrobenzene — a crystalline compound, C 6 Cl 5 NO 2 , used as an herbicide and insecticide. Abbreviation: PCNB.
- pentagonal dodecahedron — pyritohedron.
- percentage distribution — a frequency distribution is which individual frequencies are shown as a percentage of the total frequencies
- performance-related pay — salary based on individual assessment
- pest control department — the local government department responsible for controlling such pests as rats and mice
- pharmaceuticals company — a company specialising in developing and marketing pharmaceuticals
- photoelectric magnitude — the magnitude of a star determined using a photometer plus a filter to select light or other radiation of the desired wavelength
- phyletic classification — classification of organisms based on their assumed evolutionary histories and relationships.
- physiological phonetics — the branch of phonetics that deals with the motive processes, anatomical measurements, spirometric properties, muscle and membrane tone, and kinetic aspects of the production of speech and with related aspects of the reception of speech.
- pithecanthropus erectus — Java man
- plain old documentation — (text) (pod, occasionally "POD") A simple markup language used to embed documentation, literate programming-style, in Perl programs. Pod readers and converters are part of the standard Perl distribution and the documentation provided with Perl is all in pod format.
- play by electronic mail — (games) A kind of game where the players use electronic mail to communicate. This may be done via a human moderator or an automatic mailing list exploder on some central machine or it may be fully distributed with each player just addressing his mail to all other players. This is a natural extension of "play by mail" games conducted via snail mail.
- political incorrectness — Political incorrectness is the attitude or policy shown by someone who does not care if they offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.
- polymethyl methacrylate — polymerized methyl methacrylate.
- portable object adapter — (architecture) (POA) Part of the CORBA architecture.
- portable tool interface — (programming, standard) (PTI) A standard such as PCTE, allowing interworking between different software tools via defined interfaces to the user and to the repository or object management system.
- positive discrimination — special opportunities
- postcode discrimination — discrimination on the basis of the area where someone lives, with relation to employment, credit rating, etc
- potassium acid tartrate — cream of tartar.