23-letter words containing a, c, h, i, t
- director of photography — the person who is responsible for all operations concerning camera work and lighting during the production of a film.
- drawing exchange format — (DXF) A file format for graphical information, similar to IGES. Commonly used by CAD systems like AutoCAD.
- duplication of the cube — the insoluble problem of constructing a cube having twice the volume of a given cube, using only a ruler and compass.
- electroencephalographic — Of or pertaining to electroencephalography or electroencephalographs.
- electrophotographically — In an electrophotographic manner; by means of electrophotography.
- electrostatic discharge — (hardware, testing) (ESD) One kind of test that hardware usually has to pass to prove it is suitable for sale and use. The hardware must still work after is has been subjected to some level of electrostatic discharge. Some organisations have their own ESD requirements which hardware must meet before it will be considered for purchase. Different countries have different legal regulations about levels of ESD. See also Radio Frequency Interference, Electromagnetic Compatibility.
- embarrassment of riches — If you say that someone has an embarrassment of riches, you mean that they have so many good things that these things are a problem.
- encephalitis lethargica — a form of encephalitis, or sleeping sickness, epidemic in the period from 1915 to 1926
- equivalent focal length — the ratio of the size of an image of a small distant object near the optical axis to the angular distance of the object in radians
- exchange rate mechanism — European financial system
- experimental psychology — the scientific study of the individual behaviour of man and other animals, esp of perception, learning, memory, motor skills, and thinking
- extended graphics array — (hardware) (XGA) An IBM display standard introduced in 1990. XGA supports a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels with a palette of 256 colours, or 640 x 480 with high colour (16 bits per pixel). XGA-2 added 1024 x 768 support for high colour and higher refresh rates, improved performance, and supports 1360 x 1024 in 16 colours. XGA is probably not the same as 8514-A. See also VESA's EVGA released at a similar time.
- extended reach drilling — Extended reach drilling is drilling a well horizontally to at least twice its vertical depth.
- extravehicular activity — the act or an instance of floating and manoeuvring in space, outside but attached by a lifeline to a spacecraft
- fendalton shopping cart — a four-wheel drive recreational vehicle
- foreign exchange market — the market for the international buying, selling and trading of currencies
- fully associative cache — (memory management) A type of cache in which data from any address can be stored in any cache location. The whole address must be used as the tag (the value that identifies a block of data in the cache). All tags must be compared simultaneously (associatively) with the requested address and if one matches then its associated data is accessed. This requires an associative memory to hold the tags which makes this form of cache more expensive. It does however solve the problem of contention for cache locations (cache conflict) since a block need only be flushed when the whole cache is full and then the block to flush can be selected in a more efficient way. The alternatives are direct mapped cache or set associative cache.
- function graph language — (language) (FGL) The machine language for the AMPS (Applicative Multi-Processing System) proposed by Robert Keller, Gary Lindstrom and Suhas Patil at the University of Utah.
- german southwest africa — a former name of Namibia.
- grant-maintained school — a school funded directly by central government
- graphical kernel system — (graphics, standard) (GKS) The widely recognised standard ANSI X3.124 for graphical input/output. GKS is worked on by the ISO/IEC group JTC1/SC24. It provides applications programmers with standard methods of creating, manipulating, and displaying or printing computer graphics on different types of computer graphics output devices. It provides an abstraction to save programmers from dealing with the detailed capabilities and interfaces of specific hardware. GKS defines a basic two-dimensional graphics system with: uniform input and output primitives; a uniform interface to and from a GKS metafile for storing and transferring graphics information. It supports a wide range of graphics output devices including such as printers, plotters, vector graphics devices, storage tubes, refresh displays, raster displays, and microfilm recorders.
- greater prairie chicken — either of two North American gallinaceous birds of western prairies, Tympanuchus cupido (greater prairie chicken) or T. pallidicinctus (lesser prairie chicken) having rufous, brown, black, and white plumage.
- have struck/hit paydirt — If you say that someone has struck paydirt or has hit paydirt, you mean that they have achieved sudden success or gained a lot of money very quickly.
- have tickets on oneself — to be conceited
- health maintenance plan — A health maintenance plan is a health insurance policy that provides preventive care like vaccinations, doctor checkups, and screenings, for a prepaid fee.
- heaviside unit function — the function that is zero for any number less than zero and that is 1 for any number greater than or equal to zero.
- heterogeneous catalysis — Heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis in which the catalyst does not take part in the reaction that it increases.
- hexagonal cross-section — If a kelly has a hexagonal cross-section, it has a surface area with six equal sides, when looked at as if has been sliced through.
- hierarchical navigation — (web) On a web page, any type of menu whose hierarchical structure matches that of the site to which the page belongs. A hierarchical navigation menu allows the user to jump ("navigate") directly to a section of the site several levels below the top. The menu may present only a fixed number of levels rather than the whole structure.
- hire purchase agreement — an agreement between a seller and a buyer for the buyer to purchase something on hire purchase
- hollerithabetical order — (algorithm) Sorted into the order a standard Hollerith card sorting machine produces, with special characters interleaved within the alphabet.
- human leukocyte antigen — HLA.
- human rights campaigner — a person who campaigns for human rights
- hypergeometric equation — a differential equation of the form, (x 2 − x) d 2 y / d 2 x + [(a+b +1) x−c ] dy/dx + abx =0, where a, b, and c are arbitrary constants.
- hypothetical imperative — (esp in the moral philosophy of Kant) any conditional rule of action, concerned with means and ends rather than with duty for its own sake
- in sack cloth and ashes — sacking.
- industrial psychologist — a person who studies human behaviour and cognitive processes in relation to the working environment
- interchange file format — (file format) (IFF, full name "EA IFF 1985") A generic file format published by Electronic Arts as an open standard. IFF is chunk-based and hierarchical so files can include other files. It is easily extensible and an all round Good Idea. An IFF file starts with one of the following "group IDs": 'FORM', 'LIST' or 'CAT '. This is followed by an unsigned 32-bit number of bytes in the remainder of the file. Then comes an ID that indicates which type of IFF file this is. The main image type is ILBM, audio is either AIFF or 8SVX, animations are ANIM etc. An IFF file will probably have a filename extension related to this file type stored in the file. The rest of the file is divided into chunks each of which also has a four-byte header and byte count.
- intermediate technology — technology which combines sophisticated ideas with cheap and readily available materials, esp for use in developing countries
- irish christian brother — Brother of the Christian Schools (def 2).
- kick against the pricks — to hurt oneself by struggling against something in vain
- kinetic theory of gases — a theory that the particles in a gas move freely and rapidly along straight lines but often collide, resulting in variations in their velocity and direction. Pressure is interpreted as arising from the impacts of these particles with the walls of a container.
- knock into a cocked hat — a man's hat, worn especially in the 18th century, having a wide, stiff brim turned up on two or three sides toward a peaked crown. Compare bicorne, tricorn (def 2).
- light and shade surface — (in architectural shades and shadows) a surface in a plane tangent to the parallel rays from the theoretical light source, treated as a shade surface.
- like anything/crazy/mad — You can use the expressions like anything, like crazy, or like mad to emphasize that someone is doing something or something is happening in a very energetic or noticeable way.
- lymphoblastic leukaemia — a severe blood disorder in which abnormal leukocytes are identified as immature forms of lymphocytes
- magnetic field strength — that part of the magnetic induction that is determined at any point in space by the current density and displacement current at that point independently of the magnetic or other physical properties of the surrounding medium. Symbol: H.
- magnetohydrodynamically — In a magnetohydrodynamic way.
- magnetomechanical ratio — the ratio of the angular momentum of a rotating charged particle to its magnetic moment; the reciprocal of the gyromagnetic ratio.
- martha washington chair — a chair of the 18th century having a high upholstered back, a low upholstered seat, and short arms resting on incurvate supports.