0%

26-letter words containing a, c, o, s, m

  • macintosh operating system — (operating system)   (Mac OS) Apple Computer, Inc.'s proprietary operating system for their Macintosh family of personal computers. The part of the operating system that simulates the desktop is called "Finder." The multitasking version of Finder was called "MultiFinder" until multitasking was integrated into the core of the OS with the introduction of System 7.0 in 1990. The Macintosh series provides a built-in graphics language, called "QuickDraw", which provides a standard for software developers. Mac OS 8, scheduled for delivery in July 1997, included new human-interface features, increased system stability and performance, a PowerPC processor-native Finder, tighter integration of Internet access through panel-based "assistants," Personal Web Sharing and the ability to run Java applets and programs through Mac OS Run Time for Java. Version 9.2 was the last version of the bespoke Mac OS. The next version, Mac OS X is quite different, being based on Unix. See also Macintosh file system, Macintosh user interface.
  • magnetic resonance imaging — MRI.
  • magnetic resonance scanner — MR scanner.
  • mainstream corporation tax — (in Britain) the balance of the corporation tax formerly paid by a company for an accounting period after the advance corporation tax had been deducted
  • make a nuisance of oneself — If someone makes a nuisance of themselves, they behave in a way that annoys other people.
  • make a virtue of necessity — moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.
  • make someone's flesh crawl — to give someone a feeling of fear or repugnance, as if insects were crawling on his or her skin
  • master chief petty officer — a noncommissioned rank above a senior chief petty officer. Abbreviation: MCPO.
  • master of the king's music — (in Britain when the sovereign is male) a court post dating from the reign of Charles I. It is an honorary title and normally held by an established English composer
  • mecklenburg-west pomerania — a state of NE Germany, along the Baltic coast: consists of the former state of Mecklenburg and those parts of W Pomerania not incorporated into Poland after World War II: part of East Germany until 1990. Pop: 1 732 000 (2003 est)
  • microcrystalline cellulose — Microcrystalline cellulose is a polymer used as a binder in tablets because it is stable, compressible, and disintegrates quickly.
  • micronetics standard mumps — (MSM) A version of MUMPS for the IBM PC RT and R6000.
  • minimum-access programming — a method of programming in which latency is reduced to a minimum.
  • mongolian hordes technique — (programming, jargon)   (Or "Chinese Army technique") Assigning a large number of inexperienced programmers to a job which would better performed by a few skilled ones. The term was first used by Dr. Fred Brooks in his book "The Mythical Man-Month", Chapter 3. According to Dr. Brooks, he had in mind the vision of the Mongol Hordes sweeping across Asia and Europe when he created the term.
  • monobasic sodium phosphate — Chemistry. sodium phosphate (def 1).
  • monochrome display adapter — (hardware, graphics)   (MDA) One of IBM's earliest hardware video display standards for use in IBM PC. MDA can display only monochrome 80*25 text (IBM PC video mode 7). It is now obsolete.
  • most-favored-nation clause — a clause in a commercial treaty or contract by which each signatory agrees to give the other the same treatment that is or will be accorded any other nation.
  • multi-color graphics array — (hardware, graphics)   (MCGA) One of IBM's less popular hardware video display standards for use in the IBM PS/2. MCGA can display 80*25 text in monochrome, 40*25 text in 256 colours or 320*200 pixel graphics in 256 colors. It is now obsolete.
  • mushroom slab construction — beamless reinforced-concrete floor and roof construction employing columns with widely flaring heads having horizontal rings of reinforcement to support the floor or roof slab.
  • mutual assured destruction — a U.S. doctrine of reciprocal deterrence resting on the U.S. and Soviet Union each being able to inflict unacceptable damage on the other in retaliation for a nuclear attack.
  • national merit scholarship — one of some 6000 college scholarships awarded annually since 1956, by the nonprofit, grant-supported National Merit Scholarship Corporation, to high-school students (National Merit Scholars) on the basis of scholastic record, personal character, and score on a test administered nationally.
  • nickel-in-the-slot machine — a machine that operates if you put a nickel in its slot
  • nondeterministic automaton — (theory)   (Or "probabilistic automaton") An automaton in which there are several possible actions (outputs and next states) at each state of the computation such that the overall course of the computation is not completely determined by the program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. See also nondeterministic Turing Machine.
  • nuclear magnetic resonance — the selective absorption of electromagnetic radiation by an atomic nucleus in the presence of a strong, static, magnetic field: used in research and in medicine to monitor tissue metabolism and to distinguish between normal and abnormal cells. Abbreviation: NMR.
  • official production system — (language)   (OPS) The first production system (i.e. rule based) programming language, developed at CMU in 1970 and used for building expert systems. OPS was originally written in Franz Lisp and later ported to other LISP dialects.
  • organophosphorus-compounds — Biochemistry. any of a variety of organic compounds that contain phosphorus and often have intense neurotoxic activity: originally developed as nerve gases, now widely used as insecticides and fire retardants.
  • post-and-beam construction — wall construction in which beams rather than studs are used to support heavy posts.
  • professional office system — (messaging)   (PROFS) An office messaging system from IBM, used worldwide, mainly on IBM mainframes.
  • psychophysical parallelism — the view that mental and bodily events occur in parallel series without causal interaction.
  • record management services — (operating system)   (RMS) Procedures in the VMS operating system that programs call to process files and records within files. RMS allows programs to issue GET and PUT requests at the record level (record I/O) as well as read and write blocks (block I/O). VMS RMS is an integral part of the system software; its procedures run in executive mode.
  • red-backed squirrel monkey — a related species, Saimiri oerstedi, of Central America, having a reddish coat and dark brown limbs
  • remembrance of things past — a novel (1913–27) by Marcel Proust.
  • replacement cost insurance — Replacement cost insurance is insurance in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
  • reticuloendothelial system — the aggregate of the phagocytic cells, including certain cells of the bone marrow, lymphatic system, liver, and spleen, that have reticular and endothelial characteristics and function in the immune system's defense against foreign bodies. Abbreviation: RES.
  • sangre de cristo mountains — a mountain range in S Colorado and N New Mexico: part of the Rocky Mountains. Highest peak: Blanca Peak, 4364 m (14 317 ft)
  • scintillation spectrometer — a scintillation counter adapted for measuring the energy distribution of particles emitted in radioactive processes.
  • search engine optimization — the process of adjusting the content, structure, etc, of a website so that it will be displayed prominently by a search engine
  • simple algebraic extension — a simple extension in which the specified element is a root of an algebraic equation in the given field.
  • solemn league and covenant — an agreement (1643) between the parliaments of Scotland and England permitting the promotion of Presbyterianism in Scotland, England, and Ireland.
  • statistical-thermodynamics — the science that deals with average properties of the molecules, atoms, or elementary particles in random motion in a system of many such particles and relates these properties to the thermodynamic and other macroscopic properties of the system.
  • symbolic assembler program — (language)   (SAP) The assembly language for the IBM 704, defined in the late 1950s.
  • systematic desensitization — a treatment of phobias in which the patient while relaxed is exposed, often only in imagination, to progressively more frightening aspects of the phobia
  • terminal access controller — (hardware, networking)   (TAC) A device which connects terminals to the Internet, usually using dial-up modem connections and the TACACS protocol.
  • the consumers' association — a British organization which assesses and reports on new products and defends consumers' rights
  • thematic apperception test — a projective technique in which stories told by a subject about each of a series of pictures are assumed to reveal dominant needs or motivations. Abbreviation: TAT.
  • to call something your own — If you have something you can call your own, it belongs only to you, rather than being controlled by or shared with someone else.
  • to catch hold of something — Hold is used in expressions such as grab hold of, catch hold of, and get hold of, to indicate that you close your hand tightly around something, for example to stop something moving or falling.
  • to cock a snook at someone — If you cock a snook at someone in authority or at an organization, you do something that they cannot punish you for, but which insults them or expresses your contempt.
  • to dance to someone's tune — If you say that someone is dancing to someone else's tune, you mean that they are allowing themselves to be controlled by the other person.
  • to laugh in someone's face — If someone laughs in your face, they are openly disrespectful towards you.
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?