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24-letter words containing a, c, t, o, n, s

  • shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
  • sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
  • single connection attach — (hardware)   (SCA, "Single Connector Attachment") A non-standard type of SCSI connector, used mostly by OEMs, which carries both power and data on one 80-pin connector. SCA SCSI drives tend to be cheaper but use with standard SCSI cables requires an adaptor and external termination.
  • six nations championship — the annual competition involving national sides representing England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. Until the admission of Italy in 2000, it was known as the Five Nations Championship
  • skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
  • south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
  • southern cornstalk borer — the larva of a grass moth, Diatraea crambidoides, occurring in the southeastern U.S. from Maryland to Georgia, that is sometimes a serious pest, especially of corn.
  • special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
  • special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
  • stab someone in the back — If you say that someone has stabbed you in the back, you mean that they have done something very harmful to you when you thought that you could trust them. You can refer to an action of this kind as a stab in the back.
  • stereographic projection — a one-to-one correspondence between the points on a sphere and the extended complex plane where the north pole on the sphere corresponds to the point at infinity of the plane.
  • stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
  • structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
  • subordinate con-junction — a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in They were glad when I finished.
  • telephony user interface — (communications)   (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
  • telescope user interface — (hardware, interface)   (TUI) A remote control interface for a telescope.
  • the last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
  • the least i could/can do — You use expressions like 'that's the least that I can do' to mean that you are very willing to do it, or to acknowledge someone's thanks.
  • the second international — an international association of socialist parties and trade unions that began in Paris in 1889 and collapsed during World War I. The right-wing elements reassembled at Berne in 1919
  • the whole shooting match — everything; the whole lot
  • thompson sub-machine-gun — a .45 calibre sub-machine-gun
  • to cramp someone's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behaviour in some way.
  • to make boundary changes — to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies, because of population shifts
  • to one's heart's content — Anatomy. a hollow, pumplike organ of blood circulation, composed mainly of rhythmically contractile smooth muscle, located in the chest between the lungs and slightly to the left and consisting of four chambers: a right atrium that receives blood returning from the body via the superior and inferior vena cavae, a right ventricle that pumps the blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxygenation, a left atrium that receives the oxygenated blood via the pulmonary veins and passes it through the mitral valve, and a left ventricle that pumps the oxygenated blood, via the aorta, throughout the body.
  • to pick someone's brains — If you pick someone's brains, you ask them to help you with a problem because they know more about the subject than you.
  • to rise to the challenge — If someone rises to the challenge, they act in response to a difficult situation which is new to them and are successful.
  • trading standards office — an office of the local authority department that deals with trading standards
  • transpersonal psychology — a branch of psychology or psychotherapy that recognizes altered states of consciousness and transcendent experiences as a means to understand the human mind and treat psychological disordrs.
  • tread on someone's corns — to offend or hurt someone by touching on a sensitive subject or encroaching on his privileges
  • tri-nations championship — (from 1996–2011) the annual tournament in which the national sides representing Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa compete; in 2012 Argentina entered and the competition became the Rugby Championship
  • turks and caicos islands — a UK Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, southeast of the Bahamas: consists of the eight Turks Islands, separated by the Turks Island Passage from the Caicos group, which has six main islands. Capital: Grand Turk. Pop: 47 754 (2013 est). Area: 430 sq km (166 sq miles)
  • tuva autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Asia: formerly an independent republic in Mongolia. 65,810 sq. mi. (170,500 sq. km). Capital: Kyzyl.
  • under-secretary of state — any of various high officials subordinate only to the minister in charge of a department
  • uniform resource locater — Uniform Resource Locator
  • uniform resource locator — (web)   (URL, previously "Universal") A standard way of specifying the location of an object, typically a web page, on the Internet. Other types of object are described below. URLs are the form of address used on the World-Wide Web. They are used in HTML documents to specify the target of a hypertext link which is often another HTML document (possibly stored on another computer). Here are some example URLs: http://w3.org/default.html http://acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif http://foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator http://w3.org/default.html#Introduction ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/msdos/graphics/gifkit.zip ftp://spy:[email protected]/pub/topsecret/weapon.tgz mailto:[email protected] news:alt.hypertext telnet://dra.com The part before the first colon specifies the access scheme or protocol. Commonly implemented schemes include: ftp, http (web), gopher or WAIS. The "file" scheme should only be used to refer to a file on the same host. Other less commonly used schemes include news, telnet or mailto (e-mail). The part after the colon is interpreted according to the access scheme. In general, two slashes after the colon introduce a hostname (host:port is also valid, or for FTP user:[email protected] or [email protected]). The port number is usually omitted and defaults to the standard port for the scheme, e.g. port 80 for HTTP. For an HTTP or FTP URL the next part is a pathname which is usually related to the pathname of a file on the server. The file can contain any type of data but only certain types are interpreted directly by most browsers. These include HTML and images in gif or jpeg format. The file's type is given by a MIME type in the HTTP headers returned by the server, e.g. "text/html", "image/gif", and is usually also indicated by its filename extension. A file whose type is not recognised directly by the browser may be passed to an external "viewer" application, e.g. a sound player. The last (optional) part of the URL may be a query string preceded by "?" or a "fragment identifier" preceded by "#". The later indicates a particular position within the specified document. Only alphanumerics, reserved characters (:/?#"<>%+) used for their reserved purposes and "$", "-", "_", ".", "&", "+" are safe and may be transmitted unencoded. Other characters are encoded as a "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits. Space may also be encoded as "+". Standard SGML "&;" character entity encodings (e.g. "é") are also accepted when URLs are embedded in HTML. The terminating semicolon may be omitted if & is followed by a non-letter character.
  • united states of america — United States. Abbreviation: U.S.A., USA.
  • video cassette recording — a recording made using a tape recorder for vision and sound signals using magnetic tape in closed plastic cassettes: used for recording and playing back television programmes and films
  • visual component library — (programming)   VCL A application framework library for Microsoft Windows and Borland Software Corp.'s Delphi and C++Builder rapid application development software. VCL was originally designed for Delphi but is now also used for C++Builder. This replaces OWL Object Windows Library as Borland's Windows C++ framework of choice. VCL encapsulates the C-based Win32 API into a much easier to use, object-oriented form. Like its direct rival, Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), VCL includes classes to create Windows programs. The VCL component class can be inherited to create new VCL components, which are the building blocks of Delphi and C++Builder applications. VCL components are somewhat in competition with ActiveX controls, though a VCL wrapper can be created to make an ActiveX control seem like a VCL component.
  • volume table of contents — (storage)   (VTOC) /V-tock/ A special file on a disk, which contains a list of all the ordinary files on the disk and their addresses. Also called a directory. The term is used mostly with large mainframe disk drives. Storage administrators will often refer to the VTOC to obtain information on the number of files stored on a disk.
  • water of crystallization — water of hydration, formerly thought necessary to crystallization: now usually regarded as affecting crystallization only as it forms new molecular combinations.
  • ways and means committee — a standing committee of the US House of Representatives that supervises all financial legislation
  • which stands for nothing — (language)   (WSFN) A beginner's language with emphasis on graphics produced by Atari in 1983 for Atari home computers. There is also Advanced WSFN.
  • which way the wind blows — air in natural motion, as that moving horizontally at any velocity along the earth's surface: A gentle wind blew through the valley. High winds were forecast.
  • work breakdown structure — (project)   (WBS) A division of a project into tasks and subtasks. The tasks are numbered to indicate their relationship to each other. WBSs are indespensible for project planning, particularly when estimating time and resource requirements. Some industries use established work breakdown structure systems for billing and reporting purposes.
  • world boxing association — the international organization which regulates the sport of boxing
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