24-letter words containing a, d, e, u
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- put the fear of god into — a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
- put the show on the road — to set things in operation; start an activity, venture, etc.
- put their heads together — to consult together
- put two and two together — a cardinal number, 1 plus 1.
- pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
- quadrature of the circle — the insoluble problem of constructing, by the methods of Euclidean geometry, a square equal in area to a given circle.
- quinacrine hydrochloride — Atabrine
- recursive descent parser — (grammar) A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
- registered general nurse — (in Britain) a nurse who has completed a three-year training course in all aspects of nursing care to enable him or her to be registered with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Visiting
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- reproductive imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
- ring down the curtain on — to give forth a clear resonant sound, as a bell when struck: The doorbell rang twice.
- robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
- rose-coloured spectacles — If you look at a person or situation through rose-coloured glasses or rose-tinted glasses, you see only their good points and therefore your view of them is unrealistic. In British English, you can also say that someone is looking through rose-coloured spectacles.
- san bernardino mountains — mountain range in S Calif., south of the Mojave Desert: highest peak, 11,502 ft (3,506 m)
- scholastic aptitude test — a standard assessment test for entry into college in the United States
- second earl of shelburne — William Petty Fitzmaurice, 2nd Earl of, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, William Petty Fizmaurice Lansdowne.
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- sodium hexametaphosphate — See under Calgon.
- solution based modelling — (SBM) A software development process described in the book "Developing Object-Oriented Software for the Macintosh" written by Neal Goldstein and Jeff Alger, published by Addison Wesley in 1992.
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
- steak and kidney pudding — beefsteak and kidney in a suet pastry crust, steamed in a basin.
- sth bodes ill/augurs ill — If something bodes ill or augurs ill, it gives you a reason to fear that something harmful might happen soon.
- subordinate con-junction — a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in They were glad when I finished.
- sulphur-crested cockatoo — a large Australian white parrot, Kakatoe galerita, with a yellow erectile crest
- take sb under one's wing — If you take someone under your wing, you look after them, help them, and protect them.
- 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 red badge of courage — a novel (1895) by Stephen Crane.
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- to jump on the bandwagon — If someone, especially a politician, jumps or climbs on the bandwagon, they become involved in an activity or movement because it is fashionable or likely to succeed and not because they are really interested in it.
- to make boundary changes — to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies, because of population shifts
- trisodium orthophosphate — a sodium salt of orthophosphoric acid having the formula Na3PO4
- two/three/four of a kind — If you refer, for example, to two, three, or four of a kind, you mean two, three, or four similar people or things that seem to go well or belong together.
- ultra low sulphur diesel — a type of diesel fuel that has a low sulphur content
- ultralarge crude carrier — Nautical. ULCC.
- under the sway of sb/sth — If you are under the sway of someone or something, they have great influence over you.
- under-secretary of state — any of various high officials subordinate only to the minister in charge of a department
- unfederated malay states — a former group of native states in the Malay Peninsula that became British protectorates between 1885 and 1909. All except Brunei joined the Malayan Union (later Federation of Malaya) in 1946. Brunei joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 but later became an independent nation
- united states of america — United States. Abbreviation: U.S.A., USA.
- usb adapter card support — (communications, software) A set of software extensions that provide support for USB adapter cards installed in the PCI bus or Cardbus slots in Macintosh computers that do not have built-in USB ports.
- very large crude carrier — VLCC.
- virtual storage extended — (operating system) (VSE, formerly DOS/VSE) is a multitasking, IBM 370-architected operating system similar to Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS). VSE run jobs in partitions rather than address spaces, and uses POWER for input/output rather than JES, but is largely similar to MVS. Subsequent VSE/ESA releases gave VSE the XA-370 channel architecture, 31-bit virtual and real storage support, and data spaces. VSE is the IBM operating system on one-third of installed IBM 4381s and a significant proportion of IBM 9370s as well. It offers transaction processing and batch processing capabilities well beyond Virtual Machine's current capabilities, and has a close affinity with MVS.
- voluntary aid detachment — (in World War I) an organization of British women volunteers who assisted in military hospitals and ambulance duties
- wired equivalent privacy — (networking, standard) (WEP) IEEE 802.11:1999. A cryptographic privacy algorithm, based on the RC4 encryption engine, used to provide confidentiality for 802.11 wireless networks. WEP is intended to provide roughly the same level of confidentiality for wireless data as a wired LAN (Ethernet), which is NOT protected by encryption. WEP is often wrongly expanded as "Wireless Encryption Protocol". WEP is a protocol that provides encryption used on wireless networks but that's not what it stands for.
- 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.
- wouldn't be seen dead in — to refuse to wear or to go to
- yellow-bellied sapsucker — a woodpecker, Sphyrapicus varius, of eastern North America, having a red patch on the forehead and black and white plumage with a pale-yellow abdomen, and feeding on sap from trees.
- you aren't gonna need it — (programming) (YAGNI) A motto of extreme programming expressing the principle that functionality should not be implemented until it is needed. The traditional waterfall model makes it difficult to add features after the specification has been signed off, tempting the specifier to add features that may never be used but which take time to program, debug, test and document.