24-letter words containing a, d, m, s
- have the drop on someone — to have the advantage over someone
- hyaline membrane disease — respiratory distress syndrome.
- in someone's good graces — elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action: We watched her skate with effortless grace across the ice. Synonyms: attractiveness, charm, gracefulness, comeliness, ease, lissomeness, fluidity. Antonyms: stiffness, ugliness, awkwardness, clumsiness; klutziness.
- intermediate-level waste — radioactive waste material, such as reactor and processing-plant components, that is solidified before being mixed with concrete and stored in steel drums in deep mines or beneath the seabed in concrete chambers
- internal auditory meatus — the canal extending through the petrous portion of the temporal bone, through which the glossopharyngeal nerve, the facial nerve, and the auditory nerve and artery pass.
- international morse code — a form of Morse code used in international radiotelegraphy.
- irritable bowel syndrome — any combination of common disturbances of the bowel, as diarrhea or constipation, occurring with abdominal pain, sometimes accompanied by psychological stress. Abbreviation: IBS.
- iterated function system — (graphics) (IFS) A class of fractals that yield natural-looking forms like ferns or snowflakes. Iterated Function Systems use a very easy transformation that is done recursively.
- la belle dame sans merci — a ballad (1819) by Keats.
- lady washington geranium — show geranium.
- land of the midnight sun — any of those countries containing land within the Arctic Circle where there is a midnight sun in midsummer, especially Norway, Sweden, or Finland.
- law of supply and demand — the theory that prices are determined by the interaction of supply and demand: an increase in supply will lower prices if not accompanied by increased demand, and an increase in demand will raise prices unless accompanied by increased supply
- lead someone by the nose — to make someone do unquestioningly all one wishes; dominate someone
- least common denominator — the smallest number that is a common denominator of a given set of fractions.
- leave much to be desired — be inadequate
- liquid components of gas — Liquid components of gas are associated hydrocarbons in natural gas, which include ethane, propane, and butane.
- lunar (excursion) module — the component of the Apollo spacecraft used to carry astronauts to the moon's surface and return them to the command and service modules in lunar orbit
- machine independent sail — (MAINSAIL) From XIDAK, Palo Alto CA, +1 (415) 855 9271.
- make ducks and drakes of — to use recklessly; squander or waste
- mandy rice-davis applies — (chat) (MRDA) An acronym used to imply that someone is lying to protect their own interests. During the trial of Stephen Ward (who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Rice-Davies), the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied any involvement with her and Rice-Davies replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
- manic-depressive illness — bipolar disorder.
- medium-scale integration — MSI.
- northern mariana islands — a US commonwealth territory in the N Pacific, formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1947–87). Capital: Saipan island (Capitol Hill). Pop: 51 170 (2013 est). Area: 477 sq km (184 sq miles)
- organization and methods — a systematic examination of an organization's structure, procedures, management and control, with a view to determining its comparative efficiency in achieving defined organizational aims
- portable scheme debugger — (PSD) A package for source code debugging of R4RS-compliant Scheme under GNU Emacs by Kellom ?ki Pertti <[email protected]>. Version 1.1. Distributed under GNU GPL. It works with scm, Elk and Scheme->C.
- present company excepted — If you are making a general, unfavourable comment about a particular type of person, and you are with people of that type, you can say 'present company excepted' as a way of making your comment sound more polite.
- pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
- rain on someone's parade — to hinder someone's enjoyment; upset someone's plans
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- read someone like a book — to understand a person, or his motives, character, etc, thoroughly and clearly
- representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- research and development — the part of a commercial company's activity concerned with applying the results of scientific research to develop new products and improve existing ones
- san bernardino mountains — mountain range in S Calif., south of the Mojave Desert: highest peak, 11,502 ft (3,506 m)
- san francisco de macoris — a city in the N Dominican Republic.
- santa coloma de gramanet — a city in NE Spain.
- see someone hanged first — to refuse absolutely to do what one has been asked
- senegambia confederation — an economic and political union (1982–89) between Senegal and The Gambia
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- 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.
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- split image range finder — a range finder in which opposing halves of a split field move relative to each other and coincide when the object centered in the field is in focus.
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- take someone at his word — to assume that someone means, or will do, what he or she says
- take someone for granted — If you say that someone takes you for granted, you are complaining that they benefit from your help, efforts, or presence without showing that they are grateful.
- to make boundary changes — to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies, because of population shifts
- tread on someone's corns — to offend or hurt someone by touching on a sensitive subject or encroaching on his privileges
- trisodium orthophosphate — a sodium salt of orthophosphoric acid having the formula Na3PO4
- twenty-seventh amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1992, ensuring that no laws relating to Congressional salaries take effect until after the next Congressional election.