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21-letter words containing a, d, n, t

  • be at pains to do sth — If someone is at pains to do something, they are very eager and anxious to do it, especially because they want to avoid a difficult situation.
  • be in black and white — You say that something is in black and white when it has been written or printed, and not just said.
  • be on the danger list — to be critically ill in hospital
  • be on to a good thing — to be in a profitable situation or position
  • been there, done that — in or at that place (opposed to here): She is there now.
  • before-and-after test — a test which compares the state or function of something before intervention or modification, and after it
  • behavior modification — a technique that seeks to modify animal and human behavior through application of the principles of conditioning, in which rewards and reinforcements, or punishments, are used to establish desired habits, or patterns of behavior
  • behind the eight ball — in a difficult situation; snookered
  • bernadette of lourdes — Saint. original name Marie Bernarde Soubirous. 1844–79, French peasant girl born in Lourdes, whose visions of the Virgin Mary led to the establishment of Lourdes as a centre of pilgrimage, esp for the sick or crippled. Feast day: Feb 18
  • beta-naphthyl radical — Also called alpha-naphthyl group, alpha-naphthyl radical. the univalent group C 1 0 H 7 –, having a replaceable hydrogen atom in the first, or alpha, position; 1-naphthyl group.
  • beyond (all) question — beyond (any) dispute or doubt
  • binding-time analysis — (compiler)   An analysis to identify sub-expressions which can be evaluated at compile-time or where versions of a function can be generated and called which are specialised to certain values of one or more arguments. See partial evaluation.
  • binomial distribution — a statistical distribution giving the probability of obtaining a specified number of successes in a specified number of independent trials of an experiment with a constant probability of success in each. Symbol: Bi (n, p), where n is the number of trials and p the probability of success in each
  • black-and-tan terrier — Manchester terrier
  • blackburn with darwen — a unitary authority in NW England, in Lancashire. Pop: 139 800 (2003 est). Area: 137 sq km (53 sq miles)
  • blot on the landscape — If you describe something such as a building as a blot on the landscape, you mean that you think it is very ugly and spoils an otherwise attractive place.
  • breaking and entering — (formerly) the gaining of unauthorized access to a building with intent to commit a crime or, having committed the crime, the breaking out of the building
  • breakthrough bleeding — bleeding from the uterus that occurs between menstrual periods
  • british standard time — the standard time used in Britain all the year round from 1968 to 1971, set one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and equalling Central European Time
  • bromine pentafluoride — a colorless, corrosive liquid, BrF 5 , used as an oxidizer in liquid rocket propellants.
  • bulletin board system — (communications, application)   (BBS, bboard /bee'bord/, message board, forum; plural: BBSes) A computer and associated software which typically provides an electronic message database where people can log in and leave messages. Messages are typically split into topic groups similar to the newsgroups on Usenet (which is like a distributed BBS). Any user may submit or read any message in these public areas. The term comes from physical pieces of board on which people can pin messages written on paper for general consumption - a "physical bulletin board". Ward Christensen, the programmer and operator of the first BBS (on-line 1978-02-16) called it a CBBS for "computer bulletin board system". Since the rise of the World-Wide Web, the term has become antiquated, though the concept is more popular than ever, with many websites featuring discussion areas where users can post messages for public consumption. Apart from public message areas, some BBSes provided archives of files, personal electronic mail and other services of interest to the system operator (sysop). Thousands of BBSes around the world were run from amateurs' homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each. Although BBSes were traditionally the domain of hobbyists, many connected directly to the Internet (accessed via telnet), others were operated by government, educational, and research institutions. Fans of Usenet or the big commercial time-sharing bboards such as CompuServe, CIX and GEnie tended to consider local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they helped connect hackers and users in the personal-micro and let them exchange code. Use of this term for a Usenet newsgroup generally marks one either as a newbie fresh in from the BBS world or as a real old-timer predating Usenet.
  • cancellation deadline — A cancellation deadline is a date before which you must cancel a hotel reservation without paying any money.
  • cantilever foundation — a building foundation supporting its load partly or wholly upon cantilevers.
  • cartesian coordinates — a system of representing points in space in terms of their distance from a given origin measured along a set of mutually perpendicular axes. Written (x,y,z) with reference to three axes
  • cascading style sheet — a file recording style details, such as fonts, colours, etc, that is read by browsers so that style is consistent over multiple web pages
  • castellon de la plana — a port in E Spain. Pop: 160 714 (2003 est)
  • catch one flat footed — having flatfeet.
  • category merchandiser — A category merchandiser is a person whose job is to maintain stocks, manage displays and promote sales of a certain product category such as footwear.
  • central daylight time — the time observed in the Central Time Zone of the United states when Daylight Savings Time is in effect; GMT -5
  • central standard time — one of the standard times used in North America, based on the local time of the 90° meridian, six hours behind Greenwich Mean Time
  • character development — the portrayal of people in a work of fiction in such a way that the reader or audience seems to learn more about them as they develop
  • cheese and wine party — a party at which cheese and wine are served
  • cheque guarantee card — a card issued by a bank or building society, guaranteeing payment of a customer's cheques up to a stated value
  • christmas decorations — decorations of different kinds appropriate to Christmas, such as tinsel, candles, images of angels, etc.
  • circle of declination — hour circle.
  • class-relation method — (programming)   A design technique based on the concepts of object-oriented programming and the Entity-Relationship model from the French company Softeam.
  • clement of alexandria — Saint. original name Titus Flavius Clemens. ?150–?215 ad, Greek Christian theologian: head of the catechetical school at Alexandria; teacher of Origen. Feast day: Dec 5
  • collimator viewfinder — a type of viewfinder in a camera
  • column address strobe — (hardware)   (CAS) A signal sent from a processor (or memory controller) to a dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) (qv) circuit to indicate that the column address lines are valid.
  • comfortably-furnished — containing comfortable furniture
  • committal proceedings — a preliminary hearing in a magistrates' court to decide if there is a case to answer
  • common carotid artery — the part of a carotid artery between its origin and its point of division into branches.
  • competitive advantage — an advantage based on success in competition
  • computer aided design — (application)   (CAD) The part of CAE concerning the drawing or physical layout steps of engineering design. Often found in the phrase "CAD/CAM" for ".. manufacturing".
  • computer-aided design — the use of computer techniques in designing products, esp involving the use of computer graphics
  • concert grand (piano) — the largest size of grand piano, for concert performance
  • conditional discharge — If someone who is convicted of an offence is given a conditional discharge by a court, they are not punished unless they later commit a further offence.
  • conditional operation — a step in a computer program that determines which of two or more instructions or instruction sequences to execute next, depending on whether or not one or more specified conditions have been met.
  • consultation document — a report that is the result of a consultation process
  • contextual definition — definition of a word or symbol by explaining the meaning of the phrase or statement in which it occurs.
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