24-letter words containing a, d, s, l
- endotracheal anaesthesia — a method of administering gaseous anaesthetics to animals through a tube inserted into the trachea
- exponential distribution — a continuous single-parameter distribution used esp when making statements about the length of life of certain materials or waiting times between randomly occurring events. Its density function is p(x) = λe–λx for positive λ and nonnegative x, and it is a special case of the gamma distribution
- face as long as a fiddle — a dismal or gloomy facial expression
- failure-directed testing — (programming) (Or "heuristics testing") Software testing based on the knowledge of the types of errors made in the past that are likely for the system under test.
- federal power commission — FPC.
- federal reserve district — the district served by a certain Federal Reserve Bank.
- federal trade commission — FTC.
- ferdinand lewis alcindor — (Ferdinand) Lew(is, Jr.) original name of Abdul-Jabbar.
- flue gas desulfurization — Flue gas desulfurization is the removal of pollutants containing sulfur from flue gas.
- footloose and fancy-free — If you describe someone as footloose and fancy-free, you mean that they are not married or in a similar relationship, and you therefore consider them to have very few responsibilities or commitments.
- geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
- glycogen storage disease — any of several inherited disorders of glycogen metabolism that result in excess accumulation of glycogen in various organs of the body.
- go all out for/to do sth — If you go all out to do something or go all out for something, you make the greatest possible effort to do it or get it.
- great crested flycatcher — a North American flycatcher, Myiarchus crinitus, noted for its use of the castoff skins of snakes in building its nest.
- head and shoulders above — vastly superior to
- hyaline membrane disease — respiratory distress syndrome.
- hydrochlorofluorocarbons — Plural form of hydrochlorofluorocarbon.
- in words of one syllable — simply; bluntly
- industrial correspondent — a journalist who specializes in reporting the industrial news
- 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.
- kennelly-heaviside layer — E layer.
- knowledge representation — The subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with designing and using systems for storing knowledge - facts and rules about some subject. A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualisation - an abstract view of the world that we wish to represent. In order to manipulate this knowledge we must specify how the abstract conceptualisation is represented as a concrete data structure. An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualisation.
- knowledge sharing effort — (project) An ARPA project developing techniques and methods for building large-scale knowledge bases which are sharable and reusable.
- 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
- leave no stone un turned — the hard substance, formed of mineral matter, of which rocks consist.
- licensed practical nurse — a person who has graduated from an accredited school of nursing and has become licensed to provide basic nursing care under the supervision of a physician or registered nurse. Abbreviation: LPN.
- liquid components of gas — Liquid components of gas are associated hydrocarbons in natural gas, which include ethane, propane, and butane.
- local loopback addresses — The special Internet address, 127.0.0.1, defined by the Internet Protocol. A host can use local the loopback address to send messages to itself.
- logical block addressing — (storage) (LBA) A hard disk sector addressing scheme used on all SCSI hard disks, and on ATA-2 conforming IDE hard disks. The addressing conversion is performed by the hard disk firmware. Prior to LBA, combined limitations of IBM PC BIOS and ATA restricted the useful capacity of IDE hard disks on IBM PCs and compatibles to 1024 cylinders * 63 sectors per track * 16 heads * 512 bytes per sector = 528 million bytes = 504 megabytes. Modern BIOSes select LBA mode automatically, and work around the 1024-cylinder BIOS limit by representing a hard disk to the OS as having e.g. half as many cylinders and twice as many heads. However, there is still an unbreakable BIOS disk size limit of 1024 cylinders * 63 sectors per track * 256 heads * 512 bytes per sector = 8 gigabytes, but modern OSes (including Windows 9x, Windows NT and Linux) are not affected by it, since they issue direct LBA-based calls, bypassing the BIOS hard disk services completely.
- long-spined sea scorpion — Cottus bubalis or Taurulus bubalis
- 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.
- 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.
- network addressable unit — (networking) (NAU) The SNA term for an addressable entity. Examples include PUs, LUs, and SSCPs.
- 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)
- not sb's place to do sth — If you say that it is not your place to do something, you mean that it is not right or appropriate for you to do it, or that it is not your responsibility to do it.
- object-oriented analysis — (programming) (OOA) The first phase of object-oriented design.
- passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
- port address translation — (networking) (PAT) A function provided by some routers which allows hosts on a LAN to communicate with the rest of a network (such as the Internet) without revealing their own private IP address. All outbound packets have their IP address translated to the routers external IP address. Replies come back to the router which then translates them back into the private IP address of the original host for final delivery. Compare SOCKS.