22-letter words containing a, d, s, u
- hoof-and-mouth disease — foot-and-mouth disease.
- house of bernarda alba — a drama (1941) by Federico García Lorca.
- hundreds and thousands — tiny beads of brightly coloured sugar, used in decorating cakes, sweets, etc
- in one's birthday suit — naked; nude
- in your wildest dreams — If you say that you could not imagine a particular thing in your wildest dreams, you are emphasizing that you think it is extremely strange or unlikely.
- industrial archaeology — the study of past industrial machines, works, etc
- industrial engineering — engineering applied to the planning, design, and control of industrial operations.
- industrialized country — a country characterized by industry on an extensive scale
- inland revenue service — In the United States, the Inland Revenue Service is the government authority which collects taxes. The abbreviation IRS is often used.
- investigative new drug — a regulatory classification assigned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to an unproven drug, allowing its use in approved studies with human patients. Abbreviation: IND.
- islamic fundamentalism — the belief or advocating of a conservative adherence to literal or traditional interpretations of the Qu'ran and the Sunnah
- jacquard, joseph-marie — Joseph-Marie Jacquard
- juan fernández islands — a group of three islands in the S Pacific Ocean, administered by Chile: volcanic and wooded. Area: about 180 sq km (70 sq miles)
- just around the corner — in the next street
- lady's not for burning — a verse play (1948) by Christopher Fry.
- land of the rising sun — Japan.
- landscape architecture — the art of arranging or modifying the features of a landscape, an urban area, etc., for aesthetic or practical reasons.
- liquid crystal display — (hardware) (LCD) An electro-optical device used to display digits, characters or images, commonly used in digital watches, calculators, and portable computers. The heart of the liquid crystal display is a piece of liquid crystal material placed between a pair of transparent electrodes. The liquid crystal changes the phase of the light passing through it and this phase change can be controlled by the voltage applied between the electrodes. If such a unit is placed between a pair of plane polariser plates then light can pass through it only if the correct voltage is applied. Liquid crystal displays are formed by integrating a number of such cells, or more usually, by using a single liquid crystal plate and a pattern of electrodes. The simplest kind of liquid crystal displays, those used in digital watches and calculators, contain a common electrode plane covering one side and a pattern of electrodes on the other. These electrodes can be individually controlled to produce the appropriate display. Computer displays, however, require far too many pixels (typically between 50,000 and several millions) to make this scheme, in particular its wiring, feasible. The electrodes are therefore replaced by a number of row electrodes on one side and column electrodes on the other. By applying voltage to one row and several columns the pixels at the intersections are set. The pixels being set one row after the other, in passive matrix displays the number of rows is limited by the ratio of the setting and fading times. In the setup described above (known as "twisted nematic") the number of rows is limited to about 20. Using an alternative "supertwisted nematic" setup VGA quality displays (480 rows) can be easily built. As of 1995 most notebook computers used this technique. Fading can be slowed by putting an active element, such as a transistor, on the top of each pixel. This "remembers" the setting of that pixel. These active matrix displays are of much better quality (as good as CRTs) but are much more expensive than the passive matrix displays. LCDs are slimmer, lighter and consume less power than the previous dominant display type, the cathode ray tube, hence their importance for portable computers.
- local shared resources — (operating system) (LSR) A way of controlling VSAM buffers in OS/390.
- lord justice of appeal — an ordinary judge of the Court of Appeal
- lunar excursion module — lunar module. Abbreviation: LEM.
- lund software house ab — (company) The company who produced Lund Simula. Address: Box 7056, S-22007 Lund, Sweden.
- manuel estrada cabrera — Manuel [mah-nwel] /mɑˈnwɛl/ (Show IPA), 1857–1924, Guatemalan politician: president 1898–1920.
- manufacturing industry — the industry of manufacturing goods from raw materials
- middle-distance runner — someone who runs races of a length between the sprints and the distance events, esp the 800 metres and the 1500 metres
- molecular distillation — a vacuum distillation in which the molecules of the distillate reach the condenser before colliding with one another.
- mountain standard time — one of the standard times used in North America, seven hours behind Greenwich Mean Time
- mutton dressed as lamb — If you describe a woman as mutton dressed as lamb, you are criticizing her for trying to look younger than she really is, in a way that you consider unattractive.
- nassella tussock board — one of many local statutory organizations set up in different regions of New Zealand to eradicate the invasive nassella tussock weed
- national semiconductor — (company) A semiconductor manufacturer, responsible for the SC/MP, National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000 series of microprocessors.
- netherlands new guinea — a former name of Irian Jaya.
- nominal semidestructor — (abuse) Slang for "National Semiconductor", found among other places in the 4.3BSD networking sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed a series of microprocessors including the National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000. At one point early in the great microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made them look like serious competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series. Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and never implemented the full instruction set promised in their literature, apparently because the company couldn't get any of the mask steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without trace, joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors.
- of the first magnitude — of the greatest importance
- on a shoestring budget — with very little money to spend
- one-eyed trouser snake — a vulgar term for the male member; penis
- outside awareness port — (humour) (OAP) A humorous IBM term for a window (the glass kind) rather than the GUI kind.
- over-industrialization — the large-scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity into an area, society, country, etc.
- peanut-butter sandwich — a sandwich with a filling of peanut-butter
- potassium ferricyanide — a bright-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 3 Fe(CN) 6 , used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments, as Prussian blue, and of paper, especially blueprint paper.
- potassium ferrocyanide — a lemon-yellow, crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 4 Fe(CN) 6 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in casehardening alloys having an iron base and in dyeing wool and silk.
- potassium-argon dating — a method for estimating the age of a mineral or rock, based on measurement of the rate of decay of radioactive potassium into argon.
- programmed instruction — a progressively monitored, step-by-step teaching method, employing small units of information or learning material and frequent testing, whereby the student must complete or pass one stage before moving on to the next.
- propositional attitude — a relation between a person and a proposition, such as belief, desire, intention, etc
- public domain software — public domain
- pushing up the daisies — dead and buried
- quantum chromodynamics — a quantum field theory that describes quarks and gluons and their interactions, with the color of the quarks playing a role analogous to that of electric charge. Abbreviation: QCD. Also called chromodynamics. Compare color (def 18).
- read someone a lecture — to scold or reprimand someone
- reproductive isolation — the conditions, as physiological or behavioral differences or geographical barriers, that prevent potentially interbreeding populations from cross-fertilization.
- rheumatoid spondylitis — ankylosing spondylitis.
- round-table discussion — a discussion held at a meeting of parties or people on equal terms