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20-letter words containing a, e, o

  • argument from design — the argument for the existence of God based on the assumption that order in the universe implies an orderer and cannot be a natural feature of the universe.
  • arrested development — physical development that is not complete
  • articulatory feature — a property of a speech sound based on its voicing or on its place or manner of articulation in the vocal tract, as voiceless, bilabial, or stop used in describing the sound (p).
  • artificial selection — a process in the breeding of animals and in the cultivation of plants by which the breeder chooses to perpetuate only those forms having certain desirable inheritable characteristics.
  • aschheim-zondek test — a test used to detect whether a woman is pregnant by noting the effect on the ovaries of an immature mouse or rabbit injected with her urine.
  • asexual reproduction — reproduction, as budding, fission, or spore formation, not involving the union of gametes.
  • asian tiger mosquito — a mosquito, Aedes albopictus, native to Asia, that transmits yellow fever and dengue and possibly West Nile virus. Compare yellow-fever mosquito.
  • assessment procedure — an established method of assessing students or workers
  • asset turnover ratio — An asset turnover ratio is a measure of the efficiency of a company, that is calculated by dividing sales for a period by average total assets.
  • associated statehood — the semi-independent political status of various former British colonies in the Caribbean from 1967 until each became an independent state in the British Commonwealth, by which Britain retained responsibility for defence and some aspects of foreign affairs. The associated states were Anguilla, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines
  • astatic galvanometer — a galvanometer that is unaffected by the earth's magnetic field and is used for measuring small currents.
  • at one's convenience — at a time, or in a place or manner, suitable to one
  • at one's finger tips — the tip or end of a finger.
  • at someone's expense — If you do something at someone's expense, they provide the money for it.
  • at someone's service — ready to serve or cooperate with someone
  • at the best of times — You say at the best of times when you are making a negative or critical comment to emphasize that it is true even when the circumstances are as favourable as possible.
  • at the bottom of sth — If something is at the bottom of a problem or unpleasant situation, it is the real cause of it.
  • at the crack of dawn — If you say that someone does something at the crack of dawn, you are emphasizing that they do it very early in the morning.
  • at the drop of a hat — If you say that you are ready to do something at the drop of a hat, you mean that you are willing to do it immediately, without hesitating.
  • at the eleventh hour — at the last moment; just before it is too late
  • at two hours' notice — with notification only two hours in advance
  • atmospheric pressure — Atmospheric pressure is the pressure of the atmosphere on the Earth's surface.
  • attendance allowance — (in Britain) a tax-free noncontributory welfare benefit for people over 65 years old who are so severely disabled that they need frequent attention or continual supervision for a period of six months or more
  • audio-lingual method — a technique of foreign-language instruction that emphasizes audio-lingual skills over reading and writing and is characterized by extensive use of pattern practice.
  • augur ill (or well) — to be a bad (or good) omen
  • automobile insurance — Automobile insurance is insurance coverage for cars.
  • auxiliary power unit — an additional engine fitted to an aircraft to operate when the main engines are not in use
  • axiomatic set theory — (theory)   One of several approaches to set theory, consisting of a formal language for talking about sets and a collection of axioms describing how they behave. There are many different axiomatisations for set theory. Each takes a slightly different approach to the problem of finding a theory that captures as much as possible of the intuitive idea of what a set is, while avoiding the paradoxes that result from accepting all of it, the most famous being Russell's paradox. The main source of trouble in naive set theory is the idea that you can specify a set by saying whether each object in the universe is in the "set" or not. Accordingly, the most important differences between different axiomatisations of set theory concern the restrictions they place on this idea (known as "comprehension"). NBG (von Neumann-Bernays-Goedel) set theory sort of allows comprehension for all formulae without restriction, but distinguishes between two kinds of set, so that the sets produced by applying comprehension are only second-class sets. NBG is exactly as powerful as ZF, in the sense that any statement that can be formalised in both theories is a theorem of ZF if and only if it is a theorem of ZFC. MK (Morse-Kelley) set theory is a strengthened version of NBG, with a simpler axiom system. It is strictly stronger than NBG, and it is possible that NBG might be consistent but MK inconsistent. ML ("Modern Logic") is to NF as NBG is to ZF. (Its name derives from the title of the book in which Quine introduced an early, defective, form of it). It is stronger than ZF (it can prove things that ZF can't), but if NF is consistent then ML is too.
  • baccalaureate sermon — a farewell sermon addressed to a graduating class in some U.S. colleges and schools.
  • back the wrong horse — to bet on a horse that loses the race
  • back-of-the-envelope — (of a plan, calculation, etc) composed or performed quickly and without detailed analysis or research
  • backwards compatible — backward compatibility
  • bacteriochlorophylls — Plural form of bacteriochlorophyll.
  • baggage storage room — A baggage storage room is a room in a hotel where people can leave their baggage in order to collect it later.
  • ballistic trajectory — the path of an unpowered object, as a missile, moving only under the influence of gravity and possibly atmospheric friction and with its surface providing no significant lift to alter the course of flight.
  • baptism for the dead — the baptism of a living person in the place of and for the sake of one who has died unbaptized: now practiced chiefly by Mormons.
  • barothermohygrograph — an automatic instrument for recording pressure, temperature, and humidity.
  • basal cell carcinoma — a common and usually curable skin cancer that arises from epithelial cells and rarely metastasizes: often associated with overexposure to sunlight.
  • basal metabolic rate — the rate at which heat is produced by the body at rest, 12 to 14 hours after eating, measured in kilocalories per square metre of body surface per hour
  • basic encoding rules — (protocol, standard)   (BER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing self-identifying and self-delimiting transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1 notations. BER is an self-identifying and self-delimiting encoding scheme, which means that each data value can be identified, extracted and decoded individually. Huw Rogers once described BER as "a triumph of bloated theory over clean implementation". He also criticises it as designed around bitstreams with arbitrary boundaries between data which can only be determined at a high level. Documents: ITU-T X.690, ISO 8825-1. See also CER, DER, PER.
  • basic lead carbonate — ceruse.
  • basic object adapter — (architecture)   (BOA) Part of the CORBA architecture.
  • basic oxygen process — a process for refining steel in which oxygen is blown into the molten iron
  • bats-wing coral-tree — a small tree, Erythrina verspertilio, of tropical and subtropical Australia with red flowers and leaves shaped like the wings of a bat
  • be called to the bar — to become a barrister
  • be hard pushed to do — If you are hard pushed to do something, you find it very difficult to do it.
  • be in the market for — to wish to buy or acquire
  • be on someone's case — an instance of the occurrence, existence, etc., of something: Sailing in such a storm was a case of poor judgment.
  • be set in one's ways — If you say that someone is set in their ways, you are being critical of the fact that they have fixed habits and ideas which they will not easily change, even though they may be old-fashioned.
  • be someone's funeral — to be someone's problem, worry, etc. and not another's
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