24-letter words containing a, g, r, i, e
- scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web) A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
- 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
- shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
- sign one's death warrant — to cause one's own destruction
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- single premium insurance — Single premium insurance is insurance where all the premium is paid at once, in one payment.
- single transferable vote — of or relating to a system of voting in which voters list the candidates in order of preference. Any candidate achieving a predetermined proportion of the votes in a constituency is elected. Votes exceeding this amount and those cast for the bottom candidate are redistributed according to the stated preferences. Redistribution continues until all the seats are filled
- 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.
- staggered pin grid array — (hardware) (SPGA) A style of integrated circuit socket or pin-out with a staggered grid of pins around the edge of the socket, positioned as several squares, one inside the other. SPGA is commonly used on motherboards for processors, e.g. Socket 5, Socket 7 and Socket 8. See also PGA.
- standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
- stereographic projection — a one-to-one correspondence between the points on a sphere and the extended complex plane where the north pole on the sphere corresponds to the point at infinity of the plane.
- sth bodes ill/augurs ill — If something bodes ill or augurs ill, it gives you a reason to fear that something harmful might happen soon.
- stratified charge engine — an internal-combustion engine in which a small charge of a rich fuel mixture is ignited first and used to improve combustion of a larger charge of a lean fuel mixture.
- tagged image file format — (file format, graphics) (TIFF) A file format used for still-image bitmaps, stored in tagged fields. Application programs can use the tags to accept or ignore fields, depending on their capabilities. While TIFF was designed to be extensible, it lacked a core of useful functionality, so that most useful functions (e.g. lossless 24-bit colour) requires nonstandard, often redundant, extensions. The incompatibility of extensions has led some to expand "TIFF" as "Thousands of Incompatible File Formats". Compare GIF, PNG, JPEG.
- take sb under one's wing — If you take someone under your wing, you look after them, help them, and protect them.
- teacher training college — a higher-education college that specializes in teacher training
- the ravages of something — the destructive effects of something
- the way things are going — You can use the way things are going to indicate that you expect something to happen because of the way the present situation is developing.
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- throw one's weight about — to act in an authoritarian or aggressive manner
- to go for the brass ring — to try to succeed in an area where there is a lot of competition
- to lay something to rest — If you lay something such as fears or rumours to rest or if you put them to rest, you succeed in proving that they are not true.
- to light the touch paper — if someone lights the touch paper or lights the blue touch paper, they do something which causes anger or excitement
- to rise to the challenge — If someone rises to the challenge, they act in response to a difficult situation which is new to them and are successful.
- trading standards office — an office of the local authority department that deals with trading standards
- trip the light fantastic — a journey or voyage: to win a trip to Paris.
- ultralarge crude carrier — Nautical. ULCC.
- verrazano-narrows bridge — a suspension bridge connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island in New York City. 4260-foot (1298-meter) center span, the longest in North America.
- very large crude carrier — VLCC.
- veterans of foreign wars — an organization of U.S. veterans who have served in foreign wars: founded in 1899
- video cassette recording — a recording made using a tape recorder for vision and sound signals using magnetic tape in closed plastic cassettes: used for recording and playing back television programmes and films
- virtual storage extended — (operating system) (VSE, formerly DOS/VSE) is a multitasking, IBM 370-architected operating system similar to Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS). VSE run jobs in partitions rather than address spaces, and uses POWER for input/output rather than JES, but is largely similar to MVS. Subsequent VSE/ESA releases gave VSE the XA-370 channel architecture, 31-bit virtual and real storage support, and data spaces. VSE is the IBM operating system on one-third of installed IBM 4381s and a significant proportion of IBM 9370s as well. It offers transaction processing and batch processing capabilities well beyond Virtual Machine's current capabilities, and has a close affinity with MVS.
- what are you playing at? — If you ask what someone is playing at, you are angry because you think they are doing something stupid or wrong.
- what are you waiting for — If you say to someone 'What are you waiting for?' you are telling them to hurry up and do something.
- within striking distance — If you are within striking distance of something, or if something is within striking distance, it is quite near, so it could be reached or achieved quite easily.
- work/go/run like a charm — If you say that something worked like a charm, you mean that it was very effective or successful.
- world trade organization — The World Trade Organization is an international organization that encourages and regulates trade between its member states. The abbreviation WTO is also used.
- you aren't gonna need it — (programming) (YAGNI) A motto of extreme programming expressing the principle that functionality should not be implemented until it is needed. The traditional waterfall model makes it difficult to add features after the specification has been signed off, tempting the specifier to add features that may never be used but which take time to program, debug, test and document.