17-letter words containing a, i, m
- manufacturability — The condition of being manufacturable.
- many-valued logic — the study of logical systems in which the truth-values that a proposition may have are not restricted to two, representing only truth and falsity
- marais des cygnes — a river in E central Kansas and W Missouri, flowing SE to the Osage River. 150 miles (241 km) long.
- maraschino cherry — a cherry cooked in colored syrup and flavored with maraschino, used to garnish desserts, cocktails, etc.
- mare fecunditatis — (Sea of Fertility) a dark plain in the fourth quadrant and extending into the first quadrant of the face of the moon: about 160,000 sq. mi. (415,000 sq. km).
- margaret hamilton — (person) (born 1936-08-17) A computer scientist, systems engineer and business owner, credited with coining the term software engineering. Margaret Hamilton published over 130 papers, proceedings and reports about the 60 projects and six major programs in which she has been involved. In 1965 she became Director of Software Programming at MIT's Charles Stark Draper Laboratory and Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program. At NASA, Hamilton pioneered the Apollo on-board guidance software that navigated to and landed on the Moon and formed the basis for software used in later missions. At the time, programming was a hands-on, engineering descipline; computer science and software engineering barely existed. Hamilton produced innovations in system design and software development, enterprise and process modelling, development paradigms, formal systems modelling languages, system-oriented objects for systems modelling and development, automated life-cycle environments, software reliability, software reuse, domain analysis, correctness by built-in language properties, open architecture techniques for robust systems, full life-cycle automation, quality assurance, seamless integration, error detection and recovery, man-machine interface systems, operating systems, end-to-end testing and life-cycle management. She developed concepts of asynchronous software, priority scheduling and Human-in-the-loop decision capability, which became the foundation for modern, ultra-reliable software design. The Apollo 11 moon landing would have aborted when spurious data threatened to overload the computer, but thanks to the innovative asynchronous, priority based scheduling, it eliminated the unnecessary processing and completed the landing successfully. In 1986, she founded Hamilton Technologies, Inc., developed around the Universal Systems Language and her systems and software design paradigm of Development Before the Fact (DBTF).
- mariner's compass — a compass used for navigational purposes, consisting of a pivoted compass card in a gimbal-mounted, nonferrous metal bowl.
- marital relations — a euphemistic term for sexual intercourse between married partners
- marketing manager — a person who is in charge of a marketing department or campaign
- marquesas islands — a group of volcanic islands in the S Pacific, in French Polynesia. Pop: 8712 (2002). Area: 1287 sq km (497 sq miles)
- marriage ceremony — official part of a wedding
- marriage equality — the state of having the same rights and responsibilities of marriage as others, regardless of one's sexual orientation or gender identity.
- marriage guidance — counselling for married couples
- martha's vineyard — an island off SE Massachusetts: summer resort. About 100 sq. mi. (259 sq. km).
- mascarene islands — a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, E of Madagascar, including Mauritius, Reunion, and Rodrigues.
- masculine caesura — a caesura occurring immediately after a stressed or a long syllable.
- mass merchandiser — a retailer or retail store that seeks to sell large quantities of goods quickly through such means as discounting, customer self-service, or unadorned display and packaging, as in a warehouse.
- massage therapist — sb who gives body rubs
- master of science — a master's degree given usually in a specific branch of the natural sciences, mathematics, or technology.
- materialistically — excessively concerned with physical comforts or the acquisition of wealth and material possessions, rather than with spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values.
- materials science — the study of the characteristics and uses of various materials, as glass, plastics, and metals.
- maternal instinct — motherly urge to protect and nurture
- maternity benefit — government allowance
- matter of opinion — a point open to question; a debatable statement
- maurice chevalier — Maurice (Auguste) [maw-rees aw-guh st;; French moh-rees oh-gyst] /mɔˈris ˈɔ gəst;; French moʊˈris oʊˈgüst/ (Show IPA), 1888–1972, French actor and singer.
- maurice of nassau — Prince of Orange 1567-1625; Du. statesman & military leader
- maximum principle — the theorem that a function of a complex variable that is analytic in a domain and on its boundary attains its maximum absolute value on the boundary.
- maximum seek time — (storage) (Or full stroke seek time) The time it takes to seek over all tracks, i.e., from the innermost to the outermost or vice versa. The maximum seek time gives a worst-case measure of the speed of the drive which is useful in some real-time applications where it is important that data flows continuously (such as video editing or CD recording).
- maxwell equations — equations developed by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79) upon which classical electromagnetic theory is based
- may/might as well — If you say that you might as well do something, or that you may as well do it, you mean that you will do it although you do not have a strong desire to do it and may even feel slightly unwilling to do it.
- mean piston speed — The mean piston speed is the distance traveled by a piston in a specified amount of time.
- mean proportional — (between two numbers a and b) a number x for which a/x = x/b : The number 3 is a mean proportional between 1 and 9.
- mean-spiritedness — the quality of being mean-spirited
- mechanical digger — a machine used for excavation
- mechanical pencil — a pencil for holding lead that can be extended by mechanical means.
- mechanical tissue — a plant tissue made up of hard, thick-walled cells that add strength to an organ
- mechanoelectrical — Describing the production of electricity by mechanical motion; especially in a transducer.
- media access unit — (networking) (MAU or Multistation Access Unit, MSAU) In a Token Ring network, a device to attach multiple network stations in a star topology, internally wired to connect the stations into a logical ring. The MAU contains relays to short out nonoperating stations. Multiple MAUs can be connected into a larger ring through their Ring In/Ring Out connectors.
- medical insurance — a type of insurance intended to cover possible future medical expenses
- medical librarian — a person who works in a library of medical information kept for reference in a teaching hospital
- medical marijuana — marijuana prescribed by a doctor and used as a medicine: medical marijuana in pill form or oral spray.
- medical procedure — A medical procedure is a medical treatment or operation.
- medicochirurgical — pertaining to medicine and surgery.
- mediterranean sea — a sea surrounded by Africa, Europe, and Asia. 2400 miles (3865 km) long; 1,145,000 sq. mi. (2,965,550 sq. km); greatest known depth 14,436 feet (4400 meters).
- meiji restoration — revolution in Japanese life and government that occurred after the accession of Emperor Mutsuhito (1867), characterized by the downfall of the shogun and feudalism and the creation of a modern state
- meissen porcelain — Dresden china.
- melissopalynology — The study of honey and its composition.
- memetic algorithm — (algorithm) A genetic algorithm or evolutionary algorithm which includes a non-genetic local search to improve genotypes. The term comes from the Richard Dawkin's term "meme". One big difference between memes and genes is that memes are processed and possibly improved by the people that hold them - something that cannot happen to genes. It is this advantage that the memetic algorithm has over simple genetic or evolutionary algorithms. These algorithms are useful in solving complex problems, such as the "Travelling Salesman Problem," which involves finding the shortest path through a large number of nodes, or in creating artificial life to test evolutionary theories. Memetic algorithms are one kind of metaheuristic. (07 July 1997)
- ménière's disease — a disease of the labyrinth of the ear, characterized by deafness, ringing in the ears, dizziness, and nausea.
- mensural notation — a system of musical notation of the 13th to the late 16th centuries, marked by the use of note symbols such as the longa and brevis, the absence of bar lines and ties, and the equivalence in value of one note to either two or three of the next smaller degree.