24-letter words containing a, l, i, g, n
- optical signal processor — optical computing
- orbital angular momentum — the component of angular momentum of an electron in an atom or a nucleon in a nucleus, arising from its orbital motion rather than from its spin.
- other things being equal — If you say 'other things being equal' or 'all things being equal' when talking about a possible situation, you mean if nothing unexpected happens or if there are no other factors which affect the situation.
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- parliamentary government — government by a body of cabinet ministers who are chosen from and responsible to the legislature and act as advisers to a nominal chief of state.
- plantation walking horse — one of a breed of saddle horses developed largely from Standardbred and Morgan stock.
- pre-emptive multitasking — (operating system, parallel) A type of multitasking where the scheduler can interrupt and suspend ("swap out") the currently running task in order to start or continue running ("swap in") another task. The tasks under pre-emptive multitasking can be written as though they were the only task and the scheduler decides when to swap them. The scheduler must ensure that when swapping tasks, sufficient state is saved and restored that tasks do not interfere. The length of time for which a process runs is known as its "time slice" and may depend on the task's priority or its use of resources such as memory and I/O. This contrasts with cooperative multitasking where each task must include calls to allow it to be descheduled periodically.
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- professional programming — paranoid programming
- program information file — (file format) Under Windows, a file providing information on how a non-Windows application program should be run, including how much memory should be allocated to it and what graphics interface it requires.
- progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
- pure functional language — purely functional language
- registered general nurse — (in Britain) a nurse who has completed a three-year training course in all aspects of nursing care to enable him or her to be registered with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Visiting
- regular checking account — a checking account for which the monthly fee is usually based on the average balance maintained and the number of transactions recorded.
- revolving charge account — a charge plan offerring revolving credit.
- saint ignatius of loyola — Saint Ignatius of (Iñigo López de Loyola) 1491–1556, Spanish soldier and ecclesiastic: founder of the Society of Jesus.
- self-extensible language — ["SEL - A Self-Extensible Programming Language", G. Molnar, Computer J 14(3):238-242 (Aug 1971)].
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- single connection attach — (hardware) (SCA, "Single Connector Attachment") A non-standard type of SCSI connector, used mostly by OEMs, which carries both power and data on one 80-pin connector. SCA SCSI drives tend to be cheaper but use with standard SCSI cables requires an adaptor and external termination.
- 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
- solution based modelling — (SBM) A software development process described in the book "Developing Object-Oriented Software for the Macintosh" written by Neal Goldstein and Jeff Alger, published by Addison Wesley in 1992.
- special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
- 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.
- st. kitts-nevis-anguilla — a former British colony (1967–71) in the Leeward Islands, in the E West Indies: comprising St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, and adjacent small islands: a member of the former West Indies Associated States.
- stand in one's own light — to harm one's reputation by acting unwisely
- stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
- take the king's shilling — to enlist in the army
- teacher training college — a higher-education college that specializes in teacher training
- the whole shooting match — everything; the whole lot
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- to fight a losing battle — If you are fighting a losing battle, you are trying to achieve something but are not going to be successful.
- 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 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.
- total quality management — Total quality management is a set of management principles aimed at improving performance throughout a company, especially by involving employees in decision-making. The abbreviation TQM is also used.
- transformational grammar — a system of grammatical analysis, especially a form of generative grammar, that posits the existence of deep structure and surface structure, using a set of transformational rules to derive surface structure forms from deep structure; a grammar that uses transformations to express the relations between equivalent structures.
- trip the light fantastic — a journey or voyage: to win a trip to Paris.
- 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.
- 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 boxing association — the international organization which regulates the sport of boxing
- 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.