21-letter words containing a, l, n, g
- linear graph notation — (LGN) A linearised representation of TCOL trees.
- liquefied natural gas — a mixture of various gases, esp methane, liquefied under pressure for transportation and used as an engine fuel
- logic design language — (language) A language for computer design.
- long-term liabilities — Long-term liabilities are debts that a company does not have to pay back for a year or more.
- madagascar periwinkle — a plant, Catharanthus roseus (or Vinca rosea), cultivated for its glossy foliage and pink or white flowers.
- magnesium trisilicate — a white, fine, odorless and tasteless powder, Mg 2 O 8 Si 3 ⋅nH 2 O, used industrially to absorb odors and decolorize and pharmaceutically as an antacid.
- magnetic flux density — Also called magnetic flux density. a vector quantity used as a measure of a magnetic field. Symbol: B.
- magnetic permeability — permeability (def 2).
- magneto-optical drive — magneto-optical disk
- magnetocaloric effect — an increase or decrease of the temperature of a thermally isolated magnetic substance accompanying an increase or decrease in the intensity of a magnetic field.
- magnetofluid dynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- magnetoplasmadynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- magnificent riflebird — a bird of paradise, Craspedophora magnifica
- majority shareholding — a holding of more than half a company's shares
- make a pig of oneself — If you say that someone is making a pig of themselves, you are criticizing them for eating a very large amount at one meal.
- management consultant — A management consultant is someone whose job is to advise companies on the most efficient ways to run their business.
- mechanical metallurgy — the branch of metallurgy dealing with the response of metals to applied forces.
- mechanical weathering — any of the various weathering processes that cause physical disintegration of exposed rock without any change in the chemical composition of the rock: Collision between rock surfaces can cause mechanical weathering.
- megaloblastic anaemia — any anaemia, esp pernicious anaemia, characterized by the presence of megaloblasts in the blood or bone marrow
- mengistu haile mariam — born 1937, Ethiopian political leader: head of state 1977–87; president 1987–91.
- meter-kilogram-second — of or relating to the system of units in which the meter, kilogram, and second are the principal units of length, mass, and time. Abbreviation: mks, MKS.
- multi-level marketing — Multi-level marketing is a marketing technique which involves people buying a product, then earning a commission by selling it to their friends. The abbreviation MLM is also used.
- narrow-angle glaucoma — Ophthalmology. angle-closure glaucoma. See under glaucoma.
- national savings bank — (in Britain) a government savings bank, run through the post office, esp for small savers
- negotiable instrument — order or promise to pay money
- negotiable securities — securities that are legally transferable in title from one party to another
- new general catalogue — NGC.
- nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
- non-repeating decimal — a decimal representation of any irrational number, having the property that no sequence of digits is repeated ad infinitum.
- nothing in particular — not anything specific
- occupational guidance — advice and guidance relating to employment issues and career choices
- open graphics library — (graphics, library) (OpenGL) A multi-platform software interface to graphics hardware, supporting rendering and imaging operations. The OpenGL interface was developed by Silicon Graphics, who license it to other vendors. The OpenGL graphics interface consists of several hundred functions operating on 2D and 3D objects, supporting basic techniques, such as modelling and smooth shading, and advanced techniques, such as texture mapping and motion blur. Many operations require a frame buffer. OpenGL is network-transparent, and a common extension to the X Window System allows an OpenGL client to communicate across a network with a different vendor's OpenGL server. OpenGL is based on Silicon Graphics' proprietary IRIS GL.
- open trading protocol — Internet Open Trading Protocol
- orthogonal projection — a two-dimensional graphic representation of an object in which the projecting lines are at right angles to the plane of the projection. Also called orthogonal projection. Compare isometric (def 5).
- orthogonal trajectory — the locus of a point whose path cuts each curve of a family of curves at right angles.
- otorhinolaryngologist — (medicine) Doctor specializing in otorhinolaryngology, the study of ear, nose, and throat.
- overhead-valve engine — I-head engine.
- packed encoding rules — (protocol, standard) (PER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing a compact transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1, defined in 1994. PER provides a much more compact encoding then BER. It tries to represents the data units using the minimum number of bits. The compactness requires that the decoder knows the complete abstract syntax of the data structure to be decoded, however. Documents: ITU-T X.691, ISO 8825-2.
- paternal grandparents — the parents of someone's father
- pdp assembly language — (language) (PAL) The assembly language for the PDP-8 and PDP-11.
- physical anthropology — the branch of anthropology dealing with the evolutionary changes in human anatomy and physiology, using mensurational and descriptive techniques.
- physically challenged — See example at challenged (def 1).
- plate glass insurance — Plate glass insurance is insurance coverage against damage to or breakage of large panes of glass such as shop windows.
- ploughman's spikenard — a European plant, Inula conyza, with tubular yellowish flower heads surrounded by purple bracts: family Asteraceae (composites)
- pneumoencephalography — encephalography.
- polarizing microscope — a microscope that utilizes polarized light to reveal detail in an object, used especially to study crystalline and fibrous structures.
- polygenic inheritance — the heredity of complex characters that are determined by a large number of genes, each one usually having a relatively small effect.
- pulse height analyser — a multichannel analyser that sorts pulses into selected amplitude ranges
- pulse height analyzer — an instrument that records or counts an electrical pulse if its amplitude falls within specified limits: used in nuclear physics research for the determination of energy spectra of nuclear radiations
- quality point average — grade point average.