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20-letter words containing a, l, t, m

  • intelligent terminal — (hardware)   (or "smart terminal", "programmable terminal") A terminal that often contains not only a keyboard and screen, but also comes with a disk drive and printer, so it can perform limited processing tasks when not communicating directly with the central computer. Some can be programmed by the user to perform many basic tasks, including both arithmetic and logic operations. In some cases, when the user enters data, the data will be checked for errors and some type of report will be produced. In addition, the valid data that is entered may be stored on the disk, it will be transmitted over communication lines to the central computer. An intelligent terminal may have enough computing capability to draw graphics or to offload some kind of front-end processing from the computer it talks to. The development of workstations and personal computers has made this term and the product it describes semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear variants of the phrase "act like a smart terminal" used to describe the behaviour of workstations or PCs with respect to programs that execute almost entirely out of a remote server's storage, using said devices as displays. The term once meant any terminal with an addressable cursor; the opposite of a glass tty. Today, a terminal with merely an addressable cursor, but with none of the more-powerful features mentioned above, is called a dumb terminal. There is a classic quote from Rob Pike (inventor of the blit terminal): "A smart terminal is not a smart*ass* terminal, but rather a terminal you can educate". This illustrates a common design problem: The attempt to make peripherals (or anything else) intelligent sometimes results in finicky, rigid "special features" that become just so much dead weight if you try to use the device in any way the designer didn't anticipate. Flexibility and programmability, on the other hand, are *really* smart. Compare hook.
  • intercalary meristem — meristem in the internode of a stem.
  • internal hemorrhoids — Usually, hemorrhoids. Pathology. an abnormally enlarged vein mainly due to a persistent increase in venous pressure, occurring inside the anal sphincter of the rectum and beneath the mucous membrane (internal hemorrhoid) or outside the anal sphincter and beneath the surface of the anal skin (external hemorrhoid)
  • international master — a chess player of high ability but below the level of International Grand Master, as determined through specified types of international competitions.
  • international system — an internationally accepted coherent system of physical units, derived from the MKSA (meter-kilogram-second-ampere) system, using the meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela as the basic units (SI units) respectively of the fundamental quantities of length, mass, time, electric current, temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. Abbreviation: SI.
  • intestinal amebiasis — amebic dysentery.
  • james prescott joule — James Prescott, 1818–89, English physicist.
  • java development kit — (language, compiler)   (JDK) A free Sun Microsystems product which provides the environment required for programming in Java. The JDK is available for a variety of platforms, but most notably Sun Solaris and Microsoft Windows.
  • java virtual machine — (language, architecture)   (JVM) A specification for software which interprets Java programs that have been compiled into byte-codes, and usually stored in a ".class" file. The JVM instruction set is stack-oriented, with variable instruction length. Unlike some other instruction sets, the JVM's supports object-oriented programming directly by including instructions for object method invocation (similar to subroutine call in other instruction sets). The JVM itself is written in C and so can be ported to run on most platforms. It needs thread support and I/O (for dynamic class loading). The Java byte-code is independent of the platform. There are also some hardware implementations of the JVM.
  • justifiable homicide — murder committed under extenuating circumstances
  • knowledge management — data technology
  • laboratory equipment — apparatus for scientific research and experiments
  • language development — the development verbal communication skills in children
  • last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
  • laurentian mountains — a range of low mountains in E Canada, in Quebec between the St Lawrence River and Hudson Bay. Highest point: 1191 m (3905 ft)
  • least-squares method — a method of estimating values from a set of observations by minimizing the sum of the squares of the differences between the observations and the values to be found.
  • legislative assembly — the legislature of France 1791–92.
  • letters testamentary — a document issued by the probate court or some officer who has authority, directing the person named as executor in a will to act in that capacity
  • lieutenant commander — a commissioned officer ranking next below a commander and next above a lieutenant.
  • life-support machine — A life-support machine is the equipment that is used to keep a person alive when they are very ill and cannot breathe without help.
  • lifetime achievement — the notable successes that someone achieves during their life
  • like death warmed up — very ill
  • linage advertisement — advertisements which are costed and paid for according to the number of lines in them
  • literate programming — (programming, text)   Combining the use of a text formatting language such as TeX and a conventional programming language so as to maintain documentation and source code together. Literate programming may use the inverse comment convention.
  • logarithmic function — a function defined by y = log bx, especially when the base, b, is equal to e, the base of natural logarithms.
  • lonely hearts column — the part of a newspaper or magazine where lonely hearts ads appear
  • long topgallant mast — a single spar fitted above a topmast to carry topgallants, a royal, and all sails above.
  • longitudinal framing — a system for framing steel vessels in which light, closely spaced, longitudinal frames are connected by heavy, widely spaced transverse frames with deep webs.
  • lower yosemite falls — a section of Yosemite Falls in central California, in the Yosemite National Park, that is 98 m (320 ft) high
  • lump in one's throat — the passage from the mouth to the stomach or to the lungs, including the pharynx, esophagus, larynx, and trachea.
  • lymphogranulomatosis — widespread infectious granuloma of the lymphatic system.
  • macular degeneration — degeneration of the central portion of the retina, resulting in a loss of sharp vision.
  • madwoman of chaillot — a satirical comedy (1945) by Jean Giraudoux.
  • magical mystery tour — something exciting and mysterious; esp an exploration of a new place where somebody being shown or taken around does not know where exactly they will be going
  • magnetic declination — variation (def 8).
  • magnetic inclination — to plunge (something, as a cloth or sponge) temporarily into a liquid, so as to moisten it, dye it, or cause it to take up some of the liquid: He dipped the brush into the paint bucket.
  • magneto-optical disk — (hardware, storage)   (MO) A plastic or glass disk coated with a compound (often TbFeCo) with special optical, magnetic and thermal properties. The disk is read by bouncing a low-intensity laser off the disk. Originally the laser was infrared, but frequencies up to blue may be possible giving higher storage density. The polarisation of the reflected light depends on the polarity of the stored magnetic field. To write, a higher intensity laser heats the coating up to its Curie point, allowing its magnetisation to be altered in a way that is retained when it has cooled. Although optical, they appear as hard drives to the operating system and do not require a special filesystem (they can be formatted as FAT, HPFS, NTFS, etc.). The initial 5.25" MO drives, introduced at the end of the 1980s, were the size of a full-height 5.25" hard drive (like in IBM PC XT) and the disks looked like a CD-ROM enclosed in an old-style cartridge In 2006, a 3.5" drive has the size of 1.44 megabyte diskette drive with disks about the size of a regular 1.44MB floppy disc but twice the thickness.
  • magnetoencephalogram — a record of the magnetic field of the brain. Abbreviation: MEG.
  • mail transport agent — Message Transfer Agent
  • mail-order catalogue — a catalogue of goods you can buy from a particular company by mail order
  • make head (n)or tail — If you say that you cannot make head nor tail of something or you cannot make head or tail of it, you are emphasizing that you cannot understand it at all.
  • make head or tail of — to attempt to understand (a problem, etc)
  • make love to someone — to have sexual intercourse with someone
  • mannitol hexanitrate — a colorless, crystalline, water-insoluble, explosive solid, C 6 H 8 N 6 O 1 8 , used as a fulminating agent in percussion caps and in the treatment of hypertension and coronary insufficiency.
  • mare tranquillitatis — (Sea of Tranquillity) a dark plain in the first quadrant of the face of the moon: about 110,000 sq. mi. (285,000 sq. km).
  • margaret of scotland — Saint. 1045–93, queen consort of Malcolm III of Scotland. Her piety and benefactions to the church led to her canonization (1250). Feast days: June 10, Nov 16
  • marginal probability — (in a multivariate distribution) the probability of one variable taking a specific value irrespective of the values of the others
  • maria theresa thaler — a former silver coin of Austria, issued between 1740 and 1780 and used for trade with Ethiopia and other countries; Levant dollar.
  • marquis de lafayette — Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier [ma-ree zhaw-zef pawl eev rawk zheel-ber dy maw-tyey] /maˈri ʒɔˈzɛf pɔl iv rɔk ʒilˈbɛr dü mɔˈtyeɪ/ (Show IPA), Marquis de. Also, La Fayette. 1757–1834, French soldier, statesman, and liberal leader, who served in the American Revolutionary Army as aide-de-camp to General Washington, and took a leading part in the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830.
  • massachusetts ballot — a ballot on which the candidates, with their party designations, are listed alphabetically in columns under the office for which they were nominated.
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