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21-letter words containing a, m, i, n

  • astronomical twilight — the period of time during which the sun is 18° below the horizon
  • atmospheric inversion — inversion (def 12).
  • atmospheric-inversion — an act or instance of inverting.
  • atomic disintegration — a process resulting in the change of a radioactive nucleus, either by emission of an alpha, beta, or gamma ray or by fission, and producing a change in the original mass, atomic number, or energy
  • atomic unit of length — (in the Bohr atom) the radius of the electron orbit having the lowest energy.
  • automatic hyphenation — (text)   A feature of some word processors which can insert hyphens into words which would otherwise extend beyond the right hand margin of the page. More advanced word processors may have options to control the position of the hyphen, to restrict certain words from being hyphenated, and to allow custom dictionaries of hyphenation points to be built up.
  • averaging light meter — an exposure meter that evaluates light measured from all parts of the picture area to generate an average reading.
  • axiom of countability — the property satisfied by a topological space in which the neighborhood system of each point has a base consisting of a countable number of neighborhoods (first axiom of countability) or the property satisfied by a topological space that has a base for its topology consisting of a countable number of subsets of the space (second axiom of countability)
  • beam in one's own eye — a major moral flaw in oneself which one ignores while criticizing minor faults in others
  • behavior modification — a technique that seeks to modify animal and human behavior through application of the principles of conditioning, in which rewards and reinforcements, or punishments, are used to establish desired habits, or patterns of behavior
  • behind someone's back — without someone's knowledge or consent
  • benzalkonium chloride — a white or yellowish-white, water-soluble mixture of ammonium chloride derivatives having the structure C 8 H 10 NRCl, where R is a mixture of radicals ranging from C 8 H 17 – to C 18 H 37 –, that occurs as an amorphous powder or in gelatinous lumps: used chiefly as an antiseptic and a disinfectant.
  • binding-time analysis — (compiler)   An analysis to identify sub-expressions which can be evaluated at compile-time or where versions of a function can be generated and called which are specialised to certain values of one or more arguments. See partial evaluation.
  • binomial distribution — a statistical distribution giving the probability of obtaining a specified number of successes in a specified number of independent trials of an experiment with a constant probability of success in each. Symbol: Bi (n, p), where n is the number of trials and p the probability of success in each
  • binomial nomenclature — a system for naming plants and animals by means of two Latin names: the first indicating the genus and the second the species to which the organism belongs, as in Panthera leo (the lion)
  • bottom-up programming — a programming technique in which lower-level modules are developed before higher-level modules.
  • brainstorming session — a meeting held for the purpose of intensive discussion to solve problems or generate ideas
  • british north america — (formerly) Canada or its constituent regions or provinces that formed part of the British Empire
  • british standard time — the standard time used in Britain all the year round from 1968 to 1971, set one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and equalling Central European Time
  • bromine pentafluoride — a colorless, corrosive liquid, BrF 5 , used as an oxidizer in liquid rocket propellants.
  • bulletin board system — (communications, application)   (BBS, bboard /bee'bord/, message board, forum; plural: BBSes) A computer and associated software which typically provides an electronic message database where people can log in and leave messages. Messages are typically split into topic groups similar to the newsgroups on Usenet (which is like a distributed BBS). Any user may submit or read any message in these public areas. The term comes from physical pieces of board on which people can pin messages written on paper for general consumption - a "physical bulletin board". Ward Christensen, the programmer and operator of the first BBS (on-line 1978-02-16) called it a CBBS for "computer bulletin board system". Since the rise of the World-Wide Web, the term has become antiquated, though the concept is more popular than ever, with many websites featuring discussion areas where users can post messages for public consumption. Apart from public message areas, some BBSes provided archives of files, personal electronic mail and other services of interest to the system operator (sysop). Thousands of BBSes around the world were run from amateurs' homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each. Although BBSes were traditionally the domain of hobbyists, many connected directly to the Internet (accessed via telnet), others were operated by government, educational, and research institutions. Fans of Usenet or the big commercial time-sharing bboards such as CompuServe, CIX and GEnie tended to consider local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they helped connect hackers and users in the personal-micro and let them exchange code. Use of this term for a Usenet newsgroup generally marks one either as a newbie fresh in from the BBS world or as a real old-timer predating Usenet.
  • bursting at the seams — If a place is very full, you can say that it is bursting at the seams.
  • businessman's holiday — busman's holiday.
  • by fair means or foul — If someone tries to achieve something by fair means or foul, they use every means possible in order to achieve it, and they do not care if their behaviour is dishonest or unfair.
  • carrie chapman l cattCarrie Chapman Lane, 1859–1947, U.S. leader in women's suffrage movements.
  • category merchandiser — A category merchandiser is a person whose job is to maintain stocks, manage displays and promote sales of a certain product category such as footwear.
  • central daylight time — the time observed in the Central Time Zone of the United states when Daylight Savings Time is in effect; GMT -5
  • central european time — the standard time adopted by Western European countries one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, corresponding to British Summer Time
  • central limit theorem — any of several theorems stating that the sum of a number of random variables obeying certain conditions will assume a normal distribution as the number of variables becomes large.
  • central standard time — one of the standard times used in North America, based on the local time of the 90° meridian, six hours behind Greenwich Mean Time
  • charity commissioners — (in Britain) members of a commission constituted to keep a register of charities and control charitable trusts
  • chequebook journalism — Chequebook journalism is the practice of paying people large sums of money for information about crimes or famous people in order to get material for newspaper articles.
  • chief master sergeant — a solider of the highest enlisted rank in the US Air Force
  • chink in one's armour — a small but fatal weakness
  • christmas decorations — decorations of different kinds appropriate to Christmas, such as tinsel, candles, images of angels, etc.
  • class-relation method — (programming)   A design technique based on the concepts of object-oriented programming and the Entity-Relationship model from the French company Softeam.
  • clement of alexandria — Saint. original name Titus Flavius Clemens. ?150–?215 ad, Greek Christian theologian: head of the catechetical school at Alexandria; teacher of Origen. Feast day: Dec 5
  • collimator viewfinder — a type of viewfinder in a camera
  • collins street farmer — a businessman who invests in farms, land, etc
  • combination principle — Ritz combination principle.
  • comfortably-furnished — containing comfortable furniture
  • commercial television — television companies which make money by selling advertising
  • commercial translator — (language)   An English-like pre-COBOL language for business data processing.
  • committal proceedings — a preliminary hearing in a magistrates' court to decide if there is a case to answer
  • committing magistrate — a magistrate who decides if there is enough evidence for a case to proceed
  • common carotid artery — the part of a carotid artery between its origin and its point of division into branches.
  • communication science — the study of ways in which human beings communicate, including speech, gesture, telecommunication systems, publishing and broadcasting media, etc
  • communications server — (operating system)   IBM's rebranding of ACF.
  • community association — (in Britain) an organization of people and groups working for the common good of a neighbourhood, usually operating under a written constitution registered with the Charity Commissioners
  • companionate marriage — a proposed system of trial marriage in which the couple would postpone having children and could be divorced by mutual consent, until a final decision to stay married is reached
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