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20-letter words containing a, m, i

  • anomalous dispersion — a sudden change in the refractive index of a material for wavelengths in the vicinity of absorption bands in the spectrum of the material.
  • anthemius of tralles — c474–c534, Greek mathematician and architect, active in Lydia.
  • anthropomorphization — Endowing with human qualities.
  • anti-intellectualism — a feeling of hostility and dislike towards intellectuals and intellectual activities
  • anti-motion-sickness — combatting the effects of motion sickness
  • anti-supernaturalism — supernatural character or agency.
  • antiauthoritarianism — Opposition to authority; the quality of being antiauthoritarian.
  • antidandruff shampoo — a shampoo that prevents or treats dandruff
  • antidisestablishment — Opposed to the separation of church and state.
  • antidiuretic hormone — vasopressin. Abbreviation: ADH.
  • antimony oxychloride — a white, water-insoluble powder, SbOCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of antimony salts.
  • antimony trifluoride — a white to grayish-white, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble, poisonous solid, SbF 3 , used chiefly in dyeing textiles.
  • antonello da messina — ?1430–?79, Italian painter, born in Sicily. His paintings include St Jerome in His Study and Portrait of a Man
  • appalachian dulcimer — dulcimer (def 2).
  • apple computer, inc. — (company)   Manufacturers of the Macintosh range of personal computers as well as the earlier Apple I, Apple II and Lisa. Founded on 1 April 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Apples were among the first microcomputers. They originally used the 6502 processor and are still being made (August 1994), now using the 65816. The Apple II line, which includes the Apple I, is the longest existing line of microcomputers. Steve Jobs left Apple (involuntarily) and started NeXT and later returned when Apple bought NeXT in late 1997(?). Quarterly sales $2150M, profits $138M (Aug 1994). http://apple.com/.
  • applications program — a program that is written and designed for specific needs or purposes
  • argument from design — the argument for the existence of God based on the assumption that order in the universe implies an orderer and cannot be a natural feature of the universe.
  • aristarchus of samos — 3rd century bc, Greek astronomer who anticipated Copernicus in advancing the theory that the earth revolves around the sun
  • armchair quarterback — a person who is not a quarterback (or general, etc.), but offers opinions and criticism on the performance or decisions of those who are
  • artificial harmonics — harmonics of a note produced on a stringed instrument by lightly touching a stopped sounded string.
  • artificial pacemaker — an electronic device for use in certain cases of heart disease to assume the functions of the natural cardiac pacemaker
  • aschheim-zondek test — a test used to detect whether a woman is pregnant by noting the effect on the ovaries of an immature mouse or rabbit injected with her urine.
  • asian tiger mosquito — a mosquito, Aedes albopictus, native to Asia, that transmits yellow fever and dengue and possibly West Nile virus. Compare yellow-fever mosquito.
  • astatic galvanometer — a galvanometer that is unaffected by the earth's magnetic field and is used for measuring small currents.
  • asymmetrical warfare — warfare between a powerful military force and a weak guerilla force
  • at someone's service — ready to serve or cooperate with someone
  • at the best of times — You say at the best of times when you are making a negative or critical comment to emphasize that it is true even when the circumstances are as favourable as possible.
  • atmospheric pressure — Atmospheric pressure is the pressure of the atmosphere on the Earth's surface.
  • attachment parenting — a style of child rearing aimed at developing a strong emotional bond between the child and primary caregiver. See also attachment (def 3a).
  • audio-lingual method — a technique of foreign-language instruction that emphasizes audio-lingual skills over reading and writing and is characterized by extensive use of pattern practice.
  • automobile insurance — Automobile insurance is insurance coverage for cars.
  • axiomatic set theory — (theory)   One of several approaches to set theory, consisting of a formal language for talking about sets and a collection of axioms describing how they behave. There are many different axiomatisations for set theory. Each takes a slightly different approach to the problem of finding a theory that captures as much as possible of the intuitive idea of what a set is, while avoiding the paradoxes that result from accepting all of it, the most famous being Russell's paradox. The main source of trouble in naive set theory is the idea that you can specify a set by saying whether each object in the universe is in the "set" or not. Accordingly, the most important differences between different axiomatisations of set theory concern the restrictions they place on this idea (known as "comprehension"). NBG (von Neumann-Bernays-Goedel) set theory sort of allows comprehension for all formulae without restriction, but distinguishes between two kinds of set, so that the sets produced by applying comprehension are only second-class sets. NBG is exactly as powerful as ZF, in the sense that any statement that can be formalised in both theories is a theorem of ZF if and only if it is a theorem of ZFC. MK (Morse-Kelley) set theory is a strengthened version of NBG, with a simpler axiom system. It is strictly stronger than NBG, and it is possible that NBG might be consistent but MK inconsistent. ML ("Modern Logic") is to NF as NBG is to ZF. (Its name derives from the title of the book in which Quine introduced an early, defective, form of it). It is stronger than ZF (it can prove things that ZF can't), but if NF is consistent then ML is too.
  • backwards compatible — backward compatibility
  • baggage reclaim area — the place in an airport to which passengers go to recover their baggage after a flight
  • baptism for the dead — the baptism of a living person in the place of and for the sake of one who has died unbaptized: now practiced chiefly by Mormons.
  • barking and dagenham — a borough of E Greater London. Pop: 165 900 (2003 est). Area: 34 sq km (13 sq miles)
  • bartramian sandpiper — upland sandpiper.
  • basal cell carcinoma — a common and usually curable skin cancer that arises from epithelial cells and rarely metastasizes: often associated with overexposure to sunlight.
  • basal metabolic rate — the rate at which heat is produced by the body at rest, 12 to 14 hours after eating, measured in kilocalories per square metre of body surface per hour
  • be in the market for — to wish to buy or acquire
  • beaverhead mountains — a mountain range on the border of E Idaho and SW Montana, in the Bitterroot Range. 10,961 feet (3343 meters).
  • benavente y martinez — Jacinto. 1866–1954, Spanish dramatist and critic, who wrote over 150 plays. Nobel prize for literature 1922
  • benoit b. mandelbrot — Benoit Mandelbrot
  • benztropine mesylate — a synthetic anticholinergic, C 21 H 25 NO⋅CH 4 O 3 S, used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
  • benzyl isoamyl ether — a colorless liquid, C 12 H 18 O, used in soap perfumes.
  • bernese mountain dog — a strong sturdy dog of a breed with a bushy tail and a long silky black coat with reddish-brown and white markings, often used as a working farm dog
  • bigmouth buffalofish — a buffalofish, Ictiobus cyprinellus, found in central North America, characterized by a large mouth.
  • bimodal distribution — a frequency distribution with two modes
  • binary coded decimal — (data)   (BCD, packed decimal) A number representation where a number is expressed as a sequence of decimal digits and then each decimal digit is encoded as a four-bit binary number (a nibble). E.g. decimal 92 would be encoded as the eight-bit sequence 1001 0010. In some cases, the right-most nibble contains the sign (positive or negative). It is easier to convert decimal numbers to and from BCD than binary and, though BCD is often converted to binary for arithmetic processing, it is possible to build hardware that operates directly on BCD.
  • binary-coded decimal — a number in binary code written in groups of four bits, each group representing one digit of the corresponding decimal number
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