17-letter words containing a, m, p, l, i
- lisp machine lisp — (language) An extension of Maclisp, now called Zetalisp.
- literacy campaign — a campaign designed to reduce illiteracy and promote literacy in a country, area, etc
- load displacement — the weight, in long tons, of a cargo vessel loaded so that the summer load line touches the surface of the water.
- loco primo citato — loc. primo cit.
- logic programming — (artificial intelligence, programming, language) A declarative, relational style of programming based on first-order logic. The original logic programming language was Prolog. The concept is based on Horn clauses. The programmer writes a "database" of "facts", e.g. wet(water). ("water is wet") and "rules", e.g. mortal(X) :- human(X). ("X is mortal is implied by X is human"). Facts and rules are collectively known as "clauses". The user supplies a "goal" which the system attempts to prove using "resolution" or "backward chaining". This involves matching the current goal against each fact or the left hand side of each rule using "unification". If the goal matches a fact, the goal succeeds; if it matches a rule then the process recurses, taking each sub-goal on the right hand side of the rule as the current goal. If all sub-goals succeed then the rule succeeds. Each time a possible clause is chosen, a "choice point" is created on a stack. If subsequent resolution fails then control eventually returns to the choice point and subsequent clauses are tried. This is known as "backtracking". Clauses may contain logic variables which take on any value necessary to make the fact or the left hand side of the rule match a goal. Unification binds these variables to the corresponding subterms of the goal. Such bindings are associated with the choice point at which the clause was chosen and are undone when backtracking reaches that choice point. The user is informed of the success or failure of his first goal and if it succeeds and contains variables he is told what values of those variables caused it to succeed. He can then ask for alternative solutions.
- lumpenproletariat — the lowest level of the proletariat comprising unskilled workers, vagrants, and criminals and characterized by a lack of class identification and solidarity.
- lymphadenopathies — Plural form of lymphadenopathy.
- lymphangiographic — Relating to lymphangiography.
- magnetic monopole — a hypothetical very heavy particle with an isolated magnetic north pole or magnetic south pole.
- make no apologies — If you say that you make no apologies for what you have done, you are emphasizing that you feel that you have done nothing wrong.
- malagasy republic — former name of Madagascar.
- malay archipelago — an extensive island group in the Indian and Pacific oceans, SE of Asia, including the Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and the Philippines.
- malayo-polynesian — a family of languages extending from Madagascar to the central Pacific, including Malagasy, Malay, Indonesian, Tagalog, and Polynesian
- manpower planning — a procedure used in organizations to balance future requirements for all levels of employee with the availability of such employees
- manual typewriter — a keyboard machine, operated entirely by hand, for writing mechanically in characters resembling print
- maximum principle — the theorem that a function of a complex variable that is analytic in a domain and on its boundary attains its maximum absolute value on the boundary.
- mean proportional — (between two numbers a and b) a number x for which a/x = x/b : The number 3 is a mean proportional between 1 and 9.
- mechanical pencil — a pencil for holding lead that can be extended by mechanical means.
- medical procedure — A medical procedure is a medical treatment or operation.
- meissen porcelain — Dresden china.
- melissopalynology — The study of honey and its composition.
- mental impairment — (in England, according to the Mental Health Act 1983) a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind, which includes significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning and is associated with abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct
- mentally impaired — with reduced or weakened mental capacity
- metabolic pathway — biochemistry: sequence of reactions within a cell or organism
- metalloproteinase — (enzyme) Any of several proteinases that have a metal atom (often zinc) at their active centre.
- microencapsulated — Encapsulated using microencapsulation.
- micromanipulation — the technique of performing mechanical operations under high magnification through the use of specialized tools.
- micromanipulators — Plural form of micromanipulator.
- micropaleontology — the branch of paleontology dealing with the study of microscopic fossils.
- middle-age spread — an increase in bulk, especially in the waist and buttocks, associated with the onset of middle age and the body's decreasing ability to metabolize calories efficiently.
- midsagittal plane — a plane passing through the nasion when the skull is oriented in the Frankfurt horizontal.
- mississippi delta — an area between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers in the northwest of the state of Mississippi; it is very flat and fertile
- mongolian hot pot — a stewlike dish of sliced meat, seafood, and vegetables cooked together in hot broth, often in a clay pot, and seasoned with a hot sauce.
- mounted policeman — policemen who patrol on horseback
- multidisciplinary — composed of or combining several usually separate branches of learning or fields of expertise: a multidisciplinary study of the 18th century.
- multiple integral — an integral in which the integrand involves a function of more than one variable and which requires for evaluation repetition of the integration process.
- multiple-unit car — a self-propelled railroad car, generally used in commuting service, equipped so that a train of such cars can be operated from any one of them.
- multipotentiality — The capacity to develop in multiple ways; the state of having multiple potentialities.
- muscle dysmorphia — a mental disorder primarily affecting males, characterized by obsessions about a perceived lack of muscularity, leading to compulsive exercising, use of anabolic steroids, etc. Compare body dysmorphic disorder.
- nephelometrically — By means of nephelometry.
- non-thermoplastic — soft and pliable when heated, as some plastics, without any change of the inherent properties.
- nonaccomplishment — Something that does not achieve the intended goal.
- office by example — (language) (OBE) A sequel to QBE, described in publications by Moshe Zloof of IBM in the early 1980s but apparently never implemented.
- olympic mountains — a mountain range in NW Washington: part of the Coast Range. Highest peak: Mount Olympus, 2427 m (7965 ft)
- olympic peninsula — a large peninsula of W Washington
- omphalomesenteric — (anatomy) Of or pertaining to the umbilicus and mesentery.
- one-parent family — A one-parent family is a family that consists of one parent and his or her children living together.
- onomatopoetically — the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.
- optical astronomy — the branch of observational astronomy using telescopes to observe or photograph celestial objects in visible light.
- optical computing — (hardware) (Or "Optical Signal Processing") Operating on data represented using electromagnetic radiation, e.g. visible light, instead of the electrical signals used in a conventional electronic digital computer. Electronic digital computers are built from transistors. These form components that store data and logic gates that perform the low-level Boolean operations such as AND, OR and NOT that are the basis of all digital computation. The optical equivalent requires material with a non-linear refractive index such that light beams can interact with each other to perform the same Boolean operations. Though the photons that carry optical signals offer some theoretical advantages over the electrons that carry electronic signals, there are many practical problems that would have to be overcome before optical computing could compete in terms of cost, power and speed.