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22-letter words containing a, m, t, e, r, o

  • manhattan clam chowder — a chowder made from clams, tomatoes, and other vegetables and seasoned with thyme.
  • manner of articulation — the degree of obstruction or the type of channel imposed upon the passage of air at a given place of articulation, as denoted by such categories as stop, fricative, nasal, and semivowel.
  • master warrant officer — a noncommissioned officer in the Canadian forces junior to a chief warrant officer
  • matrix math extensions — (processor)   (MMX) (NOT an acronym for "MultiMedia eXtension", according to Intel, but an Intel brand name) A set of 57 extra instructions built into some versions of Intel's Pentium microprocessors for supporting SIMD operations on multimedia and communications data types. MMX-enhanced processors are due to be released early in 1997. They will be fully compatible with previous Intel processors and software but software will only benefit if it is written to use the new instructions. They can handle many common multimedia operations, such as digital signal processing, normally handled by a separate sound card or video card.
  • memory management unit — (hardware, memory management)   (MMU, "Paged Memory Management Unit", PMMU) A hardware device or circuit that supports virtual memory and paging by translating virtual addresses into physical addresses. The virtual address space (the range of addresses used by the processor) is divided into pages, whose size is 2^N, usually a few kilobytes. The bottom N bits of the address (the offset within a page) are left unchanged. The upper address bits are the (virtual) page number. The MMU contains a page table which is indexed (possibly associatively) by the page number. Each page table entry (PTE) gives the physical page number corresponding to the virtual one. This is combined with the page offset to give the complete physical address. A PTE may also include information about whether the page has been written to, when it was last used (for a least recently used replacement algorithm), what kind of processes (user mode, supervisor mode) may read and write it, and whether it should be cached. It is possible that no physical memory (RAM) has been allocated to a given virtual page, in which case the MMU will signal a "page fault" to the CPU. The operating system will then try to find a spare page of RAM and set up a new PTE to map it to the requested virtual address. If no RAM is free it may be necessary to choose an existing page, using some replacement algorithm, and save it to disk (this is known as "paging"). There may also be a shortage of PTEs, in which case the OS will have to free one for the new mapping. In a multitasking system all processes compete for the use of memory and of the MMU. Some memory management architectures allow each process to have its own area or configuration of the page table, with a mechanism to switch between different mappings on a process switch. This means that all processes can have the same virtual address space rather than require load-time relocation. An MMU also solves the problem of fragmentation of memory. After blocks of memory have been allocated and freed, the free memory may become fragmented (discontinuous) so that the largest contiguous block of free memory may be much smaller than the total amount. With virtual memory, a contiguous range of virtual addresses can be mapped to several non-contiguous blocks of physical memory. In early designs memory management was performed by a separate integrated circuit such as the MC 68851 used with the Motorola 68020 CPU in the Macintosh II or the Z8015 used with the Zilog Z80 family of processors. Later CPUs such as the Motorola 68030 and the ZILOG Z280 have MMUs on the same IC as the CPU.
  • microwave spectroscopy — the determination of those frequencies of the microwave spectrum that are selectively absorbed by certain materials, providing information about atomic, molecular, and crystalline structure.
  • miscarriage of justice — law: wrongful judgement
  • molecular distillation — a vacuum distillation in which the molecules of the distillate reach the condenser before colliding with one another.
  • mother carey's chicken — any of various small petrels, especially the stormy petrel, Oceanites oceanicus.
  • motorcycle combination — a motorcycle with a sidecar attached
  • mountain standard time — one of the standard times used in North America, seven hours behind Greenwich Mean Time
  • mutton dressed as lamb — If you describe a woman as mutton dressed as lamb, you are criticizing her for trying to look younger than she really is, in a way that you consider unattractive.
  • national semiconductor — (company)   A semiconductor manufacturer, responsible for the SC/MP, National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000 series of microprocessors.
  • negative reinforcement — form of conditioning
  • nominal semidestructor — (abuse)   Slang for "National Semiconductor", found among other places in the 4.3BSD networking sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed a series of microprocessors including the National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000. At one point early in the great microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made them look like serious competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series. Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and never implemented the full instruction set promised in their literature, apparently because the company couldn't get any of the mask steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without trace, joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors.
  • non-euclidean geometry — geometry based upon one or more postulates that differ from those of Euclid, especially from the postulate that only one line may be drawn through a given point parallel to a given line.
  • non-maskable interrupt — (NMI) An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680x0 or the NMI line on an 80x86. In contrast with a priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
  • nonmonetary advantages — the beneficial aspects of an employment, such as the stimulation of the work, attractiveness of the workplace, or its nearness to one's home, that do not reflect its financial remuneration
  • nonrepresentationalism — not resembling or portraying any object in physical nature: a nonrepresentational painting.
  • nonterminating decimal — a decimal numeral that does not end in an infinite sequence of zeros (contrasted with terminating decimal).
  • normal order reduction — Under this evaluation strategy an expression is evaluated by reducing the leftmost outermost redex first. This method will terminate for any expression for which termination is possible, whereas applicative order reduction may not. This method is equivalent to passing arguments unevaluated because arguments are initially to the right of functions applied to them. See also computational adequacy theorem.
  • not be sb's department — If you say that a task or area of knowledge is not your department, you mean that you are not responsible for it or do not know much about it.
  • oak processionary moth — a moth, (Thaumetopoea processionea), of the family Thaumetopoeidae, the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • of the first magnitude — of the greatest importance
  • on the part of someone — as far as someone is concerned
  • open-market operations — the purchase and sale on the open market of government securities by the Bank of England for the purpose of regulating the supply of money and credit to the economy
  • operation desert storm — the codename for the US-led UN operation to liberate Kuwait from Iraq (1991)
  • overstay one's welcome — to stay (at a party, on a visit, etc), longer than pleases the host or hostess
  • parker morris standard — (in Britain) a set of minimum criteria for good housing construction, design, and facilities, recommended by the 1961 report of the Central Housing Advisory Committee chaired by Sir Parker Morris. Subsequent governments have urged private and local authority house-builders to achieve these standards
  • parliamentary election — an election to select the members of a national parliament
  • planetary transmission — A planetary transmission is a special form of geared drive in which the input and output shafts are on the same axis.
  • point of sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
  • point-of-sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
  • polymyalgia rheumatica — a chronic inflammatory disease, common among older persons, characterized by recurrent episodes of muscle pain and stiffness, sometimes leading to cardiovascular complications or blindness.
  • post office department — former name of United States Postal Service.
  • postmortem examination — dissection and examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death
  • potassium ferricyanide — a bright-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 3 Fe(CN) 6 , used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments, as Prussian blue, and of paper, especially blueprint paper.
  • potassium ferrocyanide — a lemon-yellow, crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 4 Fe(CN) 6 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in casehardening alloys having an iron base and in dyeing wool and silk.
  • potassium permanganate — a very dark purple, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KMnO 4 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent, disinfectant, laboratory reagent, and in medicine as an astringent and antiseptic.
  • preestablished harmony — (in the philosophy of Leibnitz) synchronous operation of all monads, since their simultaneous creation, in accordance with the preexisting plan of God.
  • primate of all england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
  • private-equity company — an organization that uses private equity to gain control of and manage companies
  • process cinematography — cinematography in which the main or foreground action or scene is superimposed on or combined with simulated or separately filmed background action or scenery to produce special visual effects.
  • procurement department — the department of (a company, organization, etc) responsible for purchasing and buying
  • productivity agreement — an agreement whereby the employees of an organization agree to changes which are intended to improve productivity in return for an increase in pay or other benefits
  • programmed instruction — a progressively monitored, step-by-step teaching method, employing small units of information or learning material and frequent testing, whereby the student must complete or pass one stage before moving on to the next.
  • protestant reformation — reformation (def 2).
  • public domain software — public domain
  • pulmonary tuberculosis — tuberculosis of the lungs.
  • range of accommodation — the range of distance over which an object can be accurately focused on the retina by accommodation of the eye.
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