19-letter words containing a, n, c, t
- meningoencephalitis — Inflammation of the membranes of the brain and the adjoining cerebral tissue.
- mercator projection — a conformal projection on which any rhumb line is represented as a straight line, used chiefly in navigation, though the scale varies with latitude and areal size and the shapes of large areas are greatly distorted.
- meter-candle-second — a unit of light-exposure equivalent to one lux for one second.
- metropolitan county — (in England) any of the six conurbations established as administrative units in the new local government system in 1974; the metropolitan county councils were abolished in 1986
- mexican bean beetle — a ladybird beetle, Epilachna varivestis, introduced into the U.S. from Mexico, that feeds on the foliage of the bean plant.
- microelectronically — by microcircuits
- miniature schnauzer — one of a German breed of sturdily built terriers resembling a smaller version of the standard schnauzer, having a wiry, pepper-and-salt, black, or black-and-silver coat, a rectangular head, bushy whiskers, and a docked tail, and originally developed as a farm dog but now raised primarily as a pet.
- miscellaneous items — various kinds of thing, esp small purchases
- mischaracterization — The act of characterizing something in an inaccurate or misleading way.
- molecular astronomy — the branch of astronomy dealing with the study of molecules in space.
- monoclonal antibody — antibody produced by a laboratory-grown cell clone, either of a hybridoma or a virus-transformed lymphocyte, that is more abundant and uniform than natural antibody and is able to bind specifically to a single site on almost any chosen antigen or reveal previously unknown antigen sites: used as an analytic tool in scientific research and medical diagnosis and potentially important in the treatment of certain diseases. Abbreviation: MAb.
- moses-in-the-cradle — a plant, Rhoeo spathacea, native to the West Indies and Central America, having leaves with purple undersides and white flowers enclosed in a boat-shaped envelope formed by two bracts.
- motivation research — the application of the knowledge and techniques of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology, to understanding consumer attitudes and behavior: used as a guide in advertising and marketing.
- mountain chinchilla — any of several long-tailed rodents of the genus Lagidium, having coarse poor quality fur
- multiplexor channel — (MPX) mainframe terminology for a slow peripheral device connection, e.g. for a printer, operator console, or card reader.
- multiplication sign — Arithmetic. the symbol (⋅), (×), or (∗) between two mathematical expressions, denoting multiplication of the second expression by the first. In certain algebraic notations the sign is suppressed and multiplication is indicated by immediate juxtaposition or contiguity, as in ab.
- music to one's ears — something that is very pleasant to hear
- mutual fund company — a company that sells and manages mutual funds
- narcotics anonymous — an organization that helps drug users recover from drug addiction
- nasty piece of work — malicious person
- national assistance — (in Britain) formerly a weekly allowance paid to certain people by the state to bring their incomes up to minimum levels established by law
- national characters — (character) Characters with accents and other diacritical marks that are used in certain written languages (that are based on the Roman alphabet) but not in others, particularly not in English. A standard list is ISO Latin 1.
- national coal board — a statutory corporation set up to run Britain's nationalised coal mining industry between 1947 and 1994, at which time the industry was privatized
- national convention — French History. the legislature of France 1792–95.
- national curriculum — The National Curriculum is the course of study that most school pupils in England and Wales are meant to follow between the ages of 5 and 16.
- national serviceman — a soldier undertaking compulsory military service
- natural catastrophe — A natural catastrophe is an unexpected event, caused by nature, such as an earthquake or flood, in which there is a lot of suffering, damage, or death.
- natural killer cell — a small killer cell that destroys virus-infected cells or tumor cells without activation by an immune system cell or antibody.
- neats vs. scruffies — (artificial intelligence, jargon) The label used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence research. This conflict tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship between human reasoning and AI; "neats" tend to try to build systems that "reason" in some way identifiably similar to the way humans report themselves as doing, while "scruffies" profess not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe that logic is king, while scruffies favour looser, more ad-hoc methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods appear promiscuous, successful only by accident and not productive of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture "common sense" of living intelligences.
- necessary condition — prerequisite
- negative income tax — a system of income subsidy through which persons having less than a certain annual income receive money from the government rather than pay taxes to it.
- negative resistance — a characteristic of certain electronic components in which an increase in the applied voltage increases the resistance, producing a proportional decrease in current
- neighbourhood watch — a scheme under which members of a community agree together to take responsibility for keeping an eye on each other's property, as a way of preventing crime
- nerve growth factor — a protein that promotes the growth, organization, and maintenance of sympathetic and some sensory nerve cells. Abbreviation: NGF.
- neufchâtel (cheese) — a soft white cheese prepared from whole milk or skim milk and eaten fresh or cured
- neuropathologically — In a neuropathologic way.
- new general catalog — a catalog of star clusters, galaxies, and other non-stellar objects, published in 1888
- newcastle upon tyne — 1st Duke of, Pelham-Holles, Thomas.
- newtonian mechanics — the branch of mechanics that is based on Newton's laws of motion and that is applicable to systems that are so large that Planck's constant can be regarded as negligibly small (distinguished from quantum mechanics).
- newtonian telescope — a reflecting telescope in which a mirror or reflecting prism is mounted on the axis near the eyepiece so that the image may be viewed from outside the telescope tube at right angles to the axis.
- no strings attached — without conditions
- no-write allocation — (memory management) A cache policy where only processor reads are cached, thus avoiding the need for write-back or write-through.
- non-confidentiality — spoken, written, acted on, etc., in strict privacy or secrecy; secret: a confidential remark.
- non-confrontational — tending toward or ready for confrontation: They came to the meeting with a confrontational attitude.
- non-contemporaneous — living or occurring during the same period of time; contemporary.
- nonmaterial culture — the aggregate of values, mores, norms, etc., of a society; the ideational structure of a culture that provides the values and meanings by which it functions.
- nonplayer character — a character in a tabletop role-playing game who is controlled by the Game Master.
- north pacific ocean — the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, extending from the equator to the Arctic Ocean.
- north-central state — a state of N Nigeria. Capital: Kaduna. Pop: 4 438 007 (1995 est). Area: 46 053 sq km (17 781 sq miles)
- northwest ordinance — the act of Congress in 1787 providing for the government of the Northwest Territory and setting forth the steps by which its subdivisions might become states.