20-letter words containing a, n, d, i
- microwave background — a background of microwave electromagnetic radiation with a black-body spectrum discovered in 1965, understood to be the thermal remnant of the big bang with which the universe began
- middle-distance race — a race of a length between the sprints and the distance events, esp the 800 metres and the 1500 metres
- minimum lending rate — the official interest rate charged by the Bank of England and below which it will refrain from lending money.
- modify a reservation — If you modify a reservation, you change a detail of a booking because someone who has booked a room has asked you to.
- monosodium glutamate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 5 H 8 NNaO 4 ⋅H 2 O, used to intensify the flavor of foods.
- motor neuron disease — Motor neuron disease is a disease which destroys the part of a person's nervous system that controls movement.
- multicast addressing — Ethernet addressing scheme used to send packets to devices of a certain type or for broadcasting to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
- multimedia extension — Matrix Math eXtensions
- multistep hydroplane — a motorship having a flat bottom built as a series of planes inclined forward, the ship planing on each from stem to stern as its speed increases.
- mum-and-dad investor — a small-scale non-professional investor
- neighbourhood warden — a person employed by a local authority to patrol residential areas and deal with antisocial behaviour
- nemine contradicente — no one contradicting; unanimously.
- net national product — the gross national product less allowance for depreciation of capital goods. Abbreviation: NNP.
- netherlands antilles — a Netherlands overseas territory in the Caribbean Sea, N and NE of Venezuela; includes the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, and St. Eustatius, and the S part of St. Martin: considered an integral part of the Dutch realm. 366 sq. mi. (948 sq. km). Capital: Willemstad.
- new democratic party — the Canadian social democratic party formed in 1961
- new siberian islands — an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, off the N mainland of Russia, in the Sakha Republic. Area: about 37 555 sq km (14 500 sq miles)
- niemann-pick disease — a rare, hereditary lipid-storage disease, occurring primarily among Ashkenazic Jews, in which abnormal lipid metabolism results in enlargement of the liver, spleen, and lymph nodes, and in progressive mental and physical deterioration.
- nineteenth amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1920, guaranteeing women the right to vote.
- nodding acquaintance — a slight, incomplete, or superficial knowledge (of something or someone): He had only a nodding acquaintance with Italian and didn't trust it to get him through the tour. Although we were neighbors for several years, we had only a nodding acquaintance.
- nonaccidental injury — damage, such as a bruise, burn, or fracture, deliberately inflicted on a child or an old person
- nondirective therapy — client-centered therapy.
- noninstitutionalized — Not institutionalized.
- nonrepeating decimal — a decimal representation of any irrational number, having the property that no sequence of digits is repeated ad infinitum.
- north atlantic drift — an ocean current flowing NE toward the British Isles, formed by the convergence of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current SE of Newfoundland.
- north canadian river — a river in NE New Mexico, E Texas, and E Oklahoma, flowing SE to the Canadian River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
- north richland hills — a town in N Texas.
- northern white cedar — any of several chiefly coniferous trees valued for their wood, especially Chamaecyparis thyoides, of the eastern U.S., or Thuja occidentalis (northern white cedar) of northeastern North America.
- nostalgie de la boue — a desire for or attraction to crudity, vulgarity, depravity, etc.
- notre dame mountains — a mountain range in E Quebec, Canada, an extension of the Green Mountains in Vermont and a portion of the Appalachian Mountains: about 500 miles (800 km) long, rising about 2000 feet (610 meters).
- occupational disease — Also called industrial disease. a disease caused by the conditions or hazards of a particular occupation.
- ode on a grecian urn — a poem (1819) by Keats.
- ode to a nightingale — a poem (1819) by Keats.
- on the drawing board — in the planning stage
- on the shady side of — beyond (a given age); older than
- one's heart's desire — If you say that someone or something is your heart's desire, you mean that you want that person or thing very much.
- operant conditioning — conditioning (def 1).
- operating conditions — Operating conditions are a set of conditions for operating a particular system or process.
- operational database — (database) A database containing up-to-date, modifiable data, in contrast to a decision support database.
- operator overloading — overloading
- optical mark reading — the reading of marks by an optical device whereby the information can be stored in machine-readable form
- order bill of lading — a bill of lading that is issued to the order of a shipper or consignee for delivery of the goods and that can be transferred by endorsement to third parties.
- oxyacetylene welding — welding using an oxyacetylene burner
- packed like sardines — If you say that a crowd of people are packed like sardines, you are emphasizing that they are sitting or standing so close together that they cannot move easily.
- paint the town (red) — to go on a boisterous spree; carouse
- pappus of alexandria — 3rd century bc, Greek mathematician, whose eight-volume Synagoge is a valuable source of information about Greek mathematics
- para-dichlorobenzene — a white, crystalline, volatile, water-insoluble solid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , of the benzene series, having a penetrating odor: used chiefly as a moth repellent.
- paranoid programming — (programming) A programming style that tries to prepare for the worst external conditions, including incorrect input, resource limitations, hardware and software failure and even can't happen errors, to the fullest possible extent. While some believe in the motto "professional programming is paranoid programming", the expression usually has the connotation that the efforts are unnecessary or too costly ("Maybe this code is just paranoid programming, but I think it is necessary to avoid a possible overflow condition".)
- parataxic distortion — a distortion in perception, especially of interpersonal relationships, based on a tendency to perceive others in accordance with a pattern determined by previous experiences.
- parkinson's syndrome — a complex of symptoms indistinguishable from Parkinson's disease, commonly affecting boxers or sometimes occurring as a result of substance abuse or an encephalitic infection.
- partial differential — an expression obtained from a given function of several variables by taking the partial derivative with respect to one of the variables and multiplying by the increment in that variable.