23-letter words containing a, n, d, r, o, s
- one-hundred share index — the average prices for shares of the largest, most actively traded, 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange
- order of the visitation — a religious order of nuns founded in 1610 by St Francis of Sales and dedicated to contemplation and the cultivation of humility, gentleness, and sisterly love
- ordinary life insurance — life insurance with premiums paid throughout the lifetime of the insured.
- orthodox eastern church — Eastern Orthodox Church
- parasexual reproduction — reproduction by recombination of genes from genetically dissimilar nuclei within binucleate or multinucleate cells, as in filamentous fungi.
- parkinson's law of data — "Data expands to fill the space available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of more memory-intensive techniques. It has been observed over the last 10 years that the memory usage of evolving systems tends to double roughly once every 18 months. Fortunately, memory density available for constant dollars also tends to double about once every 12 months (see Moore's Law); unfortunately, the laws of physics guarantee that the latter cannot continue indefinitely.
- percentage distribution — a frequency distribution is which individual frequencies are shown as a percentage of the total frequencies
- peroxymonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- pest control department — the local government department responsible for controlling such pests as rats and mice
- plan position indicator — a radarscope on which an object reflecting radar waves shows its bearing and distance from the radar detector by causing a spot of light to appear on a screen that represents a map of the area around the detector. Abbreviation: PPI.
- positive discrimination — special opportunities
- postcode discrimination — discrimination on the basis of the area where someone lives, with relation to employment, credit rating, etc
- presidential government — a system of government in which the powers of the president are constitutionally separate from those of the legislature.
- process hazard analysis — Process hazard analysis is calculating what might be a hazard in a process, how likely it is to happen, and what should be done if someone or something is exposed to this hazard.
- professional misconduct — a violation of the rules or boundaries set by the governing body of a profession
- profit and loss account — income account (def 2).
- program design language — Any of a large class of formal and profoundly useless pseudo-languages in which management forces one to design programs. Too often, management expects PDL descriptions to be maintained in parallel with the code, imposing massive overhead of little or no benefit. See also flow chart.
- psychomotor retardation — a generalized slowing of psychological and physical activity, frequently occurring as a symptom of severe depression.
- quantum electrodynamics — the quantum field theory that deals with the electromagnetic field and its interaction with electrons and positrons. Abbreviation: QED.
- quantum flavourdynamics — a gauge theory of the electromagnetic and weak interactions
- queen charlotte islands — a group of about 150 islands off the W coast of Canada: part of British Columbia. Pop: about 6000 (latest est). Area: 9596 sq km (3705 sq miles)
- quod erat demonstrandum — (at the conclusion of a proof, esp of a theorem in Euclidean geometry) which was to be proved
- quote chapter and verse — [by analogy with the mainstream phrase] To cite a relevant excerpt from an appropriate bible. "I don't care if "rn" gets it wrong; "Followup-To: poster" is explicitly permitted by RFC 1036. I'll quote chapter and verse if you don't believe me." See also legalese, language lawyer, RTFS (sense 2).
- rank outsider/outsiders — If one of the people in a competition is described as a rank outsider, they are considered to have very little chance of winning.
- real simple syndication — (spelling) Illiterate form of Really Simple Syndication.
- rectangular coordinates — Usually, rectangular coordinates. either of two Cartesian coordinates in which the axes meet at right angles.
- refinery waste disposal — Refinery waste disposal is the system for dealing with waste materials, especially hazardous ones, in a refinery.
- route of administration — A route of administration is the means by which a drug or agent enters the body, such as by mouth or by injection.
- russian orthodox church — the national Church of Russia, constituting a branch of the Eastern Church, presided over by the Patriarch of Moscow
- sb doesn't miss a trick — If you say that someone does not miss a trick, you mean that they always know what is happening and take advantage of every situation.
- school (crossing) guard — a person, either an adult or an older student, whose duty it is to help children cross streets near schools safely
- secondary modern school — (formerly) a secondary school offering a more technical or practical and less academic education than a grammar school
- secondary seventh chord — a chord formed by superposition of three thirds upon any degree of the scale except the dominant.
- secondary sex character — any of a number of manifestations, as development of breasts or beard, muscularity, distribution of fat tissue, and change of pitch in voice, specific to each sex and incipient at puberty but not essential to reproduction.
- security association id — (networking) (SAID) A 32-bit field added to packet headers for encryption and authentication in the proposed Internet Protocol Version 6.
- self-addressed envelope — addressed to self
- severinus de monzambano — Samuel von [zah-moo-uh l fuh n] /ˈzɑ mu əl fən/ (Show IPA), ("Severinus de Monzambano") 1632–94, German jurist and historian.
- sheltered accommodation — housing specially designed to provide a safe environment for the elderly, handicapped, or disabled, often with some shared facilities and a caretaker
- short-billed marsh wren — sedge wren.
- sierra madre occidental — the system of mountains in the west of Mexico
- social education centre — a daycentre, run by a local authority, for people with learning disabilities and sometimes also for people who have physical disabilities or are mentally ill
- somaliland protectorate — official name of the former British Somaliland.
- st. pierre and miquelon — two small groups of islands off the S coast of Newfoundland: an overseas territory of France; important base for fishing. 3 sq. mi. (240 sq. km). Capital: St. Pierre.
- standard widget toolkit — (graphics, programming, standard) (SWT) The Eclipse Foundation's framework for developing graphical user interfaces in Java. SWT is written in explicitly standard Java but uses the Java Native Interface to talk to a platform-native GUI library. SWT is the third major attempt to give Java a decent GUI framework, following AWT and Swing. Of the three, SWT is the most consistent with the native GUIs but its programming model is hard to port to non-Windows platforms.
- state coordinate system — a system of right-angled planar coordinates established by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for each state in the United States.
- state-trading countries — countries whose export and import trading is government controlled
- steal someone's thunder — to strike, drive, inflict, give forth, etc., with loud noise or violent action.
- straight bill of lading — a bill of lading that is issued to a specified consignee for the delivery of the goods and that cannot be endorsed to another party.
- take into consideration — take account of, allow for
- take sth in your stride — In British English, if you take a problem or difficulty in your stride, you deal with it calmly and easily. The American expression is take something in stride.