24-letter words containing a, n, m, o, r, p
- komi autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the NW Russian Federation in Europe. 145,221 sq. mi. (376,122 sq. km). Capital: Syktyvkar.
- lab for computer science — MIT. http://lcs.mit.edu/.
- make a production out of — to make an unnecessary fuss about
- make one's presence felt — If you make your presence felt, you do something which makes people notice you or pay attention to you.
- mari autonomous republic — autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 8994 sq. mi. (23,294 sq. km). Capital: Ioshkar-Ola.
- master-slave manipulator — any of various devices, guided by the hand of the operator, for imitating the motions and tactile sensitivity of the human hand to a greater or lesser extent: used in situations in which direct handling of the objects or materials involved would be dangerous or impossible.
- minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
- mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
- network operating system — (operating system) (NOS) The operating system on Control Data Corporation's Cyber Computer.
- new programming language — (language) (NEWP) A language which replaced ESPOL on the Burroughs Large System.
- nonparametric statistics — the branch of statistics that studies data measurable on an ordinal or nominal scale, to which arithmetic operations cannot be applied
- not ready for prime time — Usable, but only just so; not very robust; for internal use only. Said of a program or device. Often connotes that the thing will be made more solid Real Soon Now. This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players". It has extra flavour for hackers because of the special (though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of prime time. Compare beta.
- open system architecture — (operating system) (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
- operational requirements — (programming) Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- parliamentary government — government by a body of cabinet ministers who are chosen from and responsible to the legislature and act as advisers to a nominal chief of state.
- people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
- permeability coefficient — the volume of an incompressible fluid that will flow in unit time through a unit cube of a porous substance across which a unit pressure difference is maintained
- photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
- portable document format — (file format) (PDF) The native file format for Adobe Systems' Acrobat. PDF is the file format for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create those documents. A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format. These documents can be one page or thousands of pages, very simple or extremely complex with a rich use of fonts, graphics, colour, and images.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- potentiometric titration — titration in which the end point is determined by measuring the voltage of an electric current of given amperage passed through the solution.
- present company excepted — If you are making a general, unfavourable comment about a particular type of person, and you are with people of that type, you can say 'present company excepted' as a way of making your comment sound more polite.
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- professional programming — paranoid programming
- program information file — (file format) Under Windows, a file providing information on how a non-Windows application program should be run, including how much memory should be allocated to it and what graphics interface it requires.
- progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
- rain on someone's parade — to hinder someone's enjoyment; upset someone's plans
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- rational-emotive therapy — a form of therapy in which a patient is asked to reject irrational attitudes and assumptions in order to deal effectively with stressful situations.
- recommended retail price — the selling price of a product officially suggested by a manufacturer to a retailer
- report program generator — (tool) (RPG) An IBM programming language developed by Wilf Hey at IBM in 1965 for easy production of sophisticated large system reports. RPG is a 3GL similar to COBOL, but more concise and supposedly easier for non-programmers to use. It processes its input one line at a time and does not treat tables as conceptual entities. It was popular on System 34/36 minicomputers. Versions: RPG II, RPG III, RPG/400 for IBM AS/400. MS-DOS versions by California Software and Lattice. Unix version by Unibol. Cross-platform version by J & C Migrations runs on MS-DOS, Windows, AIX, HP-UX, and OS/390. See also CL, OCL.
- representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- reproductive imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
- research and development — the part of a commercial company's activity concerned with applying the results of scientific research to develop new products and improve existing ones
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory
- tear someone off a strip — to rebuke (someone) angrily
- the department of health — a department of the government of the United Kingdom concerned with governmental policy relating to health in England but not elsewhere in the United Kingdom
- to cramp someone's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behaviour in some way.
- to pick someone's brains — If you pick someone's brains, you ask them to help you with a problem because they know more about the subject than you.
- tri-nations championship — (from 1996–2011) the annual tournament in which the national sides representing Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa compete; in 2012 Argentina entered and the competition became the Rugby Championship
- tuva autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Asia: formerly an independent republic in Mongolia. 65,810 sq. mi. (170,500 sq. km). Capital: Kyzyl.
- vaporization temperature — Vaporization temperature is the temperature at which liquid is converted into vapor without any change in temperature.
- visual component library — (programming) VCL A application framework library for Microsoft Windows and Borland Software Corp.'s Delphi and C++Builder rapid application development software. VCL was originally designed for Delphi but is now also used for C++Builder. This replaces OWL Object Windows Library as Borland's Windows C++ framework of choice. VCL encapsulates the C-based Win32 API into a much easier to use, object-oriented form. Like its direct rival, Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), VCL includes classes to create Windows programs. The VCL component class can be inherited to create new VCL components, which are the building blocks of Delphi and C++Builder applications. VCL components are somewhat in competition with ActiveX controls, though a VCL wrapper can be created to make an ActiveX control seem like a VCL component.