26-letter words containing a, n, t, e, p, o
- gastroesophageal sphincter — a ring of smooth muscle fibers connecting the esophagus and stomach.
- general protection failure — (GPF, or General Protection Fault) An addressing error, caught by the processor's memory protection hardware, that cannot be attributed to any expected condition such as a page fault.
- german democratic republic — a former country in central Europe: created in 1949 from the Soviet zone of occupied Germany established in 1945: reunited with West Germany in 1990. 41,827 sq. mi. (108,333 sq. km). Capital: East Berlin.
- german shorthaired pointer — one of a German breed of large sporting dogs having a short hard coat, usually liver or liver and white in color, and a docked tail, used as a versatile hunting dog.
- german wire-haired pointer — one of a German breed of large sporting dogs having a harsh, wiry, flat-lying coat usually liver and white in color, a muzzle with a beard and whiskers, and a docked tail, used as a retrieving pointer.
- get (or have) the drop on — to draw and aim one's gun at (another) more quickly than the person can draw and aim at one
- get (or have) the jump on — to get (or have) an earlier start than and thus have an advantage over
- grand army of the republic — an organization, founded in 1866, composed of men who served in the U.S. Army and Navy during the Civil War: its last member died in 1956. Abbreviation: G.A.R.
- ground-controlled approach — a system in which an observer interprets radar observations of the position of an aircraft and transmits continuous instructions to its pilot for landing. Abbreviation: GCA.
- histocompatibility antigen — any antigen on the surface of tissue or blood cells that provokes the immune response and subsequent rejection when transplanted to an individual of a different antigenic type, thus determining whether the tissues or organs of a donor and recipient are histocompatible.
- hoist with your own petard — If someone who has planned to harm someone else is hoist with their own petard or hoist by their own petard, their plan in fact results in harm to themselves.
- human resources department — the department in an organization dealing with matters involving employees, as hiring, training, labor relations, and benefits.
- human-computer interaction — (software, hardware) (HCI) The study of how humans interact with computers, and how to design computer systems that are easy, quick and productive for humans to use. See also Human-Computer Interface.
- hydrogenated glucose syrup — a syrup produced by the incomplete hydrolysis of starch followed by the hydrogenation of the glucose syrup, and used as a sweetener in confectionery, etc
- integrated data processing — IDP.
- interactive voice response — (communications) (IVR)
A telecommunications system, prevelant with PBX and voice mail systems, that uses a prerecorded database of voice messages to present options to a user, typically over telephone lines. User input is retrieved via DTMF tone key presses. When used in conjunction with voice mail, for example, these systems typically allow users to store, retrieve, and route messages, as well as interact with an underlying database server which may allow for automated transactions and data processing. (15 Sept 1997) - international reply coupon — a coupon that can be exchanged for postage stamps to send a letter to a foreign country. It is used to reimburse a correspondent for postage without having to deal with foreign currencies
- java open language toolkit — (project) (JOLT) A project aimed at providing a freely available and redistributale implementation of Sun Microsystems's Java language and tools.
- javascript object notation — (programming) (JSON) Syntax for serialising JavaScript objects, often used as a data carrier format. JSON is based on a subset of the JavaScript programming language. It uses a file extension of .json and is considered a language-independent data format.
- jump down someone's throat — the passage from the mouth to the stomach or to the lungs, including the pharynx, esophagus, larynx, and trachea.
- keep one's eye on the ball — the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
- knee-high to a grasshopper — very young or very small
- law of multiple proportion — the statement that where two elements can combine to form more than one compound, the ratio by weight of one element to a given weight of the second is usually a small whole number.
- macintosh operating system — (operating system) (Mac OS) Apple Computer, Inc.'s proprietary operating system for their Macintosh family of personal computers. The part of the operating system that simulates the desktop is called "Finder." The multitasking version of Finder was called "MultiFinder" until multitasking was integrated into the core of the OS with the introduction of System 7.0 in 1990. The Macintosh series provides a built-in graphics language, called "QuickDraw", which provides a standard for software developers. Mac OS 8, scheduled for delivery in July 1997, included new human-interface features, increased system stability and performance, a PowerPC processor-native Finder, tighter integration of Internet access through panel-based "assistants," Personal Web Sharing and the ability to run Java applets and programs through Mac OS Run Time for Java. Version 9.2 was the last version of the bespoke Mac OS. The next version, Mac OS X is quite different, being based on Unix. See also Macintosh file system, Macintosh user interface.
- mainstream corporation tax — (in Britain) the balance of the corporation tax formerly paid by a company for an accounting period after the advance corporation tax had been deducted
- mammoth cave national park — a national park in central Kentucky: limestone caverns with onyx formations, stalagmites, and stalactites. 79 sq. mi. (205 sq. km).
- many-worlds interpretation — an interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the idea that every possible event exists in its own world
- mecklenburg-west pomerania — a state of NE Germany, along the Baltic coast: consists of the former state of Mecklenburg and those parts of W Pomerania not incorporated into Poland after World War II: part of East Germany until 1990. Pop: 1 732 000 (2003 est)
- methylene dioxyamphetamine — Pharmacology. MDA.
- metropolitan museum of art — the principal museum in New York City: founded in 1870 and housed in its present premises in Central Park since 1880
- micronetics standard mumps — (MSM) A version of MUMPS for the IBM PC RT and R6000.
- monobasic sodium phosphate — Chemistry. sodium phosphate (def 1).
- monochrome display adapter — (hardware, graphics) (MDA) One of IBM's earliest hardware video display standards for use in IBM PC. MDA can display only monochrome 80*25 text (IBM PC video mode 7). It is now obsolete.
- national merit scholarship — one of some 6000 college scholarships awarded annually since 1956, by the nonprofit, grant-supported National Merit Scholarship Corporation, to high-school students (National Merit Scholars) on the basis of scholastic record, personal character, and score on a test administered nationally.
- national progressive party — Progressive party (def 1).
- new business profit margin — A new business profit margin is a system used by insurers to measure the cost of and profit from writing new policies.
- not touch with a bargepole — to refuse to have anything to do with
- obscene publications squad — a division of the police force which deals with illegal books, pictures, or films which are judged obscene because they deal with sex or violence in a way that is considered offensive to the general public
- official production system — (language) (OPS) The first production system (i.e. rule based) programming language, developed at CMU in 1970 and used for building expert systems. OPS was originally written in Franz Lisp and later ported to other LISP dialects.
- on demand: usu phr after v — If something is available or happens on demand, you can have it or it happens whenever you want it or ask for it.
- open database connectivity — (standard, database) (ODBC) A standard for accessing different database systems. There are interfaces for Visual Basic, Visual C++, SQL and the ODBC driver pack contains drivers for the Access, Paradox, dBase, Text, Excel and Btrieve databases. An application can submit statements to ODBC using the ODBC flavor of SQL. ODBC then translates these to whatever flavor the database understands. ODBC 1.0 was released in September 1992. ODBC is based on Call-Level Interface and was defined by the SQL Access Group. Microsoft was one member of the group and was the first company to release a commercial product based on its work (under Microsoft Windows) but ODBC is not a Microsoft standard (as many people believe). ODBC drivers and development tools are available now for Microsoft Windows, Unix, OS/2, and Macintosh.
- open document architecture — (standard) (ODA) ISO standard (8613) for describing documents. It allows text, graphics, and facsimile documents to be transferred between different systems.
- paraconsistent probability — (logic) A notion introduced by Florentin Smarandache: The probability (T, I, F) that an event occurs is calculated from different sources which may be contradictory or may overlap information; here T, I, F are real subsets representing the truth, indeterminacy, and falsity percentages respectively, and n_sup = sup(T)+sup(I)+sup(F) > 100. See neutrosophic probability
- parent teacher association — an organization of teachers and the parents of their students, as within a public school, to promote mutual understanding and to increase the effectiveness of the educational program. Abbreviation: PTA, P.T.A.
- parent-teacher association — an organization of teachers and the parents of their students, as within a public school, to promote mutual understanding and to increase the effectiveness of the educational program. Abbreviation: PTA, P.T.A.
- pellagra-preventive factor — nicotinic acid or its amide, nicotinamide, being the vitamin-B-complex members that serve to prevent pellagra.
- period-luminosity relation — the relationship between the period of light variation and of the absolute magnitude of Cepheid variable stars.
- personal digital assistant — a handheld computer, often pen-based, that provides especially organizational software, as an appointment calendar, and communications hardware, as a fax modem. Abbreviation: PDA.
- physical transport network — (communications) (PTN) The actual hardware through which data transfer devices are connected.
- pin the tail on the donkey — a children's party game in which a blindfolded player, holding a paper tail, is turned around several times before a large picture of a tailless donkey that the player then attempts to locate in order to pin the tail in place.