20-letter words containing a, n, t, i, c, l
- incremental analysis — (testing) Partial analysis of an incomplete product to allow early feedback on its development.
- incremental recorder — a device for recording data as it is generated, usually on paper tape or magnetic tape, and feeding it into a computer
- industrial democracy — control of an organization by the people who work for it, esp by workers holding positions on its board of directors
- industrial insurance — industrial life insurance.
- industrial sociology — the sociological study of social relationships and social structures in business settings.
- inelastic scattering — a scattering of particles due to an inelastic collision that also changes their wavelengths and phases.
- insulin-coma therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
- intercalary meristem — meristem in the internode of a stem.
- international candle — candle (def 3b).
- international gothic — a style of Gothic art, especially painting, developed in Europe in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, chiefly characterized by details carefully delineated in a naturalistic manner, elongated and delicately modeled forms, the use of complex perspective, and an emphasis on the decorative or ornamental aspect of drapery, foliage, or setting.
- interplanetary space — the region of space occurring around the sun and planets of the solar system. The density is normally negligible although cosmic rays, meteorites, gas clouds, etc, can occur
- into/in cold storage — If you put an idea or plan into cold storage or in cold storage, you delay it for a while rather than acting on it as you originally intended.
- java virtual machine — (language, architecture) (JVM) A specification for software which interprets Java programs that have been compiled into byte-codes, and usually stored in a ".class" file. The JVM instruction set is stack-oriented, with variable instruction length. Unlike some other instruction sets, the JVM's supports object-oriented programming directly by including instructions for object method invocation (similar to subroutine call in other instruction sets). The JVM itself is written in C and so can be ported to run on most platforms. It needs thread support and I/O (for dynamic class loading). The Java byte-code is independent of the platform. There are also some hardware implementations of the JVM.
- joint life insurance — life insurance covering two or more persons, the benefits of which are paid after the first person dies.
- la canada-flintridge — a town in SW California.
- lacto-ovo-vegetarian — Also called lactovarian [lak-tuh-vair-ee-uh n] /ˌlæk təˈvɛər i ən/ (Show IPA), ovolactarian, ovo-lacto-vegetarian. a vegetarian whose diet includes dairy products and eggs.
- last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
- law of contradiction — the law that a proposition cannot be both true and false or that a thing cannot both have and not have a given property.
- lead with one's chin — to act so imprudently as to invite disaster
- lieutenant commander — a commissioned officer ranking next below a commander and next above a lieutenant.
- life-support machine — A life-support machine is the equipment that is used to keep a person alive when they are very ill and cannot breathe without help.
- lifetime achievement — the notable successes that someone achieves during their life
- like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
- linguistic geography — dialect geography.
- linguistic universal — language universal.
- logarithmic function — a function defined by y = log bx, especially when the base, b, is equal to e, the base of natural logarithms.
- logical construction — anything referred to by an incomplete symbol capable of contextual definition.
- logical link control — (networking) (LLC) The upper portion of the data link layer, as defined in IEEE 802.2. The LLC sublayer presents a uniform interface to the user of the data link service, usually the network layer. Beneath the LLC sublayer is the Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer.
- long island iced tea — a potent cocktail consisting of equal parts of, typically, five different distilled alcoholic liquors, usually vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and triple sec, with a small amount of mixer, usually cola
- longitude by account — the longitude of the position of a vessel as estimated by dead reckoning.
- longitudinal section — the representation of an object as it would appear if cut by the vertical plane passing through the longest axis of the object.
- macular degeneration — degeneration of the central portion of the retina, resulting in a loss of sharp vision.
- madwoman of chaillot — a satirical comedy (1945) by Jean Giraudoux.
- magnetic declination — variation (def 8).
- magnetic inclination — to plunge (something, as a cloth or sponge) temporarily into a liquid, so as to moisten it, dye it, or cause it to take up some of the liquid: He dipped the brush into the paint bucket.
- magneto-optical disk — (hardware, storage) (MO) A plastic or glass disk coated with a compound (often TbFeCo) with special optical, magnetic and thermal properties. The disk is read by bouncing a low-intensity laser off the disk. Originally the laser was infrared, but frequencies up to blue may be possible giving higher storage density. The polarisation of the reflected light depends on the polarity of the stored magnetic field. To write, a higher intensity laser heats the coating up to its Curie point, allowing its magnetisation to be altered in a way that is retained when it has cooled. Although optical, they appear as hard drives to the operating system and do not require a special filesystem (they can be formatted as FAT, HPFS, NTFS, etc.). The initial 5.25" MO drives, introduced at the end of the 1980s, were the size of a full-height 5.25" hard drive (like in IBM PC XT) and the disks looked like a CD-ROM enclosed in an old-style cartridge In 2006, a 3.5" drive has the size of 1.44 megabyte diskette drive with disks about the size of a regular 1.44MB floppy disc but twice the thickness.
- material equivalence — equivalence (def 4b).
- material implication — equivalence (def 4a).
- material-equivalence — the state or fact of being equivalent; equality in value, force, significance, etc.
- mechanical advantage — the ratio of output force to the input force applied to a mechanism.
- media access control — (networking) (MAC) The lower sublayer of the OSI data link layer. The interface between a node's Logical Link Control and the network's physical layer. The MAC differs for various physical media. See also MAC Address, Ethernet, IEEE 802.3, token ring.
- medical practitioner — doctor
- medical underwriting — Medical underwriting is the use of medical or health status information in the evaluation of an applicant for life or health insurance.
- menstrual extraction — an abortion procedure involving suction aspiration of the uterine contents early in gestation, before the first missed menstrual period: sometimes performed later.
- meta-dichlorobenzene — a colorless liquid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , soluble in alcohol and ether: used as a fumigant and insecticide.
- microcrystalline wax — Microcrystalline wax is a wax used as a stiffening agent and as a coating agent for tablets and capsules.
- middle-distance race — a race of a length between the sprints and the distance events, esp the 800 metres and the 1500 metres
- missionary apostolic — an honorary title conferred by the pope on certain missionaries.
- mitral insufficiency — abnormal closure of the mitral valve resulting in regurgitation of blood into the atrium and leading to reduced heart function or heart failure.
- molecular geneticist — a specialist in the study of the molecular constitution of genes and chromosomes