24-letter words containing a, n, t, s, y

internal auditory meatus — the canal extending through the petrous portion of the temporal bone, through which the glossopharyngeal nerve, the facial nerve, and the auditory nerve and artery pass.
involuntary manslaughter — the unlawful but unintentional killing of a human being
irritable bowel syndrome — any combination of common disturbances of the bowel, as diarrhea or constipation, occurring with abdominal pain, sometimes accompanied by psychological stress. Abbreviation: IBS.
iterated function system — (graphics) (IFS) A class of fractals that yield natural-looking forms like ferns or snowflakes. Iterated Function Systems use a very easy transformation that is done recursively.
keyed sequenced data set — (database) (KSDS) One of the access methods used by VSAM. KSDS has indexes and data split into CI (Control Interval) in CA (Control Area) and multi index levelled. Forward and backward compression is applied to key values.
lady washington geranium — show geranium.
laryngotracheobronchitis — A respiratory disease, a form of croup.
lay something on someone — to tell something to someone
lead someone by the nose — to make someone do unquestioningly all one wishes; dominate someone
lease with option to buy — A lease with option to buy is a lease that states that the person leasing the property has the right to purchase it at the end of the lease period.
m technology association — (body) The MUMPS User's Group that disbanded some time between 1995 and 2003. Address: 1738 Elton Road, Suite 205, Silver Spring, MD 20903-1725, USA. Telephone: +1 301 431-4070. Fax: +1 301 431-0017.
minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
motorway service station — an establishment off a motorway where drivers can refuel their vehicles, buy food, drink, etc
mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
narcissistic personality — a personality disorder characterized by extreme self-centeredness and self-absorption, fantasies involving unrealistic goals, an excessive need for attention and admiration, and disturbed interpersonal relationships.
network operating system — (operating system) (NOS) The operating system on Control Data Corporation's Cyber Computer.
neutrosophic probability — (logic) An extended form of probability based on Neutrosophy, in which a statement is held to be t true, i indeterminate, and f false, where t, i, f are real values from the ranges T, I, F, with no restriction on T, I, F or the sum n=t+i+f.
object management system — In an IPSE, the system which maintains information about the system under development.
object-oriented analysis — (programming) (OOA) The first phase of object-oriented design.
open system architecture — (operating system) (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
preparatory to doing sth — If one action is done preparatory to another, it is done before the other action, usually as preparation for it.
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.
pretty amazing new stuff — (humour, communications) (PANS) What PSTN is evolving into.
probability distribution — a distribution of all possible values of a random variable together with an indication of their probabilities.
psychopathic personality — an antisocial personality characterized by the failure to develop any sense of moral responsibility and the capability of performing violent or antisocial acts
quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
referential transparency — (programming) An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
repetitive strain injury — overuse strain injury
representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
reverse annuity mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
saint ignatius of loyola — Saint Ignatius of (Iñigo López de Loyola) 1491–1556, Spanish soldier and ecclesiastic: founder of the Society of Jesus.
scottish country dancing — a type of Scottish folk dancing, including reels, jigs, and strathspeys, in which couples are arranged in sets and perform a series of movements, esp facing one another in a line
secondary school teacher — a person who teaches at a secondary school
sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
staggered pin grid array — (hardware) (SPGA) A style of integrated circuit socket or pin-out with a staggered grid of pins around the edge of the socket, positioned as several squares, one inside the other. SPGA is commonly used on motherboards for processors, e.g. Socket 5, Socket 7 and Socket 8. See also PGA.
steak and kidney pudding — beefsteak and kidney in a suet pastry crust, steamed in a basin.
system management server — (operating system) (SMS) Software used by Microsoft Windows NT system administrators to manage personal computers on any size network. SMS can distribute software to desktops from one central location, detect every machine on the network, track software and hardware configurations, send key information back to a central database, and perform other tasks.
telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
that goes without saying — that is self-evident
the way things are going — You can use the way things are going to indicate that you expect something to happen because of the way the present situation is developing.
to cramp someone's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behaviour in some way.
to have seen better days — If you say that something has seen better days, you mean that it is old and in poor condition.
to keep something at bay — If you keep something or someone at bay, or hold them at bay, you prevent them from reaching, attacking, or affecting you.
to lay something to rest — If you lay something such as fears or rumours to rest or if you put them to rest, you succeed in proving that they are not true.
to make boundary changes — to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies, because of population shifts

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