19-letter words containing a, n, u, r
- logical unit number — (storage) (LUN) A 3-bit identifier used on a SCSI bus to distinguish between up to eight devices (logical units) with the same SCSI ID.
- longitudinal parity — (storage, communications) An extra byte (or word) appended to a block of data in order to reveal corruption of the data. Bit n of this byte indicates whether there was an even or odd number of "1" bits in bit position n of the bytes in the block. The parity byte is computed by XORing the data bytes in the block. Longitudinal parity allows single bit errors to be detected.
- lumholtz's kangaroo — boongary.
- machine instruction — (programming) The smallest element of a machine code program.
- magnesium carbonate — a white powder, MgCO 3 , insoluble in water and alcohol, soluble in acids, used in dentifrices and cosmetics, in medicine as an antacid, and as a refractory material.
- magnesium hydroxide — a white, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, Mg(OH) 2 , used chiefly in medicine as an antacid and as a laxative.
- manchester autocode — (language, history) The predecessor of Mercury Autocode.
- manual transmission — an automotive transmission in which the driver shifts gears manually.
- manufacturing plant — factory
- mary mcleod bethune — Mary McLeod [muh-kloud] /məˈklaʊd/ (Show IPA), 1875–1955, U.S. educator and civil-rights leader.
- master of foxhounds — the person responsible for the conduct of a fox hunt and to whom all members of the hunt and its staff are responsible. Abbreviation: M.F.H.
- matthias i corvinus — ?1440–90, king of Hungary (1458–90): built up the most powerful kingdom in Central Europe. A patron of Renaissance art, he founded the Corvina library, one of the finest in Europe
- maturation division — a stage in meiosis during which the chromosomal number of the reproductive cell is reduced to one chromosome from each original chromosome pair.
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- metropolitan county — (in England) any of the six conurbations established as administrative units in the new local government system in 1974; the metropolitan county councils were abolished in 1986
- midnight regulation — a rule or directive approved by the federal government near the end of a president’s term of office
- miniature schnauzer — one of a German breed of sturdily built terriers resembling a smaller version of the standard schnauzer, having a wiry, pepper-and-salt, black, or black-and-silver coat, a rectangular head, bushy whiskers, and a docked tail, and originally developed as a farm dog but now raised primarily as a pet.
- minimum iron fabric — cloth used to make clothes that require little ironing
- molecular astronomy — the branch of astronomy dealing with the study of molecules in space.
- montezuma's revenge — traveler's diarrhea, especially as experienced by some visitors to Mexico.
- mordvinian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
- mother-of-thousands — strawberry geranium.
- motorway restaurant — a restaurant on a motorway
- mount desert island — an island off the coast of E central Maine: summer resort; forms part of Acadia National Park. 14 miles (23 km) long; 8 miles (13 km) wide.
- muhammadan calendar — Muslim calendar.
- mulheim an der ruhr — a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, W Germany, near Essen.
- multinomial theorem — an expression of a power of a sum in terms of powers of the addends, a generalization of the binomial theorem.
- multiple-entry visa — a visa that permits the holder to enter a country several times
- multiplexor channel — (MPX) mainframe terminology for a slow peripheral device connection, e.g. for a printer, operator console, or card reader.
- munchausen syndrome — a factitious disorder in which otherwise healthy individuals seek to hospitalize themselves with feigned or self-induced pathology in order to receive surgical or other medical treatment.
- mushroom ventilator — a ventilator having at the top of a vertical shaft a broad rounded cap that can be screwed down to close it.
- music to one's ears — something that is very pleasant to hear
- mutual masturbation — the act of two or more people masturbating each other
- narcotics anonymous — an organization that helps drug users recover from drug addiction
- national curriculum — The National Curriculum is the course of study that most school pupils in England and Wales are meant to follow between the ages of 5 and 16.
- natural catastrophe — A natural catastrophe is an unexpected event, caused by nature, such as an earthquake or flood, in which there is a lot of suffering, damage, or death.
- natural killer cell — a small killer cell that destroys virus-infected cells or tumor cells without activation by an immune system cell or antibody.
- near letter quality — a quality of print that is not quite letter quality, but is better than draft quality
- neats vs. scruffies — (artificial intelligence, jargon) The label used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence research. This conflict tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship between human reasoning and AI; "neats" tend to try to build systems that "reason" in some way identifiably similar to the way humans report themselves as doing, while "scruffies" profess not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe that logic is king, while scruffies favour looser, more ad-hoc methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods appear promiscuous, successful only by accident and not productive of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture "common sense" of living intelligences.
- negation by failure — An extralogical feature of Prolog and other logic programming languages in which failure of unification is treated as establishing the negation of a relation. For example, if Ronald Reagan is not in our database and we asked if he was an American, Prolog would answer "no".
- neighbourhood watch — a scheme under which members of a community agree together to take responsibility for keeping an eye on each other's property, as a way of preventing crime
- neuropathologically — In a neuropathologic way.
- neuropsychodynamics — The theoretical synthesis of neuroscience and psychodynamics.
- neurotransmissional — Relating to neurotransmission.
- new year resolution — a promise to yourself or decision to do something, especially to improve one's behaviour or lifestyle in some way, during the year ahead
- nicolaus copernicus — Nicolaus [nik-uh-ley-uh s] /ˌnɪk əˈleɪ əs/ (Show IPA), (Mikolaj Kopernik) 1473–1543, Polish astronomer who promulgated the now accepted theory that the earth and the other planets move around the sun (the Copernican System)
- nine plus two array — the arrangement of microtubules in a flagellum or cilium, consisting of a ring of nine evenly spaced couplets surrounding two central singlets. Symbol: 9 + 2.
- non causa pro causa — the fallacy of giving as a reason for a conclusion a proposition not actually relevant to that conclusion.
- non-contemporaneous — living or occurring during the same period of time; contemporary.
- nonforfeiture value — any benefit, as cash or other form of insurance, available to a life-insurance policyholder who discontinues premium payments on the policy.