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26-letter words containing a, p, r, i

  • extemporaneous preparation — An extemporaneous preparation is a drug specially prepared by a pharmacist because an appropriate drug is not readily available.
  • extended capabilities port — (hardware)   (ECP) A parallel printer interface for IBM PC compatibles, supported by several, mainly US, manufacturers. Not to be confused with the more common Enhanced Capabilities Port.
  • extensible markup language — (language, text)   (XML) An initiative from the W3C defining an "extremely simple" dialect of SGML suitable for use on the web.
  • feast of st peter's chains — a former festival in England, held on August 1, in which bread made from the first harvest of corn was blessed.
  • first-past-the-post system — a voting system in which a candidate may be elected by a simple majority rather than an absolute majority
  • fixed-point representation — the representation of numbers by a single set of digits such that the radix point has a predetermined location, the value of the number depending on the position of each digit relative to the radix point
  • floating-point accelerator — (hardware)   (FPA) Additional hardware to perform functions on floating point numbers such as addition, multiplication, logarithms, exponentials, trigonometric functions and various kinds of rounding and error detection. A floating point accelerator often functions as a co-processor to the CPU. The term "floating-point accelerator" suggests a physically larger system, often an extra circuit board, whereas a "floating-point unit" is probably a single chip or even part of a chip.
  • fourth generation computer — (architecture)   A computer built using Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) integrated circuits, especially a microcomputer based on a microprocesseor, or a parallel processor containing two to thousands of CPUs. VLSI made it routine to fabricate an entire CPU, main memory, or similar device with a single integrated circuit that can be mass produced at very low cost. This has resulted in new classes of machines such as personal computers, and high performance parallel processors that contains thousands of CPUs.
  • 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.
  • gnu general public license — General Public License
  • 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.
  • grand canyon national park — a national park in N Arizona, including part of the Grand Canyon and the area around it. 1009 sq. mi. (2615 sq. km).
  • 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-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.
  • hydraulic submersible pump — A hydraulic submersible pump is a pump which is used offshore and onshore for downhole and subsea boosting, and can combine production and injection duties.
  • integrated data processing — IDP.
  • integrated pest management — an ecological approach to pest management that combines understanding the causes of pest outbreaks, manipulating the crop ecosystem for pest control, and monitoring pest populations and their life cycles to determine if and when the use of pesticides is indicated. Abbreviation: IPM.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • justice of the peace court — (in Scotland, formerly) a court with limited criminal jurisdiction held by justices of the peace in counties: replaced in 1975 by the district court
  • karachai-cherkess republic — an autonomous republic in the S Russian Federation in Europe, in the Caucasus. 5442 sq. mi. (14,100 sq. km). Capital: Cherkessk.
  • kings canyon national park — a national park in E California: deep granite gorges; giant sequoias; mountains. 708 sq. mi. (1835 sq. km).
  • 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.
  • lord of appeal in ordinary — one of the Law Lords
  • lossless audio compression — (audio, compression)   Any kind of audio compression in which the original signal and the decoded signal are bitwise identical. Lossless audio compression algorithms are usually based on a data compression algorithm like PKzip or gzip but specialized for PCM audio data. The signal is divided into predictable tonal components and unpredictable noisy components. Tonal components are stored as coefficients of a predictor, the remaining signal is coded by Rice coding, Huffman coding or arithmetic coding.
  • 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
  • master chief petty officer — a noncommissioned rank above a senior chief petty officer. Abbreviation: MCPO.
  • 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)
  • 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.
  • minimum-access programming — a method of programming in which latency is reduced to a minimum.
  • 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.
  • multi-color graphics array — (hardware, graphics)   (MCGA) One of IBM's less popular hardware video display standards for use in the IBM PS/2. MCGA can display 80*25 text in monochrome, 40*25 text in 256 colours or 320*200 pixel graphics in 256 colors. 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
  • 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.
  • 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.
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