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21-letter words containing a, r, m, i

  • the maastricht treaty — a treaty on European economic and monetary union agreed by government leaders of the 12 EC states at a meeting in Maastricht in December 1991
  • the man in the street — If you talk about the man in the street or the man or woman in the street, you mean ordinary people in general.
  • the moral high ground — If you say that someone has taken the moral high ground, you mean that they consider that their policies and actions are morally superior to the policies and actions of their rivals.
  • the supreme sacrifice — the sacrifice of one's life
  • therapeutic community — a group-based form of therapy for mental disorders, sometimes residential
  • thermal decomposition — Thermal decomposition is the process in which a chemical species breaks down when its temperature is increased.
  • thermal power station — a power station in which heat is converted into electricity
  • to kill a mockingbird — a novel (1960) by Harper Lee.
  • to lay something bare — If you lay something bare, you uncover it completely so that it can then be seen.
  • to mix your metaphors — If you mix your metaphors, you use two conflicting metaphors. People do this accidentally, or sometimes deliberately as a joke.
  • to risk life and limb — If someone risks life and limb, they do something very dangerous that may cause them to die or be seriously injured.
  • to take your mind off — If something takes your mind off a problem or unpleasant situation, it helps you to forget about it for a while.
  • transactinide element — any element having an atomic number higher than 103, the last of the actinide series. These superheavy, radioactive elements are extremely short-lived, and can only be created in the laboratory.
  • transformational rule — Linguistics. a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts deep structures into surface structures.
  • trichloronitromethane — chloropicrin.
  • triethyl orthoformate — a colorless liquid, C 7 H 16 O 3 , used chiefly in organic synthesis.
  • tubercular meningitis — an infection of the membranes of the central nervous system caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis; features can include fever, headache, and coma
  • tumor necrosis factor — a protein, produced in humans and other animals, that is destructive to cells showing abnormally rapid growth: identical with cachectin. Abbreviation: TNF.
  • ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
  • uniform business rate — a local tax in the UK paid by businesses, based on a local valuation of their premises and a rate fixed by central government that applies throughout the country
  • uniform resource name — (web)   (URN, previously Uniform/Universal Resource Number) 1. Any URI which is not a URL. 2. A particular scheme which is currently (1991-4) under development by the IETF, which should provide for the resolution using Internet protocols of names which have a greater persistence than that currently associated with Internet host names or organisations (as used in URLs). Uniform Resource Names will be URI schemes that improve on URLs in reliability over time, including authenticity, replication, and high availability. When defined, a URN in sense 1 will be an example of a URN in sense 2.
  • universal affirmative — a proposition of the form “All S is P.” Symbol: A, a.
  • universal disk format — (storage, standard)   (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.
  • verbatim et literatim — word for word and letter for letter; in exactly the same words.
  • virtual memory system — (operating system)   (VMS) DEC's proprietary operating system originally produced for its VAX minicomputer. VMS V1 was released in August 1978. VMS was renamed "OpenVMS" around version 5.5. The first version of VMS on DEC Alpha was known as OpenVMS for AXP V1.0, and the correct way to refer to the operating system now is OpenVMS for VAX or OpenVMS for Alpha. The renaming also signified the fact that the X/Open consortium had certified OpenVMS as having a high support for POSIX standards. VMS is one of the most secure operating systems on the market (making it popular in financial institutions). It currently (October 1997) has the best clustering capability (both number and distance) and is very scalable with binaries portable from small desktop workstations up to huge mainframes. Many Unix fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the hacker's favourite commercial OS if Unix didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious.
  • vladivostok agreement — a preliminary arms control accord concluded by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., in December 1974.
  • volunteers of america — a religious reform and relief organization, similar to the Salvation Army, founded in New York City in 1896 by Ballington Booth, son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Abbreviation: VOA.
  • warm silence software — A small company run by(?) Robin Watts, producing software for the Acorn Archimedes.
  • weinberg-salam theory — electroweak theory.
  • what price something? — what are the chances of something happening now?
  • william of malmesbury — William of, William of Malmesbury.
  • william the conqueror — ("the Conqueror") 1027–87, duke of Normandy 1035–87; king of England 1066–87 (son of Robert I, duke of Normandy).
  • workers' compensation — a government-sponsored insurance system, funded by contributions from employers, for compensating employees for injury or occupational disease suffered in connection with their employment
  • xeroderma pigmentosum — a rare inherited disease characterized by sensitivity to ultraviolet light, exposure resulting in lesions and tumors of the skin and eyes.
  • xilinx netlist format — (language, electronics)   (XNF) A Hardware Description Language for electronic circuit design, developed by Xilinx, Inc..
  • your mileage may vary — (jargon)   (YMMV) The disclaimer American car manufacturers attached to EPA mileage ratings. A humourous way of saying that the thing under discussion will not necessarily give you the same results as the author. Often used to convey the hardware dependence of Unix freeware distributions.
  • youth training scheme — (formerly, in Britain) a scheme, run by the Training Agency, to provide vocational training for unemployed 16–17-year-olds
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