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21-letter words containing a, s, m, o

  • somatization disorder — a mental illness, usually beginning before age 20, characterized by multiple physical complaints for which no physical causes can be found and often leading to unnecessary treatment or surgery and to severe disability.
  • somatotrophic-hormone — a hormone secreted by the anterior pituitary gland, that stimulates growth in humans.
  • someone's name is mud — someone is disgraced
  • special court-martial — a court-martial established to try violations of military law less serious than those tried by a general court-martial but more serious than those tried by a summary court-martial.
  • spin angular momentum — to make (yarn) by drawing out, twisting, and winding fibers: Pioneer women spun yarn on spinning wheels.
  • steal someone's heart — to cause someone to feel love or affection
  • step-down transformer — a device that transfers an alternating current from one circuit to one or more other circuits with a decrease of voltage
  • stock list department — (in an American stock exchange) the department dealing with monitoring compliance with its listing requirements and rules
  • stokes-adams syndrome — unconsciousness accompanying atrioventricular heart block, sometimes characterized by weakness, irregular pulse, and intermittent convulsive or nonconvulsive seizures.
  • strategic air command — a U.S. Air Force command charged with intercontinental air strikes, especially nuclear attacks.
  • subliminal perception — perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness
  • summary court-martial — a court-martial composed of one commissioned officer, authorized to try minor offenses against military law.
  • sympathetic vibration — a vibration induced by resonance.
  • symphonie fantastique — a programmatic symphony (1830–31) in five movements by Hector Berlioz.
  • systeme international — Système International d'Unités
  • take someone prisoner — to capture and hold someone as a prisoner, esp as a prisoner of war
  • tape operating system — (operating system)   (TOS) An IBM operating system for System 360, used in the early days around 1965 to support the IBM 360 model 30 et al. TOS was a predecessor to IBM's Disk Operating System. TOS died out really early as disks such as the 2311 and 2314 became common with the IBM 360 whereas thet had been a real luxury on the IBM 7090.
  • temperature inversion — inversion (def 12).
  • tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
  • the (norman) conquest — the conquering of England by the Normans under William the Conqueror in 1066
  • the assessment method — a way of providing evidence that students' knowledge and learning match the aims of a course
  • the comrades marathon — an annual long-distance race run every year on the 16th of June from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, a distance of approximately 90 kilometres (56 miles)
  • the executive mansion — the White House
  • the women's land army — a unit of women recruited to do agricultural work in the United Kingdom during World War I and World War II
  • 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
  • throw someone a curve — a continuously bending line, without angles.
  • time and motion study — the systematic investigation and analysis of the motions and the time required to perform a specific operation or task with a view to seeking more efficient methods of production as well as setting time standards.
  • to bend someone's ear — If you say that someone is bending your ear about something, you mean that they keep talking to you about it because they think it is important; used especially when you are irritated by this.
  • to box someone's ears — If someone boxes a child's ears, they hit them on the side of their head as a punishment.
  • to kick someone's ass — To kick ass or to kick someone's ass means to show them that you are angry with them, either by telling them or by using physical force.
  • 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 move the goalposts — If you accuse someone of moving the goalposts, you mean that they have changed the rules in a situation or an activity, in order to gain an advantage for themselves and to make things difficult for other people.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • ulm's modula-2 system — (language)   A Modula-2 compiler, library and tools by Andreas Borchert <[email protected]>. The compiler is derived from the ETHZ compiler for the Lilith system. Version 2.2.1 conforms to PIM3. It requires gas version 1.36 (to be found in the same directory). Commercial use requires a licence. It runs on Sun-3, Nixdorf Targon/31, Concurrent 3200 Series.
  • ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
  • under one's own steam — If you do something under your own steam, you do it without any help from anyone else.
  • 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 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.
  • 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.
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