24-letter words containing a, s, p, o
- dibasic-sodium-phosphate — Also called monobasic sodium phosphate. a white, crystalline, slightly hygroscopic, water-soluble powder, NaH 2 PO 4 , used chiefly in dyeing and in electroplating.
- digital compact cassette — a magnetic tape cassette on which sound can be recorded in a digital format
- dionysius the areopagite — 1st century a.d, Athenian scholar: converted to Christianity by Saint Paul c50.
- diphenylaminechlorarsine — adamsite.
- disturbance of the peace — a malicious and willful intrusion on the peace and quiet of a community or neighbourhood
- domain-specific language — (language) A machine-processable language whose terms are derived from a domain model and that is used for the definition of components or software architectures supporting that domain. A domain-specific language is often used as input to an application generator.
- dutch west india company — a Dutch merchant company chartered in 1621 to carry on trade with Africa, the West Indies, North and South America, and Australia.
- ecole normale superieure — (body) (ENS) A higher education and research institution in Paris, France.
- educational psychologist — a person trained in educational psychology
- electromagnetic spectrum — the complete range of electromagnetic radiation from the longest radio waves (wavelength 105 metres) to the shortest gamma radiation (wavelength 10–13 metre)
- electronic point of sale — a computerized system for recording sales in retail shops, using a laser scanner at the cash till to read bar codes on the packages of the items sold
- european investment bank — a financial institution of the European Union which is based in Luxembourg and which provides loans, especially to the less economically developed countries of the EU
- european monetary system — the system used in the European Union for stabilizing exchange rates between the currencies of member states and financing the balance-of-payments support mechanism. The original Exchange Rate Mechanism was formed in 1979 but superseded in 1999 when the euro was adopted as official currency of 11 EU member states. A new exchange rate mechanism (ERM II) based on the euro is used to regulate the currencies of participating states that have not adopted the euro
- exponential distribution — a continuous single-parameter distribution used esp when making statements about the length of life of certain materials or waiting times between randomly occurring events. Its density function is p(x) = λe–λx for positive λ and nonnegative x, and it is a special case of the gamma distribution
- extra-sensory perception — Extra-sensory perception means knowing without using your ordinary senses such as sight and hearing. Some people believe this is possible. The abbreviation ESP is also used.
- family income supplement — a benefit formerly paid to low-income families
- federal power commission — FPC.
- fish protein concentrate — an odorless and tasteless high-protein food additive made from ground fish and suitable for human consumption. Abbreviation: FPC.
- floating-point specratio — SPECfp92
- follow someone's example — If you follow someone's example, you behave in the same way as they did in the past, or in a similar way, especially because you admire them.
- free and accepted masons — a member of a widely distributed secret order (Free and Accepted Masons) having for its object mutual assistance and the promotion of brotherly love among its members.
- frequent shopper program — A frequent shopper program is one that rewards customers for purchases made on multiple visits, and builds up points entitling them to reduced prices and free items.
- functional specification — (programming, project) A description of what a system (e.g. a piece of software) does or should do (but not how it should do it). The functional specification is one of the inputs to the design process. See IEEE/ANSI Std. 610.12-1990.
- general purpose language — (GPL) An ALGOL 60 variant with user-definable types and operators.
- geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
- glasgow haskell compiler — (language) (GHC) A Haskell 1.2 compiler written in Haskell by the AQUA project at Glasgow University, headed by Simon Peyton Jones <[email protected]> throughout the 1990's [started?]. GHC can generate either C or native code for SPARC, DEC Alpha and other platforms. It can take advantage of features of gcc such as global register variables and has an extensive set of optimisations. GHC features an extensible I/O system based on a "monad", in-line C code, fully fledged unboxed data types, incrementally-updatable arrays, mutable reference types, generational garbage collector, concurrent threads. Time and space profiling is also supported. It requires GNU gcc 2.1+ and Perl. GHC runs on Sun-4, DEC Alpha, Sun-3, NeXT, DECstation, HP-PA and SGI. E-mail: <[email protected]>.
- go (a person) one better — to outdo or surpass (a person)
- graduated pension scheme — (between 1961 and 1975) an earnings-related pension scheme which was based on the amount of an employee's National Insurance contributions
- hairdressing appointment — an appointment to have your hair cut, styled, coloured, etc, at a hairdresser
- have ants in one's pants — any of numerous black, red, brown, or yellow social insects of the family Formicidae, of worldwide distribution especially in warm climates, having a large head with inner jaws for chewing and outer jaws for carrying and digging, and living in highly organized colonies containing wingless female workers, a winged queen, and, during breeding seasons, winged males, some species being noted for engaging in warfare, slavemaking, or the cultivation of food sources.
- have at one's fingertips — to have available for instant use
- have sth up one's sleeve — If you have something up your sleeve, you have an idea or plan which you have not told anyone about. You can also say that someone has an ace, card, or trick up their sleeve.
- have the drop on someone — to have the advantage over someone
- hexaethyl tetraphosphate — a yellow, very poisonous liquid, (C 2 H 5 O) 6 P 4 O 7 , soluble in water, used as an insecticide.
- high bypass ratio engine — a type of by-pass engine in which a large fan driven by a turbine and housed in a short duct forces air rearwards around the exhaust gases in order to increase the propulsive thrust
- hoop-petticoat narcissus — petticoat narcissus.
- house of representatives — the lower legislative branch in many national and state bicameral governing bodies, as in the United States, Mexico, and Japan.
- ichthyophthirius-disease — ich.
- incomplete metamorphosis — insect development, as in the grasshopper and cricket, in which the change is gradual and characterized by the absence of a pupal stage. Compare complete metamorphosis.
- industrial correspondent — a journalist who specializes in reporting the industrial news
- information superhighway — internet
- internet access provider — (networking, company) (IAP) A company or other origanisation which provides access to the Internet to businesses and/or consumers. An IAP purchases an Internet link from another company that has a direct link to the Internet and resells portions of that bandwidth to the general public. For example, an IAP may purchase a T1 link (1.544Mb/s) and resell that bandwidth in chunks consisting of ISDN (64Kb/s, 128Kb/s) and analog modems (14.4Kb/s, 28.8Kb/s). The IAP's customer base is likely to include both businesses and individuals. Individual customers usually connect to the IAP via a modem and telephone line to a (preferably local) point of presence. An IAP may also be an Internet Service Provider.
- knowledge representation — The subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with designing and using systems for storing knowledge - facts and rules about some subject. A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualisation - an abstract view of the world that we wish to represent. In order to manipulate this knowledge we must specify how the abstract conceptualisation is represented as a concrete data structure. An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualisation.
- komi autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the NW Russian Federation in Europe. 145,221 sq. mi. (376,122 sq. km). Capital: Syktyvkar.
- lab for computer science — MIT. http://lcs.mit.edu/.
- laugh in a person's face — to show open contempt or defiance towards a person
- law of supply and demand — the theory that prices are determined by the interaction of supply and demand: an increase in supply will lower prices if not accompanied by increased demand, and an increase in demand will raise prices unless accompanied by increased supply
- 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.
- liquid components of gas — Liquid components of gas are associated hydrocarbons in natural gas, which include ethane, propane, and butane.
- local loopback addresses — The special Internet address, 127.0.0.1, defined by the Internet Protocol. A host can use local the loopback address to send messages to itself.