16-letter words containing a, s, y, m
- moral philosophy — philosophy dealing with the principles of morality; ethics.
- mothering sunday — Laetare Sunday.
- mount erymanthus — a mountain in SW Greece, in the NW Peloponnese. Height: 2224 m (7297 ft)
- muddy the waters — If someone or something muddies the waters, they cause a situation or issue to seem less clear and less easy to understand.
- new smyrna beach — a town in NE Florida.
- non-metaphysical — pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics.
- not by any means — in no way, by no method
- one-party system — a political system in which only one party is allowed
- operating system — (operating system) (OS) The low-level software which handles the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user when no application program is running. The OS may be split into a kernel which is always present and various system programs which use facilities provided by the kernel to perform higher-level house-keeping tasks, often acting as servers in a client-server relationship. Some would include a graphical user interface and window system as part of the OS, others would not. The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs. Example operating systems include 386BSD, AIX, AOS, Amoeba, Angel, Artemis microkernel, BeOS, Brazil, COS, CP/M, CTSS, Chorus, DACNOS, DOSEXEC 2, GCOS, GEORGE 3, GEOS, ITS, KAOS, Linux, LynxOS, MPV, MS-DOS, MVS, Mach, Macintosh operating system, Microsoft Windows, MINIX, Multics, Multipop-68, Novell NetWare, OS-9, OS/2, Pick, Plan 9, QNX, RISC OS, STING, System V, System/360, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, TRUSIX, TWENEX, TYMCOM-X, Thoth, Unix, VM/CMS, VMS, VRTX, VSTa, VxWorks, WAITS.
- operating-system — the collection of software that directs a computer's operations, controlling and scheduling the execution of other programs, and managing storage, input/output, and communication resources. Abbreviation: OS.
- orange men's day — July 12, an annual celebration in Northern Ireland and certain cities having a large Irish section, especially Liverpool, to mark both the victory of William III over James II at the Battle of the Boyne, July 1, 1690, and the Battle of Augbrim, July 12, 1690.
- orthosympathetic — Of or pertaining to the sympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system.
- overcompensatory — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
- paint-by-numbers — formulaic; showing no original thought or creativity
- papillary muscle — one of the small bundles of muscles attached to the ventricle walls and to the chordae tendineae that tighten these tendons during ventricular contraction.
- passive immunity — immunity resulting from the injection of antibodies or sensitized lymphocytes from another organism or, in infants, from the transfer of antibodies through the placenta or from colostrum.
- pharmacodynamics — the branch of pharmacology dealing with the course of action, effect, and breakdown of drugs within the body.
- physiognomically — the face or countenance, especially when considered as an index to the character: a fierce physiognomy.
- policy statement — a declaration of the plans and intentions of an organization or government
- political asylum — asylum provided by one nation to refugees, especially political refugees, from another nation.
- political system — a coordinated set of principles, laws, ideas, and procedures relating to a particular form of government, or the form of government itself: Democracy is a political system in which citizens govern themselves.
- primary consumer — (in the food chain) an animal that feeds on plants; a herbivore.
- primary industry — an industry, as agriculture, forestry, or fishing, that deals in obtaining natural materials.
- primary meristem — primary tissue derived from an apical meristem.
- primary syphilis — the first stage of syphilis, characterized by the formation of a chancre at the site of infection.
- progress payment — an instalment of a larger payment made to a contractor for work carried out up to a specified stage of the job
- pseudoparenchyma — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
- ptolemaic system — a system elaborated by Ptolemy and subsequently modified by others, according to which the earth was the fixed center of the universe, with the heavenly bodies moving about it.
- quasi-compulsory — required; mandatory; obligatory: compulsory education.
- radioimmunoassay — a test procedure that integrates immunologic and radiolabeling techniques to measure minute quantities of a substance, as a protein, hormone, or drug, in a given sample of body fluid or tissue.
- radiosymmetrical — radially symmetrical.
- ramsden eyepiece — an eyepiece consisting of two plano-convex crown-glass lenses of equal focal length, placed with the convex sides facing each other and with a separation between the lenses of about two-thirds of the focal length of each.
- raster subsystem — (graphics) The part of a graphics system concerned with an image after it has been transformed and scaled to screen coordinates. It includes scan conversion and display.
- real-time system — a data-processing system in which a computer receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data
- rhabdomyosarcoma — a malignant tumor made up of striated muscle tissue.
- rhythm and blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- rhythm-and-blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- royal commission — (in Britain) a body set up by the monarch on the recommendation of the prime minister to gather information about the operation of existing laws or to investigate any social, educational, or other matter. The commission has prescribed terms of reference and reports to the government on how any change might be achieved
- safety mechanism — a psychological or physiological response in an individual that protects the individual from harm
- saint-barthelemy — (Saint Bartholomew; Saint Barts; Saint Barths) a resort island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands, part of the French department of Guadeloupe. 6900; 8 sq. mi. (21 sq. km).
- salivary amylase — an enzyme in the saliva that converts starch into dextrin and maltose.
- same-day service — (humour, operating system) An ironic term used to describe long response time, particularly with respect to MS-DOS system calls (which ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute). Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write programs that are not well-behaved. See also PC-ism.
- sapodilla family — the plant family Sapotaceae, characterized by chiefly tropical trees and shrubs having milky juice, simple leaves, small flowers, and fruit in the form of a berry, and including the buckthorn (genus Bumelia), sapodilla, star apple, and trees that are the source of gutta-percha and balata.
- saxifrage family — the plant family Saxifragaceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and small trees having alternate or opposite leaves, clustered or solitary flowers, and fruit in the form of a berry or capsule, and including the astilbe, currant, deutzia, gooseberry, hydrangea, mock orange, piggy-back plant, saxifrage, and strawberry geranium.
- sclerenchymatous — supporting or protective tissue composed of thickened, dry, and hardened cells.
- sealyham terrier — one of a Welsh breed of small terriers having short legs, a docked tail, and a wiry, mostly white coat.
- second-story man — a burglar who enters through an upstairs window.
- secondary market — the market that exists for an issue after large blocks of shares have been publicly distributed.
- secondary modern — Secondary moderns were schools which existed until recently in Britain for children aged between about eleven and sixteen, where more attention was paid to practical skills and less to academic study than in a grammar school.
- secondary phloem — phloem derived from the cambium during secondary growth.