21-letter words containing a, t, h, e, m
- maximum value theorem — the theorem that for a real-valued function f whose domain is a compact set, there is at least one element x in the domain of f for which f (x) achieves its largest value.
- mechanical instrument — a musical instrument, such as a barrel organ or music box, that plays a preselected piece of music by mechanical means
- mechanical metallurgy — the branch of metallurgy dealing with the response of metals to applied forces.
- mechanical solidarity — social cohesiveness that is based on shared activities, beliefs, and experiences and is characteristic of simple traditional societies.
- mechanical weathering — any of the various weathering processes that cause physical disintegration of exposed rock without any change in the chemical composition of the rock: Collision between rock surfaces can cause mechanical weathering.
- megaspore mother cell — a diploid cell in plants that undergoes meiosis to create four haploid megaspores.
- mengistu haile mariam — born 1937, Ethiopian political leader: head of state 1977–87; president 1987–91.
- methylisothiazolinone — (chemistry) A powerful biocide and preservative within the group of isothiazolinones, used in shampoos etc.
- miniature photography — photography with a camera using film that is 35 millimeters wide or less.
- modern apprenticeship — an arrangement that allows a school leaver to gain vocational qualifications while being trained in a job
- monochloroacetic acid — chloroacetic acid.
- mother-of-pearl cloud — nacreous cloud.
- mother-of-pearl glass — an American art glassware having colored glass set into indentations in a thickness of opaque glass, the whole covered with clear glass and etched slightly with acid.
- motherwell and wishaw — a burgh in the Motherwell district, in S Scotland.
- motivational research — the application of the knowledge and techniques of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology, to understanding consumer attitudes and behavior: used as a guide in advertising and marketing.
- move heaven and earth — the abode of God, the angels, and the spirits of the righteous after death; the place or state of existence of the blessed after the mortal life.
- multichannel analyser — an electronic instrument, such as a pulse height analyser, that splits an input waveform into a large number of channels in accordance with a particular parameter of the input
- nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
- northumberland strait — the part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that separates Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in SE Canada. About 200 miles (320 km) long; 9–30 miles (15–48 km) wide.
- of time and the river — a novel (1935) by Thomas Wolfe.
- ophthalmia neonatorum — inflammation of the eyes of a newborn child due to an infectious disease, as gonorrhea, contracted during birth from the infected mother.
- pacific daylight time — the version of Pacific Standard Time that is in use when daylight saving time is being observed
- peephole optimisation — (compiler) A kind of low-level code optimisation that considers only a few adjacent machine code instructions at a time and looks for certain combinations which can be replaced with more efficient sequences. E.g. ADD R0, #1 ADD R0, #1 (add one to register R0) could be replaced by ADD R0, #2 as long as there were no jumps to the second instruction.
- peephole optimization — peephole optimisation
- pentamethylenediamine — cadaverine.
- potassium diphosphate — any of the three orthophosphates of potassium ((potassium monophosphate) (K 2 HPO 4), (potassium diphosphate) (KH 2 PO 4), and (tripotassium phosphate) (K 3 PO 4) )
- potassium thiocyanate — a colorless, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble solid, KSCN, used chiefly in the manufacture of chemicals, dyes, and drugs.
- primary sex character — any of the body structures directly concerned in reproduction, as the testes, ovaries, and external genitalia.
- profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
- programmed cell death — a normal, genetically regulated process leading to the death of cells and triggered by the presence or absence of certain stimuli, as DNA damage.
- promoter of the faith — devil's advocate (def 2).
- propantheline bromide — a substance, C 2 3 H 3 0 BrNO 3 , used in the treatment of peptic ulcers.
- pseudohermaphroditism — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
- psychopharmacotherapy — the use of psychoactive drugs in the symptomatic treatment or control of mental disorders or psychiatric disease.
- purchasing department — the group of staff within an organization that is responsible for buying goods or products
- record of achievement — a statement of the personal and educational development of each pupil
- reinforcement therapy — a behavior modification technique in which appropriate behavior is strengthened through systematic reinforcement.
- replacement algorithm — The method used to determine which entry in an associative cache to flush to main memory when it is desired to cache a new block of data. The "least recently used" algorithm flushed the block which has not been accessed for the longest time. A random replacement algorithm picks any block with equal probability.
- reverberation chamber — a room with walls that reflect sound. It is used to make acoustic measurements and as a source of reverberant sound to be mixed with direct sound for recording or broadcasting
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- salam-weinberg theory — the electroweak theory.
- schema definition set — (SDS) Something in Portable Common Tool Environment.
- sealed-beam headlight — a headlight in which the reflector and lens are hermetically sealed together with the filament in a single unit.
- second-hand endowment — A second-hand endowment is a traditional with-profits endowment policy that has been sold to a new owner part way through its term.
- secure hash algorithm —
- settle someone's hash — a dish of diced or chopped meat and often vegetables, as of leftover corned beef or veal and potatoes, sautéed in a frying pan or of meat, potatoes, and carrots cooked together in gravy.
- seventeenth amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1913, providing for the election of two U.S. senators from each state by popular vote and for a term of six years.
- sherman antitrust act — an act of Congress (1890) prohibiting any contract, conspiracy, or combination of business interests in restraint of foreign or interstate trade.
- short message service — (messaging) (SMS) A message service offered by the GSM digital mobile telephone system. Using SMS, a short alphanumeric message (160 alphanumeric characters) can be sent to a mobile phone to be displayed there, much like in an alphanumeric pager system. The message is buffered by the GSM network until the phone becomes active.
- siamese fighting fish — a labyrinth fish, Betta splendens, that has been bred for centuries to develop brilliant coloration, very long fins, and pugnacity.