31-letter words containing a, t, h, e, r

national endowment for the arts — an independent agency that stimulates the growth and development of the arts in the U.S. by awarding grants to individuals and organizations.
nondeterministic turing machine — (complexity) A normal (deterministic) Turing Machine that has a "guessing head" - a write-only head that writes a guess at a solution on the tape first, based on some arbitrary internal algorithm. The regular Turing Machine then runs and returns "yes" or "no" to indicate whether the solution is correct. A nondeterministic Turing Machine can solve nondeterministic polynomial time computational decision problems in a number of steps that is a polynomial function of the size of the input
not all sth is cracked up to be — If you say that something is not all it's cracked up to be, you mean that it is not as good as other people have said it is.
old lady of threadneedle street — the Bank of England (used as a nickname).
pay the piper and call the tune — to bear the cost of an undertaking and control it
place sth above/before/over sth — If you place one thing above, before, or over another, you think that the first thing is more important than the second and you show this in your behaviour.
president of the board of trade — a title held by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, and Skills
purification of the virgin mary — the presentation of Jesus in the Temple after the completion of Mary's purification (Luke 2:22)
put someone in his or her place — to humble someone who is arrogant, conceited, forward, etc
scalable processor architecture — (computer) (SPARC) An instruction set architecture designed by Sun Microsystems for their own use in 1985. Sun was a maker of 680x0-based Unix workstations. Research versions of RISC processors had promised a major step forward in speed but existing manufacturers were slow to introduce a RISC type processor, so Sun went ahead and developed its own, based on the University of California at Berkley's RISC I and RISC II 1980-2. In keeping with their open philosophy, they licenced it to other companies, rather than manufacture it themselves. The evolution and standardisation of SPARC is now directed by the non-profit consortium SPARC International, Inc. SPARC was not the first RISC processor. The AMD 29000 came before it, as did the MIPS R2000 (based on Stanford's design) and Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture CPU, among others. The SPARC design was radical at the time, even omitting multiple cycle multiply and divide instructions (like a few others), while most RISC CPUs are more conventional. SPARC implementations usually contain 128 or 144 registers, (CISC designs typically had 16 or less). At each time 32 registers are available - 8 are global, the rest are allocated in a "window" from a stack of registers. The window is moved 16 registers down the stack during a function call, so that the upper and lower 8 registers are shared between functions, to pass and return values, and 8 are local. The window is moved up on return, so registers are loaded or saved only at the top or bottom of the register stack. This allows functions to be called in as little as 1 cycle. Like some other RISC processors, reading global register zero always returns zero and writing it has no effect. SPARC is pipelined for performance, and like previous processors, a dedicated condition code register holds comparison results. SPARC is "scalable" mainly because the register stack can be expanded (up to 512, or 32 windows), to reduce loads and saves between functions, or scaled down to reduce interrupt or context switch time, when the entire register set has to be saved. Function calls are usually much more frequent, so the large register set is usually a plus. SPARC is not a chip, but a specification, and so there are various implementations of it. It has undergone revisions, and now has multiply and divide instructions. Most versions are 32 bits, but there are designs for 64-bit and superscalar versions. SPARC was submitted to the IEEE society to be considered for the P1754 microprocessor standard. SPARC(R) is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
secondary sexual characteristic — any of various features distinguishing individuals of different sex but not directly concerned in reproduction. Examples are the antlers of a stag and the beard of a man
see the handwriting on the wall — to foresee impending disaster or misfortune: Dan. 5:5-28
sir gawain and the green knight — an English alliterative poem of unknown authorship, dating from the 14th century.
snow white and the seven dwarfs — a fairy tale in which a young princess runs away from her murderous stepmother and is sheltered by seven dwarfs
software publishing certificate — (security) (SPC) A public key certification standard (PKCS) #7 signed data object containing X.509 certificates. SPCs are used for digital signatures as applicable to computer software.
software publishing corporation — (company) (SPC) The company that produces Harvard Graphics.
states' rights democratic party — a political party formed by dissident southern Democrats who opposed the candidacy of Harry Truman in 1948 and campaigned on a platform of states' rights.
supplementary ideographic plane — (text, standard) (SIP) The third plane (plane 2) defined in Unicode/ISO 10646, designed to hold all the ideographs descended from Chinese writing (mainly found in Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Chinese) that aren't found in the Basic Multilingual Plane. The BMP was supposed to hold all ideographs in modern use; unfortunately, many Chinese dialects (like Cantonese and Hong Kong Chinese) were overlooked; to write these, characters from the SIP are necessary. This is one reason even non-academic software must support characters outside the BMP.
taxation without representation — a phrase, generally attributed to James Otis about 1761, that reflected the resentment of American colonists at being taxed by a British Parliament to which they elected no representatives and became an anti-British slogan before the American Revolution; in full, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”.
telocator alphanumeric protocol — (communications, protocol) (TAP, or "IXO", "PET") A protocol for submitting requests to a pager service. IXO/TAP is an ASCII-based, half-duplex protocol that allows the submission of a numeric or alphanumeric message. See also RFC 1568.
the (four) corners of the earth — the farthest parts of the earth
the charge of the light brigade — a poem (1854) by Tennyson, celebrating the British cavalry attack on the Russian position at Balaklava during the Crimean War.
the courage of your convictions — If you have the courage of your convictions, you have the confidence to do what you believe is right, even though other people may not agree or approve.
the early bird catches the worm — If you say that the early bird catches the worm, you mean that the person who arrives first in a place is most likely to get what they want.
the economic and monetary union — a union of nations within the European Union sharing a single market and a single currency (the Euro)
the internal security committee — a committee of the US House of Representatives that was abolished in 1975. Prior to its renaming in 1969, it was known as the House Un-American Activities Committee, and was notorious for its anti-Communist investigations in the late 1940s and 1950s
the national assembly for wales — the elected assembly for Wales, based in Cardiff, that has certain powers devolved from the UK government
the rime of the ancient mariner — a long poem of the supernatural (1798) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in which a sailor brings down a curse on himself and his shipmates by wantonly killing an albatross
to be barking up the wrong tree — If you say that someone is barking up the wrong tree, you mean that they are following the wrong course of action because their beliefs or ideas about something are incorrect.
to be thrown in at the deep end — to be put into a situation without preparation or introduction
to burn the candle at both ends — If you burn the candle at both ends, you try to do too many things in too short a period of time so that you have to stay up very late at night and get up very early in the morning to get them done.
to give something a body swerve — to avoid something
to hang on someone's every word — If you hang on someone's every word, you listen very carefully to what they are saying, because you admire or respect them.
to have a soft spot for someone — If you have a soft spot for someone or something, you feel a great deal of affection for them or like them a lot.
to pour cold water on something — If you pour cold water on an idea or suggestion, you show that you have a low opinion of it.
to sign one's own death warrant — If you say that someone is signing their own death warrant, you mean that they are behaving in a way which will cause their ruin or death.
to stop someone in their tracks — If someone or something stops you in your tracks, or if you stop dead in your tracks, you suddenly stop moving because you are very surprised, impressed, or frightened.
to take your hat off to someone — If you say that you take your hat off to someone, you mean that you admire them for something that they have done.
to throw a spanner in the works — If someone throws a spanner in the works, they prevent something happening smoothly in the way that it was planned, by causing a problem or difficulty.
to wash your hands of something — If you wash your hands of someone or something, you refuse to be involved with them any more or to take responsibility for them.
voters telecommunications watch — (body) (VTW) A non-profit organisation based in New York, founded by Shabbir J. Safdar to protect the rights of Internet users. The VTW has actively opposed regulation of encryption and restrictions on Internet free speech. VTW created the animated "Free Speech" fireworks icon that has been displayed on many web pages since June 12, 1996, the day that a three-judge panel in Philadelphia ruled the CDA unconstitutional.
you've got another think coming — you are mistaken and will soon have to alter your opinion
zenithal equidistant projection — azimuthal equidistant projection.

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